Starfield: ‘Bugthesda’ Is Trending, But Not For the Reason You’d Think

“Bugthesda” is trending online following the release of Starfield, but potentially not for the reason you might have thought.

On X, “Bugthesda” is currently trending. However, while you may have thought that would be because of glitches and bugs in Starfield, that’s not necessarily the case. Many posts on the subject are praising the game’s relative lack of bugs, and saying the idea of “Bugthesda” is dead. Still, there are a few people sharing videos of problems they’ve encountered.

Starfield runs well on Xbox Series S. Bethesda has done some smart optimization work to not compromise the visual quality and performance on the Xbox Series S. Here's Neon, a city in Starfield, running on Xbox Series S pic.twitter.com/0CF3FCSWPF

— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) August 31, 2023

Does Starfield run well on Series S? pic.twitter.com/xL7NIFhJCG

— Kinda Funny (@KindaFunnyVids) August 31, 2023

For more videos, you can look at the “Bugthesda” hashtag on X, or follow this link. Although I’ve only dropped in two there, and they’re both positive, I want to reiterate: There are absolutely people experiencing weird bugs and glitches and posting them online.

“Bugthesda” is something of a joke based around the fact that Bethesda games often release with a lot of glitches and bugs. While there are always at least a few bugs in video games, even those with a high-degree of polish, those present in Bethesda games such as Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and Elder Scrolls: Skyrim have led to players being able to break games in often hilarious or horrifying ways.

I’ve played about five hours of Starfield myself, and I can tell you I’ve experienced pretty minimal bugs on an above-average PC that I built at the start of August. In his impressions piece on Starfield, The Escapist’s Editor-in-Chief Nick Calandra noted that he experienced only a handful of bugs and only one crash in more than 30 hours of gameplay. Still, following launch, I’ve definitely been hearing about more bugs, and there’s currently a fan effort to start patching Starfield.

For many, Starfield is already available to play on Xbox Series X/S and PC. However, those who didn’t buy copies with early access to Starfield will have to wait until Sept. 6 for the game’s official launch.

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