Starfield lead told developers to leave one very specific bug in the game

Starfield Neon — (Image credit: Bethesda)

One Starfield bug was apparently so much fun that Bethesda's studio head asked the game's developers not to fix it.

In an interview with GameIndustry.biz, Pete Hines discussed the "technical issues" that Bethesda's games have become somewhat infamous over the years. In response, he shrugged off any Starfield bugs, asking "of course there are bugs, but does it take away from your experience?" In fact, he suggested, one bug was so much fun that it might actually have heightened his experience with the game.

"On Neon, a planet covered entirely in water with a city that sits on top of it, we had a bug where a shark was able to get on an elevator. Then the elevator doors would open on a street level and the shark would come sliding out - everybody screams and starts running in every direction. I'm laying into it with weapons, people are screaming and guards are running."

Putting aside whatever alien sharks might exist on Neon and the resulting possibility of them being intelligent enough to use a lift, one might have thought that that would be the kind of bug that you'd aim to iron out pretty quickly. Not Hines, apparently: "I said, "do not take this bug out of the game!"

Sadly, Hines says he's "almost positive" that the team ignored that particular feedback, so you're unlikely to discover any elevator-dwelling great whites on Neon or anywhere else. In the long term, that was probably wise - Starfield performance is looking pretty good, and while there are some bugs, in my time with the game I've encountered far less than I might have expected based on my time with other Bethesda games. No sharks, though.

Check out our Starfield review to see what we thought of Bethesda's latest.

I'm GamesRadar's Managing Editor for news, shaping the news strategy across the team. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.