It's been the universal problem for Fallout games since the third one, and in many ways, the problem with pretty much every Bethesda game so far: glitches. Those random, game-breaking bugs that have players clipping through rocks, falling through the floor into the universal nothingness beneath the thin crust of a gaming reality, and just plain old locking up, forcing a hard reset and recovery from a save that hopefully wasn't corrupted.

But new reports from no less than Fallout 4 director Todd Howard suggests that Skyrim's problems may mean a saving grace for Fallout 4.

Howard noted that the biggest concern, as far as Fallout 4 went, was protecting saved data. If the game crashes, well, that's a problem, but a problem that can be fixed with a simple reset. But a lost save game, that's different. That's a lot of time and effort lost, and Howard made it clear that the development team was planning to do "anything and everything to avoid" just such a fate. Howard described the process that took "a month or two" to get a clear "handle on it," but this in turn led to the development of a better process overall that should make for, in turn, a better overall experience.

I've actually talked about this kind of thing with a buddy of mine more than once, and at some point in the conversation we reach the conclusion that Bethesda games are inherently buggy. It simply is what it is, and Bethesda games do have their share of bugs. Most of the time these bugs don't get in the way too much--I've become rather accustomed to letting the game cool down after a few hours of play--but the more game-breaking bugs have been quite a problem in the past. It's safe to say that Bethesda learned from its earlier experiences, but by like token, there's always the possibility that a completely different set of problems will emerge. This is actually point Howard underscored, noting to Game Informer that "there will always be some problems."

Still, I'm in favor of most anything that makes for a smoother, easier game to work with, and Bethesda's experience with game-breaking bugs should go a long way toward fixing these problems in the future before they even become problems to begin with. All I can say is November really can't get here soon enough.