So I played Oblivion and Skyrim, (loved both, by the way) Skyrim was awesome and I can't wait for more content to be released, if that's possible.

Anyway, I'm also an avid sci-fi fan and in particular the John Varley series called Titan/Wizard/Demon!

For those of you not familiar with it, it's basically about a group of scientists who get sent to Saturn. When they get there they get abducted by an alien being that is also a giant, moon-sized bio-sphere who calls herself Gaea. She is actually in the shape of a giant wheel and if you were in her you'd be walking on the inner-tube floor held down by her low gravity. A gravity created by her rotation.

It is literally the PERFECT setting for a skyrim/oblivion-esc game! This is such a good idea I can't even began to nerd out about it...

Any other thoughts about it? If you've read the series or not, it'd be cool to toss around some game ideas... maybe get bethesda interested, j/k

There are many genres that would be fantastic for an open world RPG. We used to have constant requests for an Old West game by Bethesda before RDD, and I personally would love to see a science fiction setting. Unless Bethesda is interested in expanding I don't think they're in a position to start a third IP, but hopefully more studios will take note of the genre's success and jump in.

Of course the reason more haven't is the expense of this sort of game. I suspect there are a lot of studios out there that would love to replicate Skyrim's success, but publishers aren't going to back an unproven studio and those with a history of success tend to stick to what they do well. But eventually one of the sandbox successes will try their hand at an RPG, and hopefully it will be a success.

Yeah, I agree. It's defently an intimidating undertaking, and one that could end in disaster for a new company. But future distopia and sci-fi games (e.g. Mass Effect and Fallout) are starting to make the scene. In my opinion it's because they, like call of duty, are close enough to real life to be compelling, but still a detachment to real life to be fun.