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Fallout 4 was 'basically done' before Bethesda even announced it

Pete Hines: "You're not adding new features in May, June, July in the year you're releasing; you're trying to get everything fixed."

GameSpot staff
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GameSpot staff
2 min read

Bethesda's upcoming role-playing game Fallout 4 is "basically done," according to marketing executive Pete Hines. In a recent interview, Hines told GameSpot that it's too late to implement new fan-requested features. Instead, Bethesda Game Studios is now spending its time on bug-fixing and polish.

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Bethesda Softworks

"Let's be honest, [right now] it doesn't matter what anybody wants for a feature in Fallout 4," Hines said. "The game is basically done. It was by and large done before we announced it, in terms of the features going in. You're not adding new features in May, June, July in the year you're releasing; you're trying to get everything fixed."

This is not to say Bethesda doesn't listen to fan feedback. Hines stressed that the developer pored over forums and reviews for Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in an effort to make Fallout 4 a better game.

"All of that stuff is important. A good developer knows how to take all that and figure out how to address is," Hines said. "You can do anything, you just can't do everything. So you have to be able to prioritize and figure out what are the big wins, what are the challenges you're going to tackle, and what are the things you just don't have the bandwidth to take on."

Fallout 4 director Todd Howard previously explained how lessons learned from Skyrim's technical bugs will improve Fallout 4.

The Fallout 4 release date is lined up for November 10. Barring any last-minute delay, the game will arrive fewer than five months after it was announced last month during Bethesda's E3 briefing.

For more on Fallout 4, check out some recent stories below.