Financially, I’m not sure if you could say that starfield or fallout 4 was a failure… Look at steamcharts player counts as an indication. All time peak concurrent players:
Skyrim: 90,000
Skyrim SE: 79,000
Fallout 4: 470,000
Fallout 76: 72,000
Starfield: 330,000
Sure skyrim has sold on many platforms and over time likely has sold the best, but you can’t say that starfield and fallout 4 were commercial failures. Starfield being on game pass day 1 means the real concurrent numbers would be enormous.
I’ve not played starfield and agree it looks like shit, but TES VI is likely going to sell gangbusters to mainstream audiences given how much Skyrim broke into the mainstream.
I agree with you that Bethesda isn’t what they used to be with TES Morrowind - Skyrim era and desperately need to get rid of that engine. But for the metric that truly matters, sales, I don’t know what it would take for TES VI to fail.