For me it was Kai Leng in Mass Effect 3. In the intro cinematic he looked like a cool assassin that was sent after Shepard, but when you meet him he’s just a loser dweeb with insane plot armor and the power of anime on his side.
Another character for me is Alduin in Skyrim. The entire storyline hyped him up as The World Eater, that he will bring the apocalypse, but the when you do finally face him… I stg I’ve fought Draugr more fearsome.
It used to be world design, atmosphere and crucially discovery.
Until the early 2010s, Bethesda titles had that quality where you could start walking in any direction and find something interesting that wasn’t marked on your minimap.
The actual moment-to-moment gameplay was and always has been mid. No element of gameplay (traversal, combat, crafting, looting) would be able to stand on its own as the core gameplay loop of another game.
It makes up for its lacklustre quality with quantity, acting as connecting tissue between exploration that gives a lot of options to keep things fresh with variety.
This novelty has worn down over the years. In particular, I argue that titles like Witcher 3 and Elden Ring broke the expectations for open-world titles.
They had the same quality of “wander in a direction and find something interesting” while significantly levelling up production value on elements which Bethesda games lacked (like character animation, character acting, combat).
With these new levels of expectations, Bethesda’s over-reliance on their traditional formula becomes strained as it loses novelty.
This is not helped by their big, hyped up new IP critically failing at the exploration angle.