Gamers were freaking out this past week when the Fallout 76 beta was struck by a really dumb and untimely bug. It turns out that in their rush to get the game to a playable state, Bethesda missed a major bug within the launcher for the game. The launcher was supposed to control the installation and updating of the game when it finally launches, but there was an unintended consequence of that level of control.
A problem with the launcher led to it accidentally deleting all of the downloaded game files. This means that as much as 50 GB of data and bandwidth were wasted for some gamers, since they would have to redownload all of the lost files.
The bug was discovered in the last few days, and promptly fixed by Bethesda, but not before a significant number of gamers let their impatience get the better of them and they fell victim to said bug. Bethesda had to ultimately pull down both the game servers and the forums for the game in order to debug the issue and ensure it was fixed.
As recompense for the inconvenience, Bethesda will extend the next beta session on Thursday, November 1, 2pm to 11pm ET.
Fallout 76 arrives on PlayStation 4, PC, and Xbox One on November 14.
