At this point it's more than fair to say that Bethesda has a reputation for massive, ambitious RPGs that can be absolutely riddled with bugs, at least at launch. Bethesda has even leaned into this reputation a bit, warning players of "all new spectacular issues none of us have encountered" ahead of 2018's Fallout 76 launch.

But Bethesda parent company Microsoft is promising a different launch-day experience ahead of this fall's release of galactic-scale space RPG Starfield. In an interview with Giant Bomb Monday evening, Head of Xbox Game Studios Matt Booty said that he has visibility into the developer's internal bug counts and that "just by the numbers, if it shipped today, this would have the fewest bugs in any game from Bethesda [that] has ever shipped, and we've got more time to go."

Of course, measuring a simple count of bugs doesn't account for their potential severity—the kind of odd visual glitches we saw during Cyberpunk 2077's launch are less significant than the kinds of bugs that can make a game literally unplayable. We'd also note that promising the fewest bugs of any Bethesda game is like promising the fewest rats in a New York sewer tunnel—quite a low bar to clear.

That said, Microsoft seems to be taking the pre-release hunt for Starfield bugs seriously. Microsoft Head of Xbox Phil Spencer told Giant Bomb during the same interview that "I think Matt [Booty] says we have every QA person in our entire company playing Starfield right now."

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Spencer added that Starfield's relative launch stability has also benefited from the numerous delays the game has seen since it was first announced way back in 2018. "Truth be told, when the acquisition closed [in 2021], this game had a significantly earlier ship date than where we're actually launching."

Spencer went on to say that he told game director Todd Howard "that we want to give this team the time" to get things right. "I'll say the team is definitely matured; they've got the Fallouts and Skyrims and Elder Scrolls under their belt."

Whatever state the game eventually launches in, rest assured that the game's fan base will be looking for early glitches with a fine-toothed comb. Even now, months before launch, eagle-eyed fans have called out one particular Steam screenshot for featuring a character holding a gun without actually grasping the front grip. Frankly, if that's the worst problem players can find when the game launches, we'll count ourselves lucky.