Elder Scrolls lead dev explains why he left Bethesda in 2023

Former Bethesda developer Kurt Kuhlmann has revealed the circumstances that led to his departure from the studio in 2023, pointing to communication breakdowns during Starfield’s development and a broken promise.

Kuhlmann, who spent more than two decades at Bethesda Game Studios and was best known as the longtime loremaster behind The Elder Scrolls, discussed his exit in an interview with PC Gamer.

Kuhlmann said his final years at Bethesda were largely spent on Starfield, a period he described as frequently frustrating due to communication breakdowns that made it difficult for him to contribute meaningfully.

Breakdown during Starfield development

He explained that during the development of Starfield, decisions were often made without clear alignment between teams working on the same project remotely, and that his own changing role made ground-level game development difficult.

“There would be people talking to the leads in one studio and getting an answer, and people talking to the leads in the other studio and getting maybe a different answer,” Kuhlmann told the site.

Unlike his involvement in early Elder Scrolls games like Daggerfall, which was made with a small team of developers all working under one roof, expansion often led to miscommunication.

“When you get to that size, you can’t have people just popping into Todd Howard’s office to chat about a design point. He’s not having lunch with everybody… It’s very different when it’s 400 people, four studios, big business, and Microsoft is now involved,” he said.

That frustration was compounded by expectations around his future role. Kuhlmann said he had been given a verbal assurance by Todd Howard that he would have a lead design role on The Elder Scrolls 6. When that role failed to materialise, it became a turning point.

“Todd said, ‘Well, we want you to have an important role in the project.’ But what I wanted and what he wanted were different at that point.”

Kuhlmann ultimately chose to leave the studio in 2023.