Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Bethesda’s Policy on DLC

What do you do when you have new ideas for a game with nine months until it ships?  For many developers that is up for debate, but according to Bethesda, they’re putting all they can into The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim before it launches this fall.  Pete Hines of Bethesda recently sat down for an interview where he talked about the DLC policy for the upcoming RPG, as well as other Bethesda game previously released.

The philosophy on providing extra content to player resonates with what gamers hate most about DLC, which Hines elaborates on in the interview.  He said, “There’s no point in planning the content that comes after because what if this content makes the base game better?  We want the base game to be the best thing possible.  We don’t believe in carving out a little part to sell as DLC later.”

Hines said that their studio prefers not to make concrete plans for DLC because of the rigidity that it causes in the development process.  Hines tells MCV:  ‘ If we went out from the start and said: We’re doing five pieces of DLC, here are these five, then we wouldn’t be able to be as reactive or responsive to what fans wanted’ he said when talking about Fallout 3.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is set for a November 11th, 2011 Release on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.