Consumers did not have more disposable income during the pandemic, therefore less people would have bought the game if it had been released during that time. As I mentioned, there was a hike in prices of resources and services that required international trade which affected the consumers, not a large company such as Bethesda. Stimulus checks (or Universal Credit here in the UK) where meant to cover the costs of things whilst people were forced out of work, things such as bills and mortgages/rent, it wasn’t free expendable money to throw away, and with the financial uncertainty at that time most people were unwilling to throw money away on non necessities. Bethesda has a set schedule when developing a game, if they decided to release it a year or two earlier then they would have rushed their schedule and therefore rushed the game. They would not have been able to all be in the studio working on the game with an influx of new employees to bang the game out quickly during the pandemic.