Morrowind helped Bethesda to "stay in business" but Skyrim was the "holy sh*t" moment, says former boss

When you think about Bethesda games, Skyrim is probably one of the first that comes to mind. Perhaps you've been playing the new Starfield update, or fondly recall your childhood favorite, but Skyrim was something else. The sprawling open-world game defined the genre for a decade after release, and probably spawned more mods than any other game. But, according to Bethesda's former head of publishing, Pete Hines, it was the developer's first "holy shit" moment, and allowed it complete freedom going forward.

Hines was speaking to Fireside Chat newsletter about his experiences with Bethesda. He joined the company in a marketing position, but helped out with packaging the CDs for games, writing the manuals, and everything else. "In the early days, Bethesda was the most mom-and-pop operation around," he says. That all changed with Skyrim. Bethesda had success with Morrowind and Oblivion, but Hines says Todd Howard saw an opportunity to create a once-in-a-generation game and grabbed it by the horns.

"The holy shit moment was actually Skyrim," Hines says in the interview. "Morrowind allowed us to stay in business, like it was a really big hit, but it was a really big hit at a moment that, truth be told, we were in some trouble. We really needed a hit.

"You can ship all the drag racing and bowling games you want, but that just wasn't going to keep the lights on forever. And so Morrowind bought us a grace period. Then Oblivion [did the same]. Credit to Todd Howard, who said, 'I am not just going to turn around and spit out another one of these in two years and put it out on the same console.' He saw an opportunity that the next thing was going to go really big, and he really wanted to embrace that. We could be a poster child for what next gen graphics look like."

The rest, as they say, is history. "Everybody played Skyrim - that was the thing that made us feel like we've arrived, we are legit," he continues. "You have to be concerned about us if you think you're going to win Game of the Year. You have to take us seriously now. We have broken out role-playing games into a whole huge group of people who have never played an RPG before, but played Skyrim because it just looked like fun."

After Skyrim, Bethesda felt it had enough kudos to move from an E3 booth to an entire showcase. The game grabbed millions of players' attention in ways that games hadn't before. It was a playground for side quests and the inspirator for countless creative add-ons. The game that launched a thousand mods.

In many ways, it's one of the precursors to live-service games, as studios tried to replicate its longevity. But Skyrim thrived on the simplicity. It wasn't trying to sell season passes, and only offered a handful of DLC. It was just fun, and offered players one of the greatest sandboxes we've ever explored. The modders took it from there.

Bethesda hasn't really captured that magic since. Starfield was disappointing, The Elder Scrolls 6 is still years away, and Fallout 5 further still. Skyrim may have earned the studio the right to stand among the big players in the industry, but right now, Bethesda needs to secure its place or risk falling behind the competition.