So their end goal is to do what they set out with Demons Souls to do and make a Skyrim game but they iterate on the combat first and then add in the rest. When you put it that way, that's actually a fantastic idea. Hopefully they take questing inspiration from CDPR and do what Larian does with characters when they get to that point. 

I think of this in terms of Bethesda, they were Kings of their game and then they failed to evolve or even polish their games and they have failed miserably. Shells of their former self. 

That said, someone posted FromSoft philosophy moving forward, I feel a bit better about what they are going for now that I know it. Eventually making a proper RPG but with Souls combat sounds awesome. 

Perhaps this could give some direction to the franchise?

https://youtu.be/Np5PdpsfINA?si=57L3KtMgZOAgkZP7

I’m admittedly a bit uninformed…but wasn’t Bethesda viewed as a golden standard in open-world gaming for a period? Great studio which failed to evolve leading to less-than-stellar long-term results…imo just as long as FromSoft continues what they’re currently doing, I see no reason for them to fail. The industry is becoming more competitive, sure, but this is FromSoft we’re talking about. It’s like worrying if Nintendo will ever stop being good at making platformers.

Is Bethesda's issue they didn't evolve?

A big issue is you can frame these things different ways (they evolved because they're trying these different things, they didn't evolve because they're still struggling with a lot of the same issues.) 

I feel like I would argue Bethesda had more issue with where they tried evolving. For example, they tried making their first multiplayer game - Fallout 76. I think if they stuck to a more standard Fallout 5 game, it would have started off to much better reception.  

I haven't played Starfield, but I feel like even from what I've seen, it feels like they tried to push too much. Maybe it was too big of a game, and stuff came undercooked. 

Meanwhile, people still talk about Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim in much higher terms. 

You pretty much nailed it on the head. Bethesda tried to do too much that they didn't have much experience in but are so used to the ways of making games that they've done for decades now that it actually became a hindrance on Starfield. Making the game feel like a combination of both undercooked and just too much at the same time. Todd Howard said their games are irresponsibly large and they leave little to nothing on the cutting room floor. Which to me, is a huge mistake. 

I understand why they did it. You're travelling through the entirety of space after all. But one of the biggest selling points in all of Bethesda's games, and always has been, is meaningful exploration. People will spend hundreds of hours in their games yet never even finish the main story lol. In Starfield, Bethesda spent so much time on other things such as procedural generation, outposts, space flight, ship customization, combat, story, which is honestly really good and, in some aspects, the best that Bethesda has ever made, BUT, because of all this extra focus on so many other things, they forgot about the most important aspect, exploration.

Starfield absolutely had its moments where I found myself going "okay, THIS is the Bethesda I know and love" while exploring, but it was so few and far between where I found a meaningful side quest, interesting dungeon to explore, or epic loot to find. It was all there, but you really had to go through a lot of nothing to finally find it. Whereas in games like Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim, you EASILY could find something very interesting to explore and be greatly rewarded for your time and exploration.

It's almost as if Bethesda thinks that people primarily like their games just because they're big. Which is partly true but is only a small reason as to why. So Bethesda tried to evolve, but in the process, forgot what made their games great to begin with. Hell, recently Todd Howard was interviewed about the criticisms of Shattered Space (which because of it taking place on a single location, the biggest issues with Starfield were exacerbated in the expansion) and rather than taking player feedback to heart, Howard thought they should have waited to include the dune buggy in the expansion.......I'm like, THAT was your big takeaway from the criticisms?! 

Compare that to how FromSoft has evolved with their Souls games. Slower but tight and focused combat and legendary loot to build your character up and customize with epic bosses. Massive pillars of their games. FromSoft took that core formula and went into something like Elden Ring, adding it into an open world and adding on from there that turned out to be exactly what players want. But the biggest thing is that FromSoft never forgets what makes their games enduring for so many players. Evolving without straying from their strengths.

They didn't even animate characters in Starfeild, something Horizon, The Witcher and especially Cybperpunk which Starfeild should be most compared to has evolved. They still stick to the same gun play for example. Same disjointed world although now it's not buildings that have loading screens but your space ship and planets. CDPR went out of their way to evolve this aspect with TW3 and make nearly all buildings open with no loading. They fell behind on the most basic of basic things while the competition outpaced them and that's why I feel FromSoft might get left behind on animations and just basic stuff. I don't mean evolving as trying something new but... ah, I can't explain, my words are failing me. 

In Bethesdas case they downgraded a lot over the years to make things more accessible too, so I guess it's not a great comparison.

Bethesda's combat and presentation seem stuck in 1996. I can't take a game seriously in 2024 and beyond when every NPC eposition dialogue is framed like a 1970s Hanna Barbara Cartoon where they talk. Don't animate and frame like this.

I know the games are not directly comparable overall, so don't take it as that. This isn't high praise for CP2077 either, but it's just doing what it should: modern presentation. I don't know if one is the main story or a side story, as it doesn't matter. Even CP2077 side stories are presented just as important as the main ones.

I'm not sure what Miyazaki's end game exactly is - he has one, he talked about his "ideal fantasy RPG" on many occasions, but only he knows what's in his head.

He also said that Elden Ring is "not quite it, it's pretty close. It's getting close".

He was raised on RuneQuest and D&D, so he is well versed with TTRPGs and said himself his design is influenced by the excitement of exploration and immersion of old TTRPGs. So he is really that guy - medieval fantasy, dungeon delving, monster killing - said so himself, so he makes such games. But he also grew up reading LotR, and Moorcock's "The Eternal Champion" novels, with Elric of Melniboné being most famous character from that universe (and, arguably, what Targaryens and Valyria are modeled after, and even Geralt to some extent) and that influenced his work quite a bit. And there's lot more than fighting in those novels.

So with that in mind I'm not sure they will ever go as far as narrative heavy RPG with chatty NPCs and non-combat solutions to problems. Though I do hope to see some type of evolution toward faction based open ended world in which you choose your sides, while retaining core Souls experience of exploration in deadly worlds.

Then again, he said he wants to make classic JRPG at some point, so who knows. So maybe not him personally, but some of younger developers in FromSoftware.

They need to keep evolving. But this is what they have been doing. Granted, Demons Souls and the 3 Dark Souls were rather similar. But even within those 4 there is more variety than within many other series.
But than you also have Bloodborne, Sekiro, Armored Core Fires of Rubicon, Elden Ring (which has an open World quite unlike anything we have ever seen), even Deraciné. When they stay as innovative as they have been for the last 15 years, they are better innovators than most game devs. And they don't just make new stuff. They are also trend setters. And standard setters.

(Even though I don't like Souls games too much and only ever finished Sekiro and tried Bloodborne. Those two I really appreciated though.)