Speaking to PC Gamer, Kuhlmann stated his departure boils down to two reasons – the first being the off-the-scale amount of bureaucracy that built up at Bethesda over the years.
Having been with the studio for nearly its entire existence and having worked on everything from The Terminator: Skynet and Daggerfall to Starfield, the longtime loremaster watched Bethesda grow from a small group of enthusiasts into a massive corporate machine, even before Microsoft acquired parent company ZeniMax in 2021. That shift naturally brought with it a familiar industry problem – the need for countless approvals, signatures, and JIRA tickets for even the smallest decisions – something that didn’t sit right with Kuhlmann.
As if that wasn’t enough, the ever-increasing bureaucratization also meant that lead developers and designers were increasingly burdened with managerial duties at the expense of creative work. While the former loremaster stressed this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, he mentioned that by the time Starfield entered development, “it had gotten to a scale beyond where I was really enjoying working in that environment.”