Bruce Nesmith is the Former Design Director of Bethesda, serving in the role for 17 years, and in an interview yesterday, he spoke about behind-the-scenes happenings at the studio while he was there.
Bruce Nesmith had a storied career at Bethesda. Filling the role of quest designer on a massive amount of the company’s big releases such as Fallout 76, Fallout 3, and Fallout 4. He is also credited as a lead designer on The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim and as a Senior Designer on Starfield. Basically, if you’ve played a Bethesda Game Studios title in the past 17 years, Nesmith has likely had a hand in it. In a long-winded interview with MinnMax on YouTube, he discussed numerous things, including how Bethesda believed it was “infallible” before Fallout 76‘s turbulent launch. The entire interview can be seen below.
CGMagazine’s initial review of Fallout 76 states “Fallout 76 shows potential, but it can’t quite coalesce into a compelling game due to numerous glaring flaws” back in 2018. But Nesmith suggested during the interview, it may have helped Bethesda in the long run.
Nesmith says, “Fallout 76 was one that I definitely struggled with” including “To a certain extent our own hubris caught up with us. We had had so many not just successes, but the literal game of the years, industry-wide accepted game of the years, not just in our own heads or in these two little magazines over there, but everybody is saying this is the game of the year. We started to talk ourselves into the fact that we were infallible. There was nothing we couldn’t do. And clearly, that’s wrong” (9:53).
Nesmith continued by saying with combined pressure from higher-ups and players alike, multiplayer was a highly requested feature that even Todd Howard turned down initially. But, after players wanted the feature so much, Howard too wanted to add it. Nesmith continued with the thought, “It’s going to be the same Fallout, all we have to do is add multiplayer,” and that’s where all the problems arose for the title.
While Fallout 76 has rebounded from its poor launch and fan backlash, ActivePlayer says that month nearly seven million have logged into Fallout 76 in the past 30 days, which sits directly in between the nearly 1.7 million EVE Online has had and the overwhelming 18 million Final Fantasy XIV has.
While the title’s launch was not the best, it’s safe to say Bethesda Game Studios has righted the ship since 2018, seeing how Fallout 76: Atlantic City is almost here, and it will serve as the MMO’s seventeenth major update.
