What are Glitches in gaming?

Glitches or glitching is a term that is mainly used in the field of video games. Simply put, a glitch refers to an error in a video game. However, not every error is au­to­mat­i­cal­ly a glitch, because there are different clas­si­fi­ca­tions depending on the type and severity of the error. A glitch is different from other types of errors, such as bugs and exploits. We’ll explain how glitches occur and when glitching can be ben­e­fi­cial.

Every form of computer program, be it game, ap­pli­ca­tion, or operating system, also comes with its own set of bug terms. Although there are overlaps in some places, the terms glitch, just like bug and exploit, tend to be at­trib­uted to the gaming segment. A look at the de­f­i­n­i­tion also makes it clear why this is the case. Literally, glitch means something like “a small dis­tur­bance in the program flow”. This means that the user notices an error, but the game can otherwise continue to be played.

Glitches often occur when graphics do not load or load in­com­plete­ly, game char­ac­ters get stuck in other objects or surfaces, an­i­ma­tions end abruptly and are thus in­com­plete, or when important boundary elements in the level en­vi­ron­ment do not work. Most glitches are re­pro­ducible, which means that they need to be fixed by a patch from the game’s man­u­fac­tur­er. Al­ter­na­tive­ly, in some cases, an update of the graphics driver can solve the problem, for example, if the glitch is due to outdated software.

Glitches are often very no­tice­able and can be quite creepy depending on their char­ac­ter­is­tics. Apart from a change in gameplay, however, they do not cause any major issues in most cases. This is what fans of the popular action-adventure series Assassin’s Creed ex­pe­ri­enced in 2014, for example, when the then current eighth entry of the main series went on sale with dis­turb­ing graphics glitches. Instead of looking into the elab­o­rate­ly modeled faces of pro­tag­o­nist Arno Dorian or his­tor­i­cal figures like Max­im­i­lien de Robe­spierre or Napoleon, the glitch prevented the face from being loaded correctly. As a result, the char­ac­ters’ heads consisted only of eyeballs and mouths, in addition to the char­ac­ters’ con­tem­po­rary wigs. This glitch did not affect the game’s progress, but it did affect the game’s immersive quality.

This example is also very well suited to dis­tin­guish the term glitch from bug or to show that the bound­aries are sometimes somewhat blurred. Depending on the source, this glitch is also called a “no face” bug. Strictly speaking, this is incorrect, because a bug refers to a serious pro­gram­ming error that can result in re­stric­tions to the game ex­pe­ri­ence, up to and including rendering the game un­playable. This is also the essential char­ac­ter­is­tic of this type of error—bugs can almost always be traced back to in­ac­cu­rate or improper pro­gram­ming.

While a glitch can occur ex­clu­sive­ly in video games, errors in other programs are also called bugs. One of the most well-known bugs of the Windows operating system is the “Blue­screen of Death”, or BSOD. A blue screen including an error message caused the operating system to crash, es­pe­cial­ly in earlier Windows versions.

A third term that both computer game newbies and experts such as streamers on Twitch often mis­tak­en­ly refer to as a glitch is actually an exploit. This is not a bug in the classic sense or a technical in­ad­e­qua­cy, but rather the ex­ploita­tion of a weakness present in the game to gain an advantage.

Par­tic­u­lar­ly in games with a focus on mul­ti­play­er modes, exploits are usually quickly resolved by the de­vel­op­ers and ex­ploita­tion of a certain feature often results in a penalty. For example, an exploit may involve players re­peat­ed­ly per­form­ing certain actions in a set order, such as in­ter­ac­tions with non-player char­ac­ters, trans­ac­tions with merchants, certain movement patterns, or a com­bi­na­tion of all. This gives them an unfair advantage that was not actually intended by the game makers – griefers may also exploit certain mechanics of a game to frustrate other players.

Video games are now highly complex pro­duc­tions that often involve hundreds of de­vel­op­ers at different locations. When the in­di­vid­ual com­po­nents of a game are brought together, a glitch may not be noticed, or is noticed too late, despite the amount of time taken testing the game.

Another com­pli­cat­ing factor is that the games have to function on consoles, and ad­di­tion­al­ly on modern gaming PCs assembled with in­di­vid­ual hardware. Although de­vel­op­ment in­ter­faces like DirectX actually take care of this, it also becomes clear here how well the tech­nol­o­gy has to work together to give users an optimal ex­pe­ri­ence.

However, glitching often has a practical use for de­vel­op­ers as well since the creation of a video game rarely proceeds linearly, de­vel­op­ers and es­pe­cial­ly game testers need to have permanent access to all previous levels and missions after im­ple­ment­ing new game content and features. For this reason, they often de­lib­er­ate­ly leave gaps in the level ar­chi­tec­ture during de­vel­op­ment in order to progress more quickly through the game and better test mechanics. By glitching their way through the game, they save time.

If this kind of de­vel­op­ment glitch is still present in the later game, this can have two main reasons: The glitch was forgotten about, or the developer left it in on purpose.

This is where the glitch comes into play, because if you know the fastest way through the game world via the secret paths, you can easily complete a title that is designed to take several hours in minutes and secure the world record for speedrun­ning that game. For example, speedrun­ners finished the survival game Outlast from 2013 within three minutes instead of embarking on a nearly ten-hour tour through a hospital taken over by homicidal patients. A glitch that lets you run on the door frame and jump to other map areas makes the speedrun possible.

Of course, this only applies to single-player games. In mul­ti­play­er titles, active glitching is often equated with cheating. Server operators, such as from a LS19 server, Minecraft server or CS:GO server, determine the rules for their digital play­ground and usually issue a warning. Anyone who does not comply with these rules can expect to be banned from the server.