Despite retiring 3 years ago, Pete Hines remains one of the studio's staunchest defenders. Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team. Unlock instant access to exclusive member features. Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards. Pete Hines retired from Bethesda in 2023 after nearly a quarter-century at the company, where he did everything from writing game manuals and stuffing boxes to hosting E3 conferences and guiding the company's global marketing and PR strategies. Three years down the road, though, he's still one of the studio's most staunch defenders. In a new interview with Firezide Chat, Hines said he used to be frustrated by the way Bethesda seemed to be held to a different standard that other, less ambitious studios: Bethesda's games often faced criticism for being janky or buggy, but they're also tremendously complex, at a scale few others are willing to attempt. "Who else out in the world allows you to just stack up one quest after another on the fly while you’re going wherever you want and doing whatever you want?" Hines said. "Go try that shit in Red Dead Redemption 2." "[Start a quest], then try and stop doing that quest and do something else and see what the game does. What does the game do? It says, no fucking way. Pick one of these. We’re not keeping track of all this shit at the same time."