What? bethesda games have shitty exploration...
...You're conflating exploration with open world design which is not the same thing, any explorafag worth his salt wouldn't be a bethestard, at least not for new Bethesda anyways.
Not a single true
explorefag educated exploration-oriented gentleman here is a "Bethestard".
Pre-Bethesda Bethesda, before CEOs backstabbing, Zenimax and Todd-Pete in charge Era, included some very good contexts for exploration in Daggerfall and the most complete exploration-specific systems and design in video games history with Morrowind. Later Bethesda games have mostly shitty exploration, despite they still include some exploration-favouring design, because all it's destroyed by their anti-exploration mechanics, as 99% of modern rail-roaded so called
open worlds. People
really interested in exploration tend to like some Golden Era blobbers and SP dungeon crawlers over Renaissance examples (with Morrowind and few other exceptions) mainly because they add much more exploration-specific design: Dungeon intelligent and challenging layouts, traps or secrets, interesting loot and enemy placement, unpredictability, etc. Dungeon Master, Ultima Underworld, Wizardry or Might & Magic games provide much more exploration-specific enjoyment that Baldur's Gates, Icewind Dales, Jagged Aliance 2 or Kotors.
Open world is not a requirement, but in non-dungeon/interior based worlds it can favour exploration. First person is the best perspective, by far, in regard exploration, but thanks to world design, level of detail, survival mechanics or unpredictability some third person, isometric or rogue-likes examples are very good in regard exploration as Unreal World, Kenshi, Neo-Scavenger, Darklands or even Dark Souls (besides its
genre), while others not including as much exploration focus as the aforementioned are still decent thanks primarily to reactivity as Arcanum and first Fallouts.
It's sad if that's what people consider good exploration........
Storyfags, butthurt gothic fangirls, some small subset of combatfags and a lot of neo-gamerz inbued with decadent rail-roaded modern gaming NU-exploration,
all them not really interested in exploration, fail to understand how ask and follow some directions, figuring out what path to choose linking landscape elements with directions and have a good amount of game content hidden by landscape design, loot, enemies or entire locations placed underwater or on heights, improve exploration immensely, but they really do. Directions system + World design in Morrowind is one of the most challenging and richest exploration specific content ever included in any video game. However its interior design or wilderness encounters (or combat challenge, traps or puzzles, reactivity, etc) are far from the best examples, mostly mediocre to bad, so it's far from a perfect exploration experience. However, to me still the richest until now.
I understand how some players could prefer Dungeon Master, Kenshi or Might & Magic explorations, over Morrowind, all them have some different perspectives enhancing exploration that Morrowind lack, but obviously most isometric-third person renaissance era games aren't exploration-heavy and Morrowind is better than all them in regard that context. Don't take troll baits as serious statements.
