Starfield is not error-free, but the release state is satisfactory. Some bugs in the game may even be intentional, as one of the bosses at Bethesda revealed in an interview. In the end, the freedom of the players is crucial.
The Sci-Fi RPG Starfield does well after its release. Games from Bethesda are known for large worlds, endless exploration, crazy stories – and loads of bugs that made some games unplayable. Starfield surprises on the last point.
Apparently, they were so confident that they wanted to leave certain bugs in the game. At least that’s what Pete Hines, Head of Publishing at Bethesda, explained in an interview with the US site gamesindustry.biz.
Hines saw a crazy error in the city of Neon and instructed his developers to leave the nonsense in the game. He also explained why bugs are planned in a game like Starfield.
Shark Attack in the Elevator
What kind of bug is this? One thing up front: Hines explained in the interview that he does not know exactly if the bug is still in the game: “I’m pretty sure they did [remove the bug from the game]. But I love stuff like that.”
The bug involved an alien shark that could lounge in an elevator of the city of Neon, then terrorize the population:
On Neon, a planet completely covered in water, where there is a city, we had a bug where a shark could get into an elevator. Then the elevator doors would open on the street level and the shark would slip out – everyone screams and runs in every direction. […]
I said: “Don’t take this bug out of the game!”
Hines also explains in the interview why bugs and crazy errors are part of Bethesda games: they want to provide more freedom:
What people often overlook is that there is a certain amount of intention, meaning that we embrace chaos. We could make a safer, less buggy, and less risky game if we wanted to.
What we strive for, however, is the freedom of the players. Yes, there will be a few little things here and there where your companion stands a bit too close to you, but the freedom that you gain from that and the things that happen as a result, we absolutely love and welcome.
We have looked around a bit, but so far there doesn’t seem to be any video or clip of an alien shark that has learned to use the elevators in Neon. Whether the creature is shy or the developers fixed the bug is currently uncertain.
Starfield is a typical Bethesda game, which can be recognized in every corner. For example, you can already stuff your entire inventory with junk during the tutorial mission.
Unlike the spiritual predecessors of the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series, you always have your inventory expansion with you: Strong inventory feature in Starfield shows who of us never really grew up
