Unplayable mess? I never said that. However, more than a few people had game-breaking bugs in Skyrim and had to restart or hope they had a save from far enough back.
Obviously Skyrim was playable enough since it was an immediate critical success. I can’t really speak for fallout 4 since I never played it and didn’t bother following the news for it.
That being said, there are memes older than some people on lemmy equating Bethesda and bugs. They’ve earned their reputation, but good and bad.