Pete Hines, vice president of marketing and public relations, has revealed that Fallout 4 was "by and large done before we announced it," according to an interview with GameSpot.
"Let's be honest, [right now] it doesn't matter what anybody wants for a feature in Fallout 4," he responded. "…You're not adding new features in May, June, July in the year you're releasing; you're trying to get everything fixed."
So apparently, all that worrying I had for the game when it was given an immediate release date of November 10 at E3 this year, without any press preview available on top of it, was just a waste of energy. Hines emphasized that Bethesda listened to fan reaction to Fallout: New Vegas and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and if so, then Bethesda knows that it has the reputation of releasing games with an overwhelming number of bugs at launch. "Bugthesda," it's called.
With all of the time Fallout 4 has for polishing, though, it has a great shot of being pristine, bug-free (or as bug-free as an open-world game can possible be), and of course landing on time with its firm release date without delays. (Does that mean The Elder Scrolls VI is already in production?)
If we're lucky, Bethesda will be a trendsetter here and we'll see more publishers and developers announcing games only after they're pretty much done.
