Former Bethesda Designer Joel Burgess, who’s now heading up his own studio soft rains, sayers players generally aren’t heard just how much of what they consider game design was actually created by Mistake.
Before starting up soft rains, burgess works on Bethesda Games including Fallout 3, 4, and 76, as well as skyrim, and in a conversation with gamesradar+ during Game Developers Conference 2025, he explains a common misconception about Game Development.
“So much happens by accident,” Burgess says. “When you’re listening to or reading or playing a finished thing, there’s a degree of author intentionality that is really easy to read in, particularly if you do not like something.
“And good things too often happens by accident because, at the end of the day … we’re Entertainment teams that make software. Notice those things, and you can design towards them or away from them, and Sometimes you don’t even notice them.
Burgess then goes on to explain the origins of the treasure fox theory, which once posited that if you follow foxes around in skyrim they’ll lead you to treasure. The Theory Was Debunked Years Actionbut for postrity, I’ll quickly explain it here. When skyrim launched, and to this day, it indeed appears that foxes will often lead you to place where treasure can be found, but they weren’t designed that way intentionally.
What is really happening is that they’re programmed to run away from the player as fast as possible, and the way the game’s script measures the distance being traversed is with navigation mesh triangles, which are used in game to represent traversable are of 3D space. The thing is, smaller, more concentrated triangles are generally needed in places like towns, cities, and campsites around the map, which happens to be more likely to house loot and treasure. So, really, the fox is just trying to run away from you, and it think it can do so so so much by covering as many of these triangles as possible, which naturally leads them to these non-generic areas of interest where you are more likely to find treasure.
“Players Don’t Realize How Many Happy and Sometimes Unhappy Accidents” Happen in Games, “Burgess Says. Oh, the Magic of Game Design.
