Report casts bleak light on Fallout 76 development – Talks of crunch and terminations

Fallout 76 was heavily criticized for release because it had to deal with bugs and problems. The content was also missing some things that the players expected, including NPCs. Kotaku has now spoken to former employees about the development. They report crunch before the release, lack of coordination in management and terminations by developers.

What’s in the report? the Website Kotaku spoke to ten former employees of Bethesda and parent company ZeniMax Media. These report difficult conditions in the development of Fallout 76:

• The management is said to have underestimated the development of a service and multiplayer game. Some problems encountered in the implementation are said to have been dismissed by the leadership.
• QA testers are said to have worked ten hours a day, six days a week, in the months leading up to the release. They are said to have received very little money.
• Some bosses who were involved in the development are said to have shown no interest in the game at all.
• Some longtime senior developers are said to have quit in the course of development.

The report is reminiscent in many ways of what BioWare was accused of developing Anthem.

We at MeinMMO have contacted Bethesda and asked for a statement on the allegations.

Extra money and pizza should motivate at the weekend

What do the former employees say? The QA testers in particular are said to have suffered under the conditions. These generally have a difficult time in the industry because they are “only” supposed to play content and point out errors.

The report states that the testers were paid very little per hour and were regularly called to work on weekends. Compensation was $200 and free pizza. Although that was initially sufficient motivation, it led to mental and health problems.

It is also said that the work was described as “voluntary”, but if it is not done, the entire team has to come.

But not only QA testers should have had problems. According to the report, several senior developers have left the studio due to pressure or health issues during development. Some are said to have been part of the company since the development of Fallout 3 and Skyrim.

The reason for this is said to have been that although the game was getting bigger, the developers were not given more time. After the announcement at E3 2018, the release date has not been pushed back.

How should the leadership have reacted? According to Kotaku, employees from other studios have repeatedly been brought in, such as The Elder Scrolls Online or Arkane Studios, the developer of Redfall.

But even though these teams had previous experience playing online games, their feedback was said to have been ignored by the guides.

A former employee says something like this:

During development, our design director Emil [Pagliarulo] wanting nothing to do with the product at all. He didn’t want any contact with it…or read anything we put in front of him.

Death threats to the testers and developers

In addition to the crunch and the problems in the leadership, the release version of Fallout 76 also received strong reviews. The NPCs were missing, for example, which testers had already criticized.

Death threats to the developers followed. A bug report is said to have said: “I’m going to take a pistol, go to the QA department and shoot them all.”

In the meantime some updates have been brought

Lately, however, interest in Fallout 76 has leveled off.

There should also be problems under Microsoft

Will it be better under Microsoft now? In September 2020, Microsoft bought ZeniMax, Bethesda’s parent company, for $7.5 billion. But an improvement is said not to have occurred initially.

The report states that the employees were looking forward to the bonuses, such as more parental leave or better handling of health insurance. However, it is said to have been communicated by management that these benefits do not apply to Bethesda employees. Kotaku does not know whether this is still the case. After all, the employees interviewed are no longer part of the company.

The English Website PCGamer also reports that, according to its own sources, Microsoft is largely staying out of Bethesda so as not to disturb the balance in the studio.

Despite criticism of the release and reports of staff crunch, Fallout 76 has evolved into a good game since 2019. The reviews just kept getting better, especially since the release on Steam. On MeinMMO it is even one of the best survival games ever:

The best survival games of 2022 for PlayStation, PC and Xbox