Bethesda RPGs are typically jam-packed with tiny details that most players will never notice, but which all contribute to the sense that you're existing in this reactive, believable world. "It's not just that I kill someone with a sword and there's a reaction to the crime," says former Bethesda producer Jeff Gardiner. "It's the sense that there's this living world around you and things happen."

Gardiner left Bethesda in 2021 and founded Wyrdsong developer Something Wicked Games, but after 15 years with the company, he's got plenty of stories. He recalls how much freedom the teams were given, and how, once they were finished with their assigned tasks, they were "free to do the cool stuff", which blessed Fallout and The Elder Scrolls with all their tiny details.

But this could sometimes create problems. "Those also result in some of the headaches at the end of the game, when you're trying to ship," Gardiner says. One headache stemmed from Skyrim's nosy butterflies.

"They put butterflies in Skyrim, and they put a system in where the butterflies would smell flowers in your inventory and start following you around the game. But it was very expensive—by this I mean there was a lot of processing that had to happen, because all the butterflies in the game had to detect whether or not the player had flowers. And we were like, 'Why is the game running slow?' And then you spend hours figuring out, 'Oh, it's because so-and-so put the script in the game that makes it so, if you're carrying flowers, butterflies are attracted to you.'"

Coincidentally, ants created a similar problem. Gardiner remembers how artist Mark Teare added these wee beasties to the game, but he accidentally "made them shadow casters by mistake, meaning the light had to cast a shadow". Back then, shadow casting was "the most expensive thing in the rendering", so it caused another headache. "Thousands of ants that you can barely see, casting little tiny shadows."

They may have caused some issues, but these are fond memories for Gardiner. "That's the fun of it," he says. "The beauty of Bethesda was, because of the success of our games, our parent company, Zenimax, basically left us alone. We set our own internal milestones, our own goals, and as long as we earned the trust of them, they left us alone. Which is so important as a creative."

Obsidian Entertainment hasn't confirmed what it's cooking up next - apart from The Outer Worlds 2 later this year- but Avowed's director is keen to see the fantasy RPG's world continue.

Avowed properly released earlier this week to wide praise and took the Pillars of Eternity universe first-person. GamesRadar's Avowed review was similarly glowing, as is the general fan response, and the studio itself reportedly told Bloomberg it's happy with the game's financial performance so far. The groundwork for a sequel has been laid, and it seems the developers themselves have an appetite to carry on as well.

"Now that we've built this wonderful world, and also built this team strength and muscle memory around the content and gameplay in this world, I'd love to see us do more with it," game director Carrie Patel said in an interview with Bloomberg, though we don't know whether "more" will come in the form of expansions or a full-fat sequel. Both are possible, but either way, Patel wants to stay in the director's chair after having her first stab at leading a project in one of The Outer Worlds' expansions.

Whatever comes next for her and the Avowed team likely won't have as protracted a development cycle as their newest romp, which was reportedly rebooted a couple of times before Patel steadied the ship. "There's this interesting thing I've seen on every project I've worked on or seen during my time at the studio — things are messy, messy, messy, then they start coming together," she explained. "How can we find that point a little earlier? Or at least find the things we need to reinforce for ourselves? Yes we will get there, we’re on track."

Avowed is obviously not where Eora began, however. Josh Sawyer has mentioned the possibility of making an isometric Pillars of Eternity 3 a couple of times, but only if Microsoft was willing to pour money into a Baldur's Gate 3-sized budget.

Avowed director didn't add romance as RPG players often try to cheese companion relationships and she wanted them to "feel natural"

Zombie survival shooter No More Room in Hell 2 shambled onto Steam early access late last year, and proved to have a few more bits missing than its audience could reasonably cope with. Debuting to a 'Mostly Negative' rating on Steam as players cited a litany of flaws, from bugs to performance issues to the experience generally feeling undercooked. However, developer Torn Banner has continually tinkered with the game since then, with this latest addition described as its 'biggest update yet.'

Titled the 'Nightmare' update for reasons that will soon become clear, the patch expands the game's open-ended survival scenario in numerous ways. The headline addition is weapon attachments, letting players customise their guns with sights, flashlights, and perhaps most importantly, silencers, which seem like a major advantage in a game where noise is as much of a threat as the undead shambling in the dark. One notable omission Torn Banner admits to is "magnifying scopes" though the team assures players these will be "coming in a future update along with more attachment options".

Meanwhile, the large open ended Power Plant level has been expanded with a new ending scenario, replacing the 'restart the generator' climax with repairing infrastructure around the plant. This is coupled with a new beginning scenario, where players must find radios to access the plant rather than laptops. These have apparently been added in response to player requests for "more replayability" in the map, though I do wonder whether the real issue isn't the lack of maps in the first instance.

In any case, now we come to the titular change included in the update, adjustments to Nightmare difficulty. Here, Torn Baner adds several new modifiers, a "hardcore" UI that removes objective markers and interaction cues from the game's already minimalist HUD, and clouds the entire map in a soupy fog. Sounds utterly horrible to me, frankly, but players who emerge unscathed will gain 'Nightmare Prestige Point', which Torn Banner states are designed as a way for them to "brag about" their achievements.

Other minor additions include a new two-handed melee weapon—the shovel—new jump scares "in a few locations", and "infection audio hallucinations" just to make your transformation into a walking corpse that little bit more horrific. The new features are accompanied by a beefy list of bug fixes, addressing everything from visual and audio glitches, to UI problems, loading times, and zombie behaviours. I'm sure players will be pleased to hear they "should no longer spawn into matches without a body", although you could argue lacking a torso would prove an advantage in a zombie apocalypse. Torn Banner also reassures one specific player that "the naked zombie that was found at a vista point near Lookout Tower has been redressed" adding "our thoughts are with that responder."

All told, it seems like a substantial update. Whether it will do much to reverse the game's fortunes remains to be seen, however. As well as continuing to raise concerns about quality, several recent Steam reviews also complain No More Room in Hell 2 is "dead". Indeed, according to Steam Charts, 111 players were bashing zombies at the time of writing, compared to its all-time peak of 1,998. Those aren't exactly huge numbers, and I don't see how you can sustain a game for years on a player count in the low hundreds.

It's a bit of a shame, to be honest. I thought there was a perfectly decent core to No More Room in Hell 2 when I played it last October. I liked its thick, foreboding shadows, its emphasis on slow-moving zombies that gradually overwhelmed you, and how all your objectives were communicated via simulated radio chatter. Players also seem to have been keen to damn it due to how its design diverges from the original, 2012 mod. Nonetheless, a bit more meat on the bones at the outset would undoubtedly have helped its longevity, and I fear that short of dramatic improvements in the near future, No More Room in Hell 2 may well suffer final death sooner than it perhaps deserves.