Top 10 Bethesda Fails

Bethesda has been known for not having the most polished of games, but “Rogue Warrior” was the absolute worst game they’ve made - and it wasn’t just because of a couple of bugs! Bethesda announced the game in late 2006, stating the game would be developed by Zombie Studios. However, Bethesda’s expectations were below satisfaction, and two years later, it was announced that Rebellion Developments would take over. This would not save “Rogue Warrior”, as the game was universally panned for its insanely short-lived experience and disappointingly boring gameplay. Needless to say, this was a project no one was happy with, and “Rogue Warrior” was labeled as one of the worst games of 2009.

Not everyone was able to enjoy “Fallout 3” and “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” during their respective launches. While PC and Xbox 360 users were out on their own adventures, PS3 users were facing troubling technical issues. The games would suffer severe lagging because of the save files. As the player explored and manipulated the environments, the games would continuously save, which would increase the size of the RAM files. Basically, the longer you played, the more unplayable it would become. Guess Microsoft was the place to play Bethesda games.

Todd Howard may have made a few mistakes himself (stating “Skyrim” has two-hundred endings, and “Fallout 3” has over forty thousand lines of dialogue), but that’s nothing compared to his voice acting. (No offense, Mr. Howard!) In the E3 demo for “The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion”, Howard voiced a test character named Alban Corinis, and the performance...well, thank Talos this was only for a demo. Lines were rushed and lacked a natural flow and tone. At least Howard made it clear when you were pissing him off.

Since they’ve started giving their own presentations as of E3 2015, Bethesda has rocked almost every E3. Emphasis on the almost portion, as Bethesda was less than stellar for E3 2017. In a video presentation called “Bethesdaland”, the showcase primarily contained trailers for downloadable content or games that simply weren’t all that exciting. The briefing may have ended on the reveal for “Wolfenstein II” and “The Evil Within 2”, but both games were in speculation long beforehand. So, many of us walked away feeling very ho-hum. At least E3 2018 made up for it...for the most part.

This piece of downloadable content certainly was “the pits”. When the expansion released, some players were expecting “The Pitt” to continue their “Fallout 3” experiences. What they got instead was an empty map filled with big red exclamation marks and error messages. You had basically spent your hard-earned Microsoft Points for an unplayable, corrupted file. As you might expect, players were about as pissed off as Alban Corinis. Thankfully, Bethesda was quick to fix the issue, and we were able to play again the next day.

This could not have been a more terrible example of paid DLC… Around the time the infamous Horse Armor was released, the industry was still figuring out downloadable content with some companies exploiting the hell out of it. Of all the DLC, the Horse Armor for “Elder Scrolls: Oblivion” was the most outrageous. The add-on may have only been a couple of bucks, but this was a cosmetic item that added nothing to the experience. Then, for an April Fools gag in 2009, Bethesda charged twice the price for it. *sarcastic* Ha ha…

It is an accursed cycle we must bear at every launch. With each new game Bethesda puts out, we can expect a cornucopia of bugs and glitches to plague them. How frequent will our game crash? When will we face a game-breaking bug? Will my save file become corrupted at any given point? While some of these mishaps will spawn some hilarious YouTube compilations, there are others like “The Pitts” and “Skyrim’s” PS3 launch that can induce the worst migraines. What’s even more troublesome is that not everything is fixed after several patch notes. Better dig for some mods or else you may become frustrated.

When it was on the verge of release, “Doom” had some people worried it wouldn’t live up to the fifteen years it spent in the oven. Adding to the skepticism, Bethesda announced it wouldn’t send review copies out more than a day before release. This review policy was as unfriendly for the consumer as it was to gaming media outlets. Reviews can help consumers make educated purchases, and this policy seems skewed towards ensuring pre-order sales than anything else. We understand this is so everyone can play at the same time (allegedly), but this seems too extreme when you can just buckle down on embargoes. Thankfully, Bethesda has reeled back on this.

Knowing how massively successful Bethesda has become in the past decade, it’s crazy to think of how the company could go out of business. However, Bethesda came incredibly close to going under in the late 90’s. Going off of the successes of “Daggerfall” and “Arena”, Bethesda released two more “Elder Scrolls” games - “An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire” in 1997 and “The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard” in 1998. Both games were such monumental flops that the company was hemorrhaging money, forcing Bethesda to consider filing for bankruptcy. Thankfully, founder Christopher Weaver formed ZeniMax Media with current-CEO Robert A. Altman, granting the company a more stable infrastructure.

In 2015, Valve announced that Steam’s modding workshop would be introducing paid mods, with Bethesda being one of the first adopters of this practice by allowing paid mods for Skyrim. Gamers however were not happy with this inititive and proceed to review bomb all the games that allowed for paid mods, forcing Valve to cancel the program and Bethesda to issue a statement claiming: “We are listening and will make changes as necessary.” Well it turns out they were not, because in 2017 they tried it again with the launch of the “Creation Club”, resulting in fan backlash once again.