The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall nearly destroyed Bethesda: "If you weren't putting in 60 hours minimum, your job was in danger"

gamesradar.com:

The Elder Scrolls 2: Daggerfall, released way back in 1996, was the second installment in what went on to become Bethesda’s beloved, genre-defining RPG series, but it sounds like it was a particularly tricky one to get off the launchpad - and that if it hadn’t come together it could have meant the end of the studio itself.

That’s according to a recent interview with former Bethesda dev Bruce Nesmith (embedded below), whose long career at the studio included roles as lead designer on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and designer on Daggerfall. In response to interviewer Ben Hanson’s question about whether, if the project hadn’t come together, it might have meant the end of The Elder Scrolls, Nesmith claims, “It’s not just the end of Elder Scrolls, it was potentially the end of Bethesda.”

“The company had poured huge amounts of resources into it,” Nesmith goes on to explain. “There were opportunity costs involved because it was a very, very, very small studio, and so the fact that you can’t make another game because this is coming out - that really, really, really, really hurts.” 

Elsewhere in the chat, Nesmith reflects on the launch of The Elder Scrolls 2 as “brutal” and agrees that it was “without any doubt” the toughest of his career. “[There were] close to 18 months’ worth of crunch,” he claims. “I mean, that’s just not sustainable. And then to release a game in the state it was released in? You know, we had admins screaming at us on a daily and weekly basis. If you weren't putting in 60 hours minimum, your job was in danger. It was bad.” He then adds: “It didn't help that we kind of believed in the game but could at the same time see what a mess it was.”

While Daggerfall launched to critical acclaim, it did indeed suffer