Summary
- Bethesda's open-world games are known for their ambition and glitches, but that's part of the experience.
- Bugs like carts launching into the sky or NPCs disappearing through walls add a quirky charm to the games.
- From floating eyeballs to stretchy limbs, the bizarre glitches in Bethesda games are both hilarious and nightmarish.
Bethesda Games: two words that encapsulate the feeling of walking into a huge, ambitious open-world game and simultaneously being trapped in a shaky glitch-fest ride in equal measure. Since Bethesda always goes big in its design scopes, there tend to be rough edges around the seams, especially during the release window. While many of them get patched out quickly enough, a few of them never leave (just as all the good times stumbling across an NPC power-sliding face-first across a field while complaining about the weather will never leave the fans' hearts).
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Some blame the creaky old Creation Engine, but most projects as vast and ambitious as Bethesda's releases are bound to have a few bugs along the way. Taking a few risks and pushing limits inevitably leads to imperfections in the code, wacky AI, and bizarre animations. And, that's probably okay (so long as modders patch out the most serious problems eventually).
6 A Bumpy Cart Ride Into Town
Finally Aw-AAAIIIIEEE (Skyrim)
Skyrim
- Because the cart's movement is simulated rather than on a rail, its physics are extremely sensitive
- Even a bee is capable of derailing the cart, sending it careening into the sky
Skyrim's opening moments, set to the hushed, rising notes of some kind of ghostly Viking orchestra, set the stage for the game and have become iconic in their own right. However, when the steady procession of prisoners led by Imperial soldiers inexplicably becomes a roller-coaster ride, even Talos' mighty sides might split with surprise. Because the physics on the carts are so delicate, even the smallest thing to get in their way sends them stumbling.
One bug that couldn't be squashed during QA testing saw the cart being launched high above the pines, and it was the result of a simple bumblebee wandering into its path. Because the bee wasn't programmed to be pushed by force but the cart was (and didn't adhere to a pre-coded pathway), the latter had to do the moving. Finding out this little tidbit required one developer to watch the opening over 100 times before they figured it out. However, whether because of a mod or an unlucky roll of the dice, the cart can still end up upside down even today.
5 Bang! Zoom! Straight To The Moon!
Getting Smashed Into The Atmosphere (Skyrim, Fallout: New Vegas)
Fallout: New Vegas
- Released
- October 19, 2010
- Developer(s)
- Obsidian Entertainment
- Genre(s)
- RPG
- Many entities in Bethesda games can effortlessly whack the player or others into the atmosphere
- A physics calculation bug translates damage into force, creating the effect
Picking a fight with a giant in Skyrim is probably not a good idea, but since video games aren't real life, and players are more willing to take their chances to test themselves, many Dovakin have perished after being clobbered upwards by a giant smash. This happens because the game converts damage into a physical push once an entity goes below 0 HP. In the case of a giant's massive damage-dealing attack, this number can cause whoever they're hitting to fly up and break free of the planet's gravity.
This one isn't unique to The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, although it famously made it into the game after many early testers saw the effect and thought it should remain for its novelty. The Bighorner in Fallout: New Vegas can also bump the Courier into the clouds, causing them to land on their knees, ultimately taking a shin bone to the dome. Technically, New Vegas was made by Obsidian, but they still used Bethesda's engine.
4 Basket Case
Hide And Seek With A Cauldron (Skyrim)
- It is possible to place baskets, buckets, and pots onto unsuspecting NPCs' heads
- NPCs with a blocked line of sight will not be able to detect thievery (or anything)
Basket, cauldron, or pot, the hapless citizens of Skyrim are helpless in the face of being crowned by a hat far larger than their heads. If the Dragonborn is able to place one down correctly, they are rendered blind to any crimes of thievery, murder, or obscenity in their line of sight, making it more powerful than most illusion spells in the game.
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Seeing shopkeepers walk about and talk normally as their entire stock is pilfered under their noses by a sticky-fingered Dovakin in need of a payday is particularly funny. Even a decade after this handy little exploit was discovered, this bucket head trick was not patched out in the newer versions of Skyrim, even after a double-digit number of re-releases. It still "just works."
3 Peace Out
Dissolving Into The Walls (Starfield, Oblivion, Skyrim, Wolfenstein: Young Blood)
Starfield
- Released
- September 6, 2023
- Developer(s)
- Bethesda
- Platform(s)
- PC, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
- NPCs are known to meld through walls and floors spontaneously
- Their sudden disappearances can make combat hilariously (or infuriatingly) difficult
From being smashed through the floor with a dagger swing to casually disappearing through walls after a light chat, NPCs in Starfield, Skyrim, and Oblivion seem to be able to shift through dimensions almost at will. This has led to some creepy moments (especially given how bizarre some NPCs from Skyrim can be, for example) where a courier will snap into existence to deliver some vital quest information, or a pedestrian will fade into a wall as if out of sheer boredom.
This generally makes clearing dungeons a bit more of a pain than it should be. However, in Wolfenstein: Young Blood, enemies were known to pop out of existence after receiving gunshots, only to appear behind the player like teleporting assassins, making fights an excruciatingly nightmarish experience. While it's a neat idea for an enemy, it isn't exactly explained by the lore (which might have made it all OK).
Wolfenstein: Young Blood was developed by MachineGames and Arkane Studios, with Bethesda publishing the game.
2 So Handsome!
The Chilling Mask Of Death (Skyrim, Fallout 4)
Fallout 4
- Released
- November 10, 2015
- Developer(s)
- Bethesda
- Platform(s)
- PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
- A loading error causes certain NPCs (including the player) to load in without skin
- All that remains are a pair of floating eyeballs and creepy, disembodied teeth
Occasionally, in Fallout 4, after a stirring opening cutscene about war and change, the usual wiping-the-steam-from-the-mirror shtick plays, and the player is treated with a full-frontal of the main character's teeth and eyeballs floating in a shapeless void. Regardless, his wife will still whisper compliments about his looks despite him having quite possibly the worst war injury ever seen (or imagined) by a human being.
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This happens because the game forgets how to do math momentarily, resulting in certain scripts failing to fire and textures not quite loading. It's also been known to happen to NPCs in Skyrim (and other non-Bethesda games, too). That being said, it also fits Fallout's gruesome aesthetic pretty well.
1 The Spaghetti Ballet
Scary, Stretchy Limbs (Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout 76)
Fallout 3
- A mathematical translation error sometimes causes NPCs to bug out into some kind of stringy webbing
- NPCs can get trapped between doors and walls, causing them to vibrate and spin violently
The Creation Engine's physics allows for the same satisfying effect of turning a bandit into a ragdoll with an arrow as it does creating the turbulent, pasta mess that happens when an NPC's rubber hose limbs are caught in an invisible thrashing machine in the air. While this kind of effect could have been the result of radiation or sinister Daedric magic, there's no sense in trying to explain these unnerving, erratic spasms, as seen in Fallout 3, by looking into the code. It's all just part of the fun.
Instead, players should take a moment to appreciate the bodily chaos unfolding (quite literally) in front of their eyes. It's even worse when an NPC's head gets trapped between the wall and a gate as they'll start shuddering harder than an interdimensional washing machine, or when Oblivion NPCs start folding into themselves after mounting a horse at the same time that the player initiates a conversation with them.