The Mandalorian Season 3 Is Already Structured Like A Bethesda Video Game, For Better Or Worse

Fetch quests. This phrase might either fill you with unimaginable rage or a resigned sense of amusement, depending on the kind of person you are while playing popular Bethesda video games. For instance, in "Skyrim: The Elder Scrolls V" after you encounter the Thieves' Guild in Riften, you'll embark on a rather long and cumbersome questline that involves information retrieval, a good amount of sneaking around, and making some low-stakes choices for some underwhelming rewards. 

To think that Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal), our favorite bounty hunter in "The Mandalorian," would be subject to a similar fate of embarking on an elaborate fetch quest is hilarious, and the show's season premiere seems to be setting up this telltale narrative structure that most Bethesda games function on. What starts as a quest for redemption soon becomes a chore-like journey where objective A requires objects B and C to be achieved, which further requires objects D and E, and so on.

Mapping such a path for a Mandalorian out to atone for his sins can be potentially frustrating, especially when his fate is tied to Grogu, who needs to unravel his past to chart the course of his future. However, the potential for such a video-game protagonist-like journey is amusing, given how Din pays a visit to Bo-Katan (Katee Sackhoff) like she is the Jarl of Whiterun to declare his intentions and garner key information for his visit to Mandalore. Capturing the essence of quest-based information, Bo-Katan promptly brings Din up to speed and sends him on his way with the requisite information. As Din has already found himself ambushed by annoying NPCs in this episode (the pirates who harass him in space), it is likely that a bunch of Bethesda tropes await him on his path to salvation, for better or worse. 

After saving his fellow Mandalorians from a reptilian monster, Din triggers his key quest storyline by showing the mine shard with the Mandalorian inscription to the Armorer (Emily Swallow). After learning that the waters of these mines are rumored to have the mystical power to wash away sins, Din visits Nevarro to seek out the remains of IG-11, who is the equivalent of someone you shadow during key "Elder Scrolls" quests. Although Greef Karga (Carl Weathers) is the point of contact who will make this happen, this encounter unlocks a rather pesky side quest: Din has now been marked as an enemy by a group of pesky pirates. But that's unimportant for now, as Din reverts his attention back to IG-11.

This is where Din charts into annoying fetch quest territory, and hopefully, Din's adventures will not be as tedious and neverending as Rose's quests in "Fallout 76." The IG-11 comeback plan fails, as he requires a specific part for the mangled droid to function properly. This knowledge is received after a trip to an Anzellan workshop, which triggers yet another fetch quest of retrieving this rather rare part from some corner of the galaxy. Quests of this nature are a-plenty in the "Fallout" universe — the "Giddyup 'n Go" side-quest in "Fallout 4" is a good example, where the objective is to simply retrieve some mechanical components and return to the original location. Din will undoubtedly run into some trouble while searching for this mechanical part, which basically mimics the "kill, loot, return" structure that most quest-driven open-world games follow to generate a connected storyline.

The reward here? IG-11, who will make for an endearing duo alongside Grogu, and might potentially protect Din and the baby from danger in the future.

The premise of "infinite questlines" is a double-edged sword. On one hand, if executed well, they can help create a compelling, interconnected open world that personalizes the player's journey as per the choices they make, while still maintaining compelling choice-defined storyline branching (which Projekt CD Red's "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt" excels at). Although some Bethesda properties such as "Skyrim: Oblivion" pushed the envelope of meaningful open worlds, the hackneyed, formulaic fetch quest approach can quickly sour player experience, especially if the rewards are hard-earned yet underwhelming in the end. The tongue-in-cheek tone of "Fallout" helps remedy this issue to an extent, but even then, the will to grind for questlines that do not pay off can erode over time.

Video game fetch quest structures can suck within its medium (depending on how the whole narrative structure holds up, along with nuances of quality player experience). However, this does not have to be the case for a live-action space western where a bounty-hunter-turned-father-figure embarks on a misguided attempt to atone for something that is not a transgression in the first place. Moreover, it will be fun to see Din running around the galaxy (that's a huge map to trot around) for things A, B, and C to complete his impossible quest, where he is bound to get side-tracked by parallel storylines, NPCs, and key quest info-dumps. If the show really follows Bethesda's footsteps, there is bound to be at least one character who will withhold key information from Din in exchange for a favor involving considerable danger, alien beasts, and a retrievable object.

While Din already has a legendary weapon in his inventory (read: the Darksaber), here's hoping that he does not have to join any guilds or lockpick chests in the mines of Mandalore.