It’s a tale as old as time itself- a new Bethesda game is revealed, and is generally awesome and widely acclaimed, except for the part where it’s full of bugs and glitches that it launches with, and which actively impede gameplay and enjoyment a lot of times. Since time immemorial, it’s been like this- Daggerfall was a mess, Morrowind was glitchy as hell, Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Skyrim all launched with a whole lot of problems (especially on PS3)… it’s just a thing that happens with Bethesda games.
Given how ambitious they usually are, that bit makes sense- in fact, we’ve seen other series and games imbibe a whole lot of bugs in the last few years, too, as open world fever seems to have gripped the entire industry. Games are only getting more complex and more ambitious with each passing year, and it seems evident that The Elder Scrolls 6 will be far more complex than Skyrim or Fallout 4. So of course, players should expect it to launch with a whole lot of bugs and glitches.
Then, too, there is Bethesda’s own behavior- I usually cut the company a lot of slack, but launching the Skyrim remaster with all the unresolved bugs in the original game intact as is strikes me as a bit lazy. It almost seems as if Bethesda themselves consider the bugs part and parcel of the ‘Bethesda experience’ at this point, and they have no interest in changing that.
So yes, The Elder Scrolls 6 will probably be a buggy game. And I don’t think that’s acceptable- bugs and glitches are, of course, a given, since these games are so complex and ambitious. But this cavalier attitude that Bethesda seemingly has towards the state that its titles launch in strikes me as a bit sad, and almost cynical. Hopefully they treat the next major Elder Scrolls game better than they did the Skyrim remaster.
