Skyrim modder and Fallout Quest modder Bruce Nesmith has mentioned the bug issue in Bethesda video games, admitting that the writer “could use a higher degree of polish.”
Bethesda games are known for having enough bugs, some fun, some groundbreaking, but in an interview with VideoGamer, Nesmith said the company can reasonably escape them thanks to its games’ complex systems.
“I’ll be the first person to say that Bethesda Games could use a higher degree of polish,” he mentioned. “They have benefited, and when I was there, I benefited, from offering such a wide and broad range of gameplay that a certain lack of polish could be forgiven. Having an NPC running in front of a wall for a while became acceptable due to the 17 things you could do with that NPC, whereas in most games you could do two.”
However, Nesmith mentioned that it might be “impossible” to let a duel go by without bugs since video games today are so complicated and have “so many working elements that try to interact with each other.”
“There is no game on the market that is bug-free,” he surmised.
Nesmith also mentioned the possibility of greater transparency with players to reveal a list of identified insects before a duel begins.
“It’s an interesting problem, because when you’re in marketing, what you’re looking for is managing expectations,” he mentioned. “Players’ expectations are that the game is flawless, that it has no bugs. That’s their expectation. You don’t have to like it, but it’s there. And you’re not going to achieve it. So what is it about marketing? What What we should do is say: how can we get as close as possible to that expectation? How can we get these guys to not hate us for what is wrong and love us for what is right?
Skyrim was famous for its many bugs, although recently Bethesda has made an effort to give more positive reviews. Starfield, for example, had “the fewest bugs of any Bethesda game ever,” according to Microsoft’s Matt Booty before the game’s launch.
Nesmith left Bethesda in 2021 and, at the end of the generation, announced that he is part of the intact independent developer NEARstudios that is making a duel simulation called Hawthorn that is Skyrim meets Stardew Valley (see trailer above).
Do you think Bethesda games will have to be cleaner? Or would you like to have to look at the Trojan lists before the start of a duel?
