Sorry for bumping this old thread but for readers, it’s obviously wrong.
- It took 3 years to develop the game, not for building the world map itself.
- There were 6 level designers (the guys who build the map), not 100
- They worked on the landscapeS AND hundreds of interior cells.
- 9 world artists (the guys who make the assets but you don’t need them if you already have your world assets)
Other people are programmers, animators, writters, etc. Most of the people in the game credits are Bethesda employees not “working on the game” (communication, marketing, office stuff, etc) - Those guys didn’t work 10 hours / day. every day of every week and every week of every year.
- It would be such a nightmare to work with 100 people on the same landscape. It’s a nightmare with 10 level designers/ environement artists, but 100… hell no.
- Many modders have built very, very large (and beautiful) Skyrim landscapes alone or in small teams of 2 or 3 modders, using the assets and landscape tools of the “creation kit”.
It certainly take longer (to build the world landscape, not complete the game developement) alone than with 5 other level designers but not years.