Bethesda has extended today’s beta period for Fallout 76 following a critical bug.

Multiplayer testing for the next instalment of the post-apocalyptic romp began earlier this week, with Bethesda’s notorious roughness shining through in many places. While many bugs were easy to ignore, one was severely affecting access for hopeful survivors.

Fallout 76’s beta was made available to pre-order customers on October 30th but doesn’t run continuously. Instead, Bethesda has scheduled a number of brief sessions on selected days for testing.

An issue with the Bethesda launcher had forced some users to redownload the entire game - causing players with slower internet connections to miss out on the brief beta window.

Recognising the problem, Bethesda has extended today’s beta session to end at 11pm EST (3am on Friday BST), four hours longer than intended.

We know some users have been forced to redownload the #Fallout76 B.E.T.A. and not everyone will be able to enjoy the game tonight. To make good, we’ll be extending the B.E.T.A. for everyone on Thursday, November 1, 2pm to 11pm ET.

Thanks for your patience. #ExtendtheBeta

— Bethesda Game Studios (@BethesdaStudios) October 31, 2018

This isn’t a great look for the developer, which made a big show of skipping Steam in favour of its own launcher for Fallout 76. VP of PR and marketing Pete Hines may want a closer connection with the game’s community outside of Steam, but those players probably need to get into the game in the first place.