Bethesda veteran Kurt Kuhlmann says studio growth and bureaucracy drove his exit

Kotaku reports that veteran designer Kurt Kuhlmann said he left Bethesda Game Studios in 2023 after more than 20 years, telling PC Gamer that changes to the studio's development process were the driving reason for his departure. Kuhlmann, who worked as a junior designer in the late 1990s before rejoining as a senior designer in 2003 and who worked on every major Elder Scrolls game except Arena, said Bethesda’s growth from a handful of developers to hundreds across four studios managed by Microsoft altered how decisions were made.

He attributed some recent development struggles to a bloated, hands-off structure prone to "communication breakdowns," saying senior roles had become more managerial and that "The expectation was your job can’t be also making content if you’re actually managing that scope of the project." "I didn’t want to work that way, because I like making games and being hands-on.

It had gotten to a scale beyond where I was really enjoying working in that environment," he told PC Gamer. Kuhlmann said the shift in priorities, and executive producer Todd Howard retracting a prior promise to make him lead designer on the still unreleased The Elder Scrolls 6, signaled it was time to leave.

Key Topics

Culture, Kurt Kuhlmann, Bethesda Game Studios, Todd Howard, Starfield, Microsoft