So we have all heard it before. A lot of controversy around the game Fallout 76, developed by Bethesda Game Studios. Sad to say but it isn’t surprising now to see fans turning on Bethesda for its poor decisions on this flop of a game. I’d say it roots all from no proper communication with the public, shady business choices, and day one flaws.
We can’t say this is Bethesda’s first time messing up, but this is the hardest fall they’ve taken. To be blunt ever since their first Fallout game it has been built on terrible foundations rooting from their choices of game engines. Fallout 76 and a few other Bethesda series are all built on their Creation Engine. A lot about this engine is a problem for this engine as it is quite easy to use for world building but falls on the NPC capacity and variety. Not to say it is not amazing as it has built games like Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. We believe that Bethesda has just invested too much in this engine that when it comes to its limit, which is Fallout 76, it will fall along with everything before it. This is quite apparent when we got the beta of FO: 76 when everything was utterly breaking in the developer's choices of patches that ended up stabbing them in the back or making the wounds worse. Game bugs like the speed glitch which changed the fps limit in the game which permanently was programmed to link to the player’s speed in the game. This was a problem as when you go from 30fps to 60; you were going twice as fast even online.
If you are a corner store owner when crunchy chips are in demand you want that to be the main stock. However, instead of being rational and using the gained profits to buy more you instead buy rip-offs to cut a little more profit off the top that’s when people will notice your shady business. Easy to say when chips don’t cost any more than $5, but when you do this to a product worth $200, you have more significant repercussions. In Bethesda’s case, this was their choice of advertising for their “Power Armor Edition” of Fallout 76. A simple bundle consisting of the Power Armor Edition of the game, a fancy box, a few figurines, a life-size power armor helmet, and a CANVAS bag. I repeat a CANVAS bag. Not a NYLON bag, CANVAS. Believe me when I tell you they said that it’d be a CANVAS bag as seen in their picture of the full set. Oh man, they messed up as when in it shipped magic happened, and something was wrong??? The material canvas magically became nylon as now all the bags were nylon?!?! RED FLAG! RED FLAG! Not only did they not tell you, but they also claimed there was a budget break when they decided to change the material with no warning. Well, they tried to say that that was the case, but they ended up making it worse when they attempted to re-ship the canvas bag as a replacement. Of course, that's not the end as now all of the support emails don’t even make it to the support team as it appears in subscribed emails to Bethesda games? Confusing as it sounds all of the mix-ups made the emails magically appear in the wrong inboxes which leaked a bunch of people’s bank information and personal info. I take it back, Bethesda isn’t bad as how can wizards be evil?
Bethesda was terrible communication wise. Not letting their consumers know of their business changes is a real game ender. Things like not telling the customers the difference in material used for their $200 bundle and the recent Nuka Dark Rum bottle fiasco. Not very transparent to their customers and fans about the game and downright putting out a beta barely in alpha. We can all say that the beta was more of a demo, as it was released around two weeks before the game was released. No one knows what they hoped for out of the beta as it was already seen to have 500+ glitches in the foundations of the game that they could not fix in 2 weeks. Not to compare but Rockstar Games did better by their constant push backs in release schedule as they don’t hope for the best they do the best. Bethesda is quite the opposite hoping for the best and almost pushing aside fans to get the profit out of a refurbished glitch game. If anything Bethesda should have slowed down and taken their heat in the beta to fix it then. I think all the fans could wait a bit longer for an actual game than a broken one.
In the end, I can’t personally say I blame them for the things they do. When I coded a game when I was 12 I took easy routes to mention the frustration of finding the right way for things like gravity. But I was 12 and laidback. Bethesda, on the other hand, has professional programmers and game designers. We should expect more than to shrug at the glitches. Back then it was funny, and now it is enraging because it’s not childish anymore. All we can do now is hope that they learn from their ways and soon regain the greatness they once had when the first Fallout game came.