I'm on this level with Bethesda games too. Who else is out here trying to make a game where every single broom is interactable? There's a magic to that kind of simulationist game design which is the reason why people still mod and play the crap out of Skyrim and FO4, even though I also agree that Bethesda have gotten worse at doing it every single time.

The alternatives, games like The Outer Worlds and Avowed, flop for me because instead of leaning into what's unique about the game style they spend all of their effort trying to fix the things that are "broken" with it, which just results in a kind of mid open world experience.

He did say Skyrim's story was "mediocre," and honestly I think that's being generous as far as the main quest goes.

It kind of sucks for Skyrim because the story is also extremely setpiece oriented, but setpieces need to either be very mechanically good (so nearly none in Skyrim) or tie into something that makes them feel good (so nearly none in Skyrim) and otherwise it feels like being locked into an amusement park ride.