These days, the vast majority of games ship with bugs that are later patched out, but Bethesda games in particular have earned themselves a somewhat dubious reputation for the sheer amount of glitches and performance issues they usually have at launch. To this day, The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim has bugs that have persisted for 15 years, and a former Bethesda artist who worked on the game has shared a design philosophy held by executive producer Todd Howard that may have contributed to that association.

In a recently resurfaced clip from a 2025 interview with Kiwi Talkz, former Bethesda senior artist Dennis Mejillones estimates 95% of the issues players report when Bethesda games launch were already flagged internally.

"We're gamers. We play the game. We play and see the same things that the gamers do," Mejillones says. "We're like, 'ah this is not fun, or as fun, or we need to do this differently."

Mejillones adds that Howard had a saying with regards to bug-fixing that he would tell developers frequently.

"Todd used to say in meetings all the time, 'we can do anything, but we can't do everything.' And that's a very true statement. It's just the reality of it."

Of course, Bethesda deserves credit for giving its games the love they deserve post-launch, with the overall reception tending to improve in the months after release thanks to updates based on player feedback. Mejillones gives Bethesda its flowers for that, citing Fallout 76's redemptive arc from launch specifically.

"Look at [Fallout] 76. Look at how far they pushed it. They could've dropped the game, they could've just let it go and whatever, but they didn't," he says. "They kept pushing it and improving it, and my understanding is that 76 is really fun now."

It's worth distinguishing post-launch performance patches from free DLC like Fallout 76's Burning Springs and Gone Fission updates. With the former, you could argue those improvements should've been implemented before release, but Mejillones is valid in giving Bethesda credit for handing players free updates with large amounts of new content. That definitely goes a long way in fostering goodwill in a community frequently let down by the janky state of Bethesda games at launch.

Skyrim and Fallout 4 artist says Bethesda's Todd Howard has too many yes men: "A lot of people were afraid to say no to Todd and that hurt him"