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Throughout the years, Starfield developer Bethesda has often been known within the gaming community for creating sprawling and narratively gripping games that, although enjoyable, have frequently been plagued with bugs. The recent launch of the studio’s interplanetary RPG, however, has arguably set a new standard for future entries thanks to its highly polished and near-bug-free release, which is mainly due in part to the learning experience that was Fallout 76’s tragic opening day.
Of course, Bethesda’s critically acclaimed space-faring adventure game is still susceptible to its fair share of issues as evidenced by the Starfield space suit bug, the Starfield XP glitch, and the Starfield money glitch. But these relatively minor problems are dwarfed by the mountain of glaring drawbacks that players were presented with upon the release of Fallout 76, which even prompted one content creator to make a video detailing “the 1001 glitches” within.
Though the community surely won’t be forgetting Fallout 76’s “historically bad launch” any time soon, it may have ended up working out in Bethesda’s favor as it apparently “made the studio’s developers better at judging when a game is ready for release.” In an interview with Esquire, game director Todd Howard added: “Even though we do so much testing, then you put it out, and ten million people play it, they’re obviously going to find a few things you missed.”
Now, the cautionary tale of Fallout 76’s launch is an event that Bethesda won’t be looking to repeat any time soon. But even though the studio’s release of their post-apocalyptic multiplayer game wasn’t ideal, its occurrence was the main catalyst that made Starfield into the critically acclaimed cultural behemoth that it is today and helped push it to new, stratospheric heights.
