Today, we mourn the loss of something great. A quiet little spot in the middle of a big galaxy. A puddle that simply wanted to help you and was always there, ready to provide. And now, following Bethesda’s latest Starfield patch, it’s gone. Gone, but not forgotten.
Shortly after the release of Bethesda’s massive space RPG Starfield, players discovered an exploit that had appeared in previous games developed by the studio was alive and well in this newest one. In Akila City, in the middle of a dirt road, was a small puddle of mud. And if you got close to this puddle, and gave it a moment of your time, it would provide you with the entire inventory of a nearby shop thanks to a “merchant chest” that was buried underground there…but not buried deeply enough.
This small, humble puddle provided many players, myself included, with stacks of free-to-grab ammo, credits, and other valuable items that could then be resold to other vendors or hoarded for later use. After a few days, the puddle would refill its items, never stopping you from getting what you needed. A hero unlike any other.
And now it’s dead. Bethesda killed it in Starfield’s 1.7.33 patch. Also dead after that patch: another popular money-making exploit that relied on a similarly easy-to-reach merchant chest. A dark day for us all.
I’ll never forget that magic mud puddle. It provided me with so many guns that I sold to a nearby vendor for extra credits. Countless aliens and pirates across hundreds of planets lay dead and rotting thanks to the ammo provided by that once-glorious magic mud puddle. I made a habit of always visiting the puddle to grab some gifts and say hello to it whenever in Akila City. It was nice. In a universe so cold and filled with death, the puddle—my puddle—stood out. A constant. A beacon of hope. Something everybody could rely on, no matter what.
Now I fear what I’ll find the next time I land on that dirtball. Instead of some mud-covered hope buried in a friendly puddle, I’ll find the empty corpse of a friend, of someone who never let me down, murdered by a software update. Rest in peace, Magic Puddle. You were too good to last forever in such a cruel world.
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