Fallout 76 Development Issues Detailed

When it originally launched, Bethesda’s multiplayer survival RPG Fallout 76 wasn’t that well-received. It lacked features and suffered from an abundance of bugs. And if you wouldn’t mind knowing more about the game’s turbulent road to release, you might want to read this massive Kotaku article that presents QA testers as just about the most important part of a development team, and them working too hard as the reason for most of the game’s failings.

Here’s a couple of sample paragraphs to give you an idea of what to expect:

Kotaku spoke to 10 former employees of Bethesda and its parent company ZeniMax Media who were familiar with Fallout 76’s development, all of whom shared their accounts only under the condition of anonymity. Some sources said that they signed non-disparagement agreements upon leaving the company, and feared that ZeniMax’s influence in the industry would prevent them from being hired elsewhere.

Testers who worked during the months leading up to the original launch said that they crunched 10-hour days for six days a week as the game trudged toward the beta’s optimistic launch date of November 14, 2018.

Some testers would only find reprieve when they finally left the Fallout 76 team. Two former testers recounted that one of their colleagues said in a QA group chat after leaving the project: “I didn’t cry last night when I was taking a shower.” Another said in the same chat: “I pulled into work today, and I sat in my car for a second, and my chest didn’t feel heavy like it normally does.”