Such was the excitement surrounding the announcement of Fallout 4 that, upon revealing the premium Pip-Boy Edition, Bethesda soon found that the sought-after package was flying off shelves, and in June the company noted that “no more were being made.” Bethesda simply couldn’t keep pace with the demand.
It wasn’t for want of trying, though, as VP of PR and Marketing Pete Hines noted in an interview with GameSpot. After selling through their initial batch of Pip-Boy Editions, Bethesda consulted with the manufacturers to sanction a new line, but again these collector’s edition didn’t stay on store shelves for too long.
We reached a point where we’d go back to the factories and they were like, ‘Guys, this is it, sorry. This is as long as we can run the lines and as many of them as we can make.’ We made a s**tload of Pip-Boys, and we went back and made more, and went back and made more.
The publisher’s commitment to quality permeates Fallout 4, too, with Hines adding that the development team poured over fan forums for Fallout 3 and Skyrim in order to gain a sense of the more common complaints. In fact, at this stage, the executive added that the sequel is ostensibly finished, and was near a finalized state even before last month’s reveal. For the next few months, bug testing and other fixes and tweaks will take center stage.
“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.”
Thanks to this pragmatic approach, Fallout 4 has quickly become one of the most anticipated releases of the holiday season, and one that won’t risk over saturation due to a prolonged lead time between reveal and debut.
Bethesda’s sequel will touch down on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC on November 10.
Published: Jul 28, 2015 12:27 pm