Fallout 76 had one of the most disastrous launches of any AAA game ever, and now, we could know about what really happened - and how it might have contributed to the game's horrible status on launch as well as the recent delays of Starfield and Redfall.
fallout 76
GamesRadar writes that the report was based on statements made by 10 former Bethesda and ZeniMax Media (Bethesda's parent company) employees. Now, it is obvious that these people are anonymous for the sake of their protection, because what they revealed was pretty... interesting, to say the least.
Among the highlights of their stories include the apparent "willingness" of Fallout 76's top management to keep borrowing developers that were working on other Bethesda games. This, as previously mentioned, included developers working on the vampire co-op shooter Redfall and the space RPG Starfield.
The constant shuffling and recruiting of developers obviously proved detrimental to the two aforementioned projects, which could have contributed a lot to them being delayed to next year. Bethesda's official reasoning was because the two games needed more polish, but perhaps these former employees would disagree.
Aside from that, the working conditions during Fallout 76's crunch was reportedly bad enough that there was an "exodus" of senior-level developers. All of these devs used to work on older Bethesda games, so one can say that they're long-time employees there. However, it seems like the QA testers were the hardest-hit by the Fallout 76 crunch.
QA testers reportedly worked 10-hour days for six days a week in the months leading up to the original launch of the game, as per the original report from Kotaku. They would then say that they only "found reprieve" after leaving the team, since they always felt so heavy and stressed every time they went in for work.
It even got bad enough that according to these former ZeniMax employees, no amount of money could erase the sheer amount of physical and mental stress they had to endure from crunch. This was even something that the director of QA vehemently denied - a topic for another time. Either way, Fallout 76 crunch was real, and the damage it caused to real people was beyond imagining.
Read Also: New Indiana Jones Game From Bethesda Could Still Be An Xbox Exclusive, Says Latest Rumors
Why The Fallout 76 Crunch Still Happens - And Why It CAN Be Prevented
The simplest reason for Fallout 76's crunch period is that it is, by all means, legal. As per an article by The Washington Post, no specific law states that game development studios/companies are prohibited from instituting crunch/mandatory overtimes.
Both federal and state level laws also state that any computer professionals who earn more than a set annual salary (which varies across states) are actually exempted from overtime laws that would require employers to pay more money for extra hours rendered. However, some big AAA studios not unlike Bethesda are already doing something about it, and it all begins and ends with actual company desire.
A perfect example would be Guerilla Games, a PlayStation first-party developer and the makers of the Killzone and Horizon franchises. It was revealed that the delay of Horizon Forbidden West was actually done to prevent crunch from happening, as reported by GameRant. The entire studio mentioned how averse it is to crunch, even going as far as locking the offices for two weeks during the holiday season so employees couldn't even go to work.
horizon forbidden west screen
If Guerilla Games can do it, Bethesda almost certainly can.
Related Article: Both Starfield And Redfall Has Been DELAYED To 2023, Says Bethesda
Story posted on GameNGuide
Written by RJ Pierce
