Bethesda took a beloved glitch out for a midnight ride to a quiet parking lot, caved in the back of its skull with a bowling pin, and drowned it in a muddy puddle of rainwater and radiator fluid. I'm talking about the so-called infinite caps glitch that would let you repeatedly re-sell the same stack of ammo to a vendor until you cleaned them out of all their caps and inventory. God rest its scammy soul.

Sure, it was a game breaking glitch that let you entirely circumnavigate ammo scarcity, stack all the best gear, and completely ignore any perks related to cap collecting or spending -- but why should that bother Bethesda now? I mean, for the PC kids, Bethesda leaves the keys to the liquor cabinet just lying on the table with a post-it note winky face stuck to them. The console command line on PC literally allows you to bend and break every aspect of the game, and if you don’t quite know how to use it, you can just type “HELP” and the game will give you step-by-step instructions on how to break its kneecaps. The least Bethesda could do for console users is leave a blindingly obvious glitch to exploit if they like.

When I first heard of the vendor glitch, that’s exactly what I thought it was. It was such a simple trick to do, reproducible at almost every vendor in the game, and so widespread mere days after release that I thought it was at least quasi-intentional on Bethesda’s part. An easy breezy way for console users to mess around with the game the way PC players get to. Sure, you can’t just unlock every door or terminal you come across with a magic word, or set your encumbrance level to 1 million and take the entirety of the wasteland on your back, but at least you can scam some free flamer fuel and a fusion core from Arturo.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think everyone should just cheat their way through Fallout 4. I’d recommend you play through the game legitimately at least once to get the proper experience. But, when it’s time to roll up your goofy concept characters, or go on a quest to renovate the entire Commonwealth, it’s nice to have a way to speed things up.

I’ve always been a huge fan of the freedom Bethesda games give players. On the PC versions of Oblivion and Skyrim, I used the console command line, mods, and simple table edits with the construction set to give my characters flavor and unique equipment when I was done playing the game legitimately. It extended the lifespan of those titles tremendously and really let me play the character concepts I envisioned (honestly, my mage is supposed to be a road-weary old man with years of experience under his belt, you’re telling me he only knows a single stinking fireball spell out of the gate? Nah, let’s just tweak that spellbook there).

It’s time Bethesda fully recognized what its fans like to do with its games -- namely, break them over their knee like a gas-mask-wearing drug addict. If we can’t get the console command line in the console versions of their games, the least Bethesda could do is leave an exploit that is as obvious as a screen door banging in the wind. Cheaters never prosper, but they do have a lot of fun with open-world RPGs.