'We Convinced Ourselves Infallible;' Ex-Bethesda Designer Reveals Reasons for Fallout 76 Condition
Former Bethesda employee Bruce Nesmith claims that the developers' hubris was the cause of Fallout 76's abysmal quality at launch.
Anyone who remembers the release of Fallout 76, knows that it was far from perfect. The online installment of the iconic series was released with a ton of imperfections and bugs, which resulted in harsh reviews both from reviewers and players.
Former Bethesda designer Bruce Nesmith (who worked at the company until 2021) recently addressed the disastrous debut of the game, stating that the main reason for this was the hubris of the team. According to the developer, who was involved in the work on such games as The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Fallout 3 i Fallout 4, The egos of the developers after previous successes had grown to the point where they felt almost infallible.
"Fallout 76 was one that I definitely struggled [to warm up to - ed. note]. I think the company's aim was not as focused as it probably should've been and you can see the results of that in the way it entered into the marketplace.
To a certain extent our own hubris caught up with us. We had had so many, not just successes but literal game of the years, industry wide accepted game of the years; not just in our own heads or in these two little magazines over there, but everybody is saying this is the game of the year. We started to talk ourselves into the fact of we were infallible. There was nothing we couldn't do. And clearly that's wrong," explained Nesmith in an interview with the MinnMax channel (via IGN).
Interestingly, Bethesda director Todd Howard initially had no plans to create a multiplayer game at all. However, fan requests convinced the developers to start work on the project, which we know today as Fallout 76.
"In fact, the problem was not management pressure. They tried for a very long time to push through the creation of a multiplayer game, but Todd told them every time: 'Tthis is a bad idea,' to which the board backed off, saying: 'Well, we trust your opinion'. [...] But at some point, the pressure from players for a multiplayer game was so great that even Todd himself wanted to create such a title," he added.
Despite an extremely difficult launch, Bethesda managed to improve Fallout 76 to such an extent that the game now has a large following of devoted fans. Although it's been five years since the network RPG's release, the developers continue to expand their game with new content. The next addition that will appear in the game will be Atlantic City. The premiere of the DLC will take place on December 5, this year.
