When The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim launched in November 2011, the game was met with widespread critical acclaim but players encountered numerous bugs in the game.
The PlayStation 3 version was particularly badly affected, as was the case with Fallout 3 in 2008, and Bethesda was forced to delay the launch of DLC for months on the platform.
However, Bethesda says they've learned from their experience with Skyrim and will apply those lessons to Fallout 4. Director Todd Howard told Game Informer "I think we've gotten way better there. For us, [the player's] saved game is the number one thing. If the game crashes that's bad, but it is nowhere near as bad as someone's saved game being hosed. That's our scenario that we will do anything and everything to avoid. We made a lot of progress given how Skyrim went, but we did it during Skyrim. This just builds on that."
Howard explained that it took Bethesda awhile to get to grips with the problmes affecting Skyrim, "It probably took us a month or two before we really had a handle on it. All of the updates we did on Skyrim, and all of the DLC–once we sorted [the bugs out] we had a different process for how we checked the content out."
Bethesda isn't especially noted for smooth game launches, with The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, and Obsidian's Fallout: New Vegas which ran on Bethesda's Gamebryo engine, all featuring a range of issues.
Hopefully Fallout 4, which is set for release on PC, PS4, and Xbox One on November 10th, will have a smoother debut.
