Even if you haven’t played The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, you would likely still have seen the iconic “You’re Finally Awake” cart intro in one meme or another. Although the scene is fondly remembered, a former developer at Bethesda Game Studios has now detailed how the scene troubled the team during its creation. In a Twitter thread, Nate Purkeypile said the team would be struggling to find the issue that caused the cart to suddenly lose control. Purkeypile had to watch the video hundreds of times to find it.
He said the problem was it wasn’t just a rail cart. This cart was real in terms of Skyrim’s engine. “Well once again, riding that wagon again, the wagon starts shaking violently and all of a sudden WHOOSH!” The cart rises in the sky like a rocket. Like WAY up there, ”he said.
So I have a story about the intro to Skyrim and how difficult game development is.
This intro is famous now, but back then it was just something we had to keep working and working on forever. I have lost track of how many times I have seen this cart ride. Hundreds easily. (thread) pic.twitter.com/D0E0oZ5uX8
– Nate Purkeypile (@NPurkeypile) August 17, 2021
Maybe the road was too bumpy. Maybe there was just a physics bug. Maybe someone accidentally placed a stone too close to the road. The chariot had a path it wanted to follow, but that didn’t mean it was a path it COULD follow. Big difference. 🙂
– Nate Purkeypile (@NPurkeypile) August 17, 2021
For a long time, no one knew why this was happening. Finally, they discovered that there was a bug – a virtual bee – in the game and not in the software that made the life of developers difficult.
So it turned out that there was another bug where the bee in the game could not be picked up. So some potions couldn’t be made. This bug has been fixed. Only the type of crash put on the bee didn’t let it pick up. It also caused him to collide with things.
– Nate Purkeypile (@NPurkeypile) August 17, 2021
The problem with this digital bee was that it was an “unwavering force of nature.” Thus, if the cart and the bee crossed, the cart would be thrown out of the way.
This means that this bee was a force of nature standing still if it ever crossed the path of the cart. The cart wanted to go down the road. The bee didn’t want to move. So go up the basket!
– Nate Purkeypile (@NPurkeypile) August 17, 2021
“So game development is difficult. Every time you fix one thing, you might break another. This is especially true for open-world games, ”said Purkeypile, who is currently working on a single-player indie game.
Game development is therefore difficult. Every time you fix one thing, you might break another. This is especially true for open world games. Yet this interplay of all the systems is what ends up making them all super interesting.
– Nate Purkeypile (@NPurkeypile) August 17, 2021
Many users have shared their thoughts on the bee problem. One user (@diet_ice) wanted to know if there were any “Fallout stories” referring to another iconic Bethesda game series, Fallout.
Thank you for that! would never have known! You should definitely tell more stories about the making of the games! Fallout stories?
– AÅR (@diet_ice) August 17, 2021
Another user (@SteveAnything) said the Purkeypile story is a perfect example of why developers have started to put bugs in jars, suggesting that real bugs always distract them from real work.
now that’s a perfect explanation why the developers have started putting bugs in jars.
– Podcast Steve will say anything (@SteveAnything) August 18, 2021
A third user (@chavakno_) returned an ode to the “mighty bee”.
It just sounds hilarious ????
I bet it was frustrating but still such a powerful bee ????– Chavakno (@chavakno_) August 17, 2021
Here are some more interesting reactions:
This answers the question: what happens when an unstoppable force encounters a stationary object? Answer: the force is increasing.
– Conor Miller (@ckd_miller) August 17, 2021
… How did you fix the bee case. No, seriously … I’m interested.
– DivineBlood (@DivineBloodBook) August 17, 2021
So what you are saying in this case is that the bug that was causing this was a real bug? Amazing lol
– Claire (Valnar) ???? (@ValnarDragonesse) August 17, 2021
Purkeypile, however, did not disclose how the bug (bee) was fixed.
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