Fallout 76 Players Should Expect “Spectacular” Bugs, Says Bethesda
The Fallout 76 Beta will launch tomorrow on Xbox One for players who have pre-ordered the game. Ahead of the Beta launch, Bethesda has published a letter to fans forewarning them about the likelihood of encountering bugs in the game. Specifically, the letter mentions, “unforeseen bugs,” and “spectacular issues.”
A Note to Our Fans https://t.co/STRzjzv7gt pic.twitter.com/3wlGpnLKKp
— Bethesda Game Studios (@BethesdaStudios) October 22, 2018
Bethesda Forewarns Fallout 76 Players About “Spectacular” Bugs
The letter makes a key point about Fallout 76 which many fans may not be thinking about. Bethesda states that Fallout 76 won’t be a complete or finished game when it launches in November. Rather, Bethesda sees that point as a “starting line” for big-fixing and future content updates. The bugs are the more immediate part of this, especially in the Beta; “Some we’re aware of,” says Bethesda; “such as areas where performance needs to improve with lots of players. Others, we surely don’t. We need your help finding them, and advice on what’s important to fix. We’ll address all of it, now and after launch.”
Of course, this being a Beta, it would be unrealistic to expect Fallout 76 to be perfect. In fact, players should expect bugs after launch as well, especially when it comes to server issues. It’s almost unheard of for a major multiplayer title not to experience server issues immediately after launch, after all. One interesting statement made by Bethesda is their answer to the question, “What, exactly, is this? [Fallout 76]”; the studio states that the answer is; “That’s up to you.”
The answer seems to suggest that Bethesda will be very open to player feedback once Fallout 76 becomes available. Not only would that cover bugs and tweaking, but would presumably also cover post-launch content. Looking back at Fallout 4, the building mechanics were added late in development and were almost cut; hence why they are barely tied to any of the game’s quests. However, the mechanic proved to be so popular that Bethesda released several different DLC packs specifically to add more building content. Fans should probably expect a similar approach here.