author: Bart Swiatek
Todd Howard: We Knew Fallout 76 Wouldn't get High Scores
Todd Howard from Bethesda Softworks admitted in an interview with IGN that his company expected the release of Fallout 76 to be problematic. The creators expected poor scores and were aware of many of the problems found in the game.
IN A NUTSHELL:
- The devs expected that Fallout 76 would not get the best ratings;
- The were aware also of the imperfection of their title;
- The cause of the problems with the game was supposed to be an attempt to face a genre, which was something new for the studio;
- Bethesda's gonna keep trying new things.
In an interview for IGN, Bethesda Sotworks studio manager Todd Howard admitted that the negative reception of last year's Fallout 76 certainly had an impact on his company's image. What is interesting, however, the developer also noted that... the devs never expected good ratings.
"Even from the beginning (we thought so - editorial note). This is not going to be a high Metacritic game, this is not what it is, given what it is. (...) We were ready for... a lot of those difficulties that ended up on the screen. We knew, hey look, this is not the type of game that people are used to from us and we're going to get some criticism on it. A lot of that is very well-deserved criticism,” we hear in the interview.
Todd Howard's words are still rather cautious and delicate, as the online version of the post-apocalyptic RPG series easily deserves to be called one of the biggest disappointments of last year - its average on Metacritic is now only 49-53%, depending on the platform. The creators made many promises, but the production, which eventually ended up on store shelves, turned out to be unfinished, poorly designed and faced numerous technical problems. According to the developer, the unfortunate state of the game is largely due to the fact that it was something new for the studio.
"We knew we were gonna have a lot of bumps. It's a difficult development; a lot of new systems and things like that. We said, "Hey, we're gonna try this new thing." Every time you're gonna do something new like that, you know you're going to have your bumps; you know that a lot of people might say, "That's not the game we want from you. But we still want to be somebody who tries new things," admits the developer.
Todd Howard admits that if he could go back in time, he wouldn't necessarily make the same decisions - especially on one point.
"If there is one thing I would have done differently, it would be to find a way to let more people play the game 24 hours a day, 7 days a week before you say, you know: "Everybody in. Here we go. Pay us," we hear.
Fallout 76 debuted on November 14, 2018 on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
