Fallout 76 QA Testers Claim Development "Destroyed People"
A number of QA testers that worked on Fallout 76 have claimed that brutal crunch and mismanagment were the cause for the game's disastrous launch, resulting in a high turnover of staff and prompting several senior developers to leave Bethesda.
In a substantial report by Kotaku, 10 former employees from Bethesda and ZeniMax Media have detailed mandatory crunch and mismanagment during the development of Fallout 76. QA testers who worked on the game in the monhts up to launch were allegedly forced to work 10-hour long shifts for 6 days a week. Some employees claimed they were coerced into crunching on the weekends, while others describe feeling relief once they left the project.
Related: Why Some Fans Don't Consider Fallout 76 To Be Canon
One of Kotaku's sources even claimed to have fantasized about being injured so they didn't have to go into work, shortly after almost breaking a bone on some stairs. Other disturbing claims in Kotaku's report include employees having their restroom breaks timed - with one source explaining that "chronic snitches" would follow them into the restrooms and report back to managment - and that director of QA at ZeniMax Rob Gray denied that crunch was even happening.
This allegedly caused a high turnover of staff at Bethesda, leading to a shortage of workers. Employees reportedly left the studio with a number of physical health issues, including tinnitus and back pain, while one source even claims it "wasn't uncommon" to see artists in wrist braces. To fix the issue, Fallout 76's managment team apparently brought aboard employees from across several developers under ZeniMax, including developers working on Starfield and Arkane's Redfall, negatively impacting both projects as a result.
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