Preview & Review: Fallout 76 BETA (25+ Hours)
As the timer counts down towards the release of Fallout 76, players who pre-ordered the game had a chance to play it early in the games “Break-it Early Test Application”, otherwise known as the Beta test. While the time it was available was limited, it was pitched as the full game and gave us plenty of insights into what’s to come.
First things first: I was playing the game on your average Xbox One S. What’s also important to remember is that this was a pre-release build of the game so it may not necessarily be representative of the final product. That said, with the Beta being so close to the launch, I would personally argue that the released Beta build will be near identical to what we can expect to see on release. Bethesda has said they plan on supporting and tweaking the game for a long time to come so for all we know things could be moulded and changed considerably over time (as more increasingly seems to be the case with games nowadays). But we will take what we’ve seen for now and extrapolate from their, shall we?
As you can imagine, the announcement of an always-online Fallout multiplayer experience was met with a mixed response, with many fans of the series concerned about how such a dramatic shift in genre may change the franchise and gameplay experience. Furthermore, the balancing and utilisation of PvP modes was also a point of contention, with fans concerned that intrusive players and behaviour could harm or outright ruin the game for more passive players.
So, with Fallout 76 trying to balance the old and familiar with the new and uncertain, what can players expect from the game, and will it offer something for newbies and series veterans alike? Fallout 76 is a strange tale. For a fan that’s put thousands of hours into the series over the years, I’m still not sure what kind of game it wants to be or who it is aimed at. Is it a good game? Yes. But we really need to talk about what kind of game it is.
From the get-go, it’s been apparent that this isn’t the kind of Fallout game most have become accustomed to since Bethesda took the reigns with Fallout 3 just over a decade ago. While we would still have a whacky post-apocalyptic open-world to explore, we would now be able to do so with friends and foes alike. The series was going to be venturing into the realm of multiplayer and would feature a sprawling always-online landmass that was barren of human NPC’s. For a franchise that has a purely singleplayer RPG foundation, the transition to a genre that offered rotating events, PvP encounters and no human NPC interaction was a prospect that scared many but excited others.
Over the course of the numerous days the beta was available, I managed to accumulate just shy of 25 hours with the game which gave me a good chance to see much of the world, complete a number of quests and events, slay a few hundred enemies and even take on a handful of other players. While I was able to dabble in many of the gameplay aspects Fallout 76 has to offer, it should be kept in mind that the world is around four times the size of “the Commonwealth” from Fallout 4, so there was inevitably plenty I wasn’t able to see and do as well. That said, I can tell you now that my time with the beta was extensive enough for me to know what to expect on launch day and it was, for better or worse, an incredibly mixed bag.
Your time in West Virginia starts exactly as you would expect: you wake up in your vault and have to venture to the surface. It’s only 25 years or so since the bombs fell but it’s “Reclamation Day” and your vault is opening up so you can head out and begin rebuilding America. Your Overseer has already left to pursue her own specific mission directives so you aim to track her whereabouts, find out what’s going on and (naturally) get sidetracked by everything else on the way.
Fallout 76 wastes no time in getting you out the door and ready to adventure, with the opening sequence being over in a matter of minutes. You’ll be introduced to the core mechanics by some informative displays and robots on your way out but the aim is to have you exploring as soon as possible. You’ll step out of your vault with what’s likely to be a good few other dwellers too and once you have, a sprawling wasteland awaits.
With this game being situated so close to the date of the bombs dropping, the wasteland you find yourself in looks vastly different from those we’ve explored in the series so far. With your surroundings still largely intact and with the dead and dry landscapes instead being replaced by a fair share of lush greenery, it’s a familiar but still noticeably different tone. This time around, your world is split into six differentiated regions that all feature their own plethora of unique environments, enemies and locales. The opening of the game takes place in the more tranquil forested region as you follow the small handful of clues you have on what’s happened and where you should go. Indeed, this was the area I spent the first 15 or so hours before I crossed the bordesr into new and scarier areas.
These first few quests are crucial in giving you an understanding of the game in every regard. You’re first two dozen hours will give you a grasp of combat, crafting, questing, events, storytelling, PvP encounters and, generally, a feel for what the game has to offer for what may well be hundreds of hours of your time. With a game this large, it’s difficult to tell how representative of the whole game the Beta is but I found that my fairly extensive time with it so far was centred around the same gameplay loops long after I’d crossed into new territories. If you enjoy what you play of the first 20 hours, you’ll likely enjoy the game overall. It aims to hook you on various reward cycles that expand slowly over time. What’s key to all of this though is knowing what works and what doesn’t within Fallout 76 because if one thing is clear it’s that war... war can change.
As already noted, you’re tasked with finding out why the Overseer left early and what agenda she’s keeping from Vault 76’ residents. Your initial travels will split into two different paths; following the official logs of your Overseer and tracking her movements while she chases her secret briefing or splintering off and finding her personal logs as she revisited important locations from her life in Appalachia before she became an Overseer. These two very different stories intertwine for the first 10 or so hours before becoming separated but they co-exist just long enough that you’ll come to understand the various aspects of gameplay thrown at you before you find yourself in more deadly waters.
As with any of the games, you will explore the world and scavenge for the supplies you’ll need in this new world. Weapons, armour and ammo are just as vital as ever but now you’ll also need to pay extra attention to junk items, meds, food and water. With a slightly heavier focus on survival gameplay, you’ll now need to eat and drink in order to keep your character functioning properly and item weight has been altered in order to further bolster this new gameplay focus. With every bullet, brahmin steak and bottled water weighing you down, you’ll now have to be more selective of the things you would normally endlessly horde. This need to stay fed and watered feeds in to the cycles of gameplay you’ll tread in order to keep busy and gives you more reason to scavenge and explore without it bogging you down too much. Thankfully it’s not so intrusive that it’ll annoy you but it’s a mechanic that’s present enough to be worth keeping an eye on. It’s a nice mix of old and new that lets both seasoned and inexperienced players jump in with new things to learn.
While these survival elements are lifted and altered from other Fallout “hardcore” modes, making a return after an absence in Fallout 4 is weapon degradation too, meaning you’ll have to maintain the condition of your weapons. Gone are the days where you could build up your ideal gun and never have to touch another weapon again, with players now being encouraged to loot everything they can and inspect all the firearms and melee weapons they find. Better yet, spare weapons can be acquired and scrapped either for parts or for recipes that’ll grant you access to new upgrades. Yet to unlock the potential of your trusty 10mm pistol? Scrap a few others and learn how to expand the clip, modify the sights and tune the receiver.
This approach is applied to armour too, with various pieces allowing for customisation and modifying. Better yet, you can apply a visual layer on top of your gear stats so you can be dressed as a raider, police officer, clown or whatever else you find while still boasting some beefy defensive stats. This reintroduction to scrapping and gathering also means that players can sacrifice spare weapons or armour for parts that can then be used to fix their current loadout. The more you rely on a single weapon the more often you’d have to tend to it, so the return of degradation is a welcome one; there’s more reason than ever to explore and scavenge and further reason still to vary your play style and weapon choice, else you face an inventory full of battered and broken loot.
Character progression has also received a bit of a revamp in Fallout 76. Bethesda had already reworked the” S.P.E.C.I.A.L” system and perk system in their last entry, but with this new game being multiplayer oriented, the systems have received another re-haul in order to streamline and simplify them before then being rebalanced to favour this new direction for the series. Levelling now hands you a point to spend in a S.P.E.C.I.A.L stat of your choosing as well as access to a new perk. The more points you have in each stat, the more perks (or, rather, perk cards) you can place within.
This new take on levelling is certainly a good fit for the game, with the flexibility and simplicity lending itself far better to the RPG-lite Fallout 76 seems designed to be. The option to now re-spec your perk loadout on the fly allows for players to dynamically approach situations as they present themselves. Just as with many aspects of the game, the perks also strike a balance between old and new. Among the damage modifiers, capacity boosters and consumable buffs, you’ll now find a plethora of perk cards that pertain to the multiplayer component of Fallout 76. Some perk cards can be “shared” with your squad causing their effects to benefit your whole party. This kind of approach gives players the chance to work together and even play as particular roles. Some may want to act as a medic. Some may focus on sneaking and melee damage. Some may want to act as the pack mule. While there are inevitably going to be plenty of players that prefer solo play, there’s plenty of incentive to play with a friend or three.
Of course, this transition to multiplayer also brings a few complications. The “V.A.T.S” system, a staple of the series so far, traditionally stopped or slowed time and allowed players to highlight particular areas of a target. With 76 being an always-online multiplayer game, this system would never work in such a genre. Instead, this too has been redesigned, with V.A.T.S now maintaining its tactical targeting origins but instead during real-time combat. It’s a logical step given the change in design but it is, sadly, not one that works all too well. Using V.A.T.S in this way is a mixed bag of results; initiating causes the statics to stutter before they settle on even a non-moving target and stops V.A.T.S from being properly used in tense situations. It’s also rather jarring that, without a cinematic camera, kills using V.A.T.S can seem so unrealistic; the disparity between a players location and their enemies is no longer blurred and with slim odds presenting themselves when an enemy is very clearly not lined up in your sights, you may find yourself netting some impossible and painfully unbelievable kills that break your immersion entirely. Firing a rifle dead ahead of you but being able to kill a ghoul on a rooftop high up to your far left pulls you right out of the experience. The transition to real-time V.A.T.S has sadly exposed the weaknesses of a system that was so glorious in Fallout’s previous ventures but at least the option is still there for those that want it.
That said, combat has seen some improvements since Fallout 4. With more weapons, armour and modifications available than ever before, there’s more variety to the combat that Fallout 76 now leans on so heavily. There’s a decent share of the more familiar weapons, with baseball bats, laser rifles, pipe pistols and miniguns available to you. But with the game being set only 25 years after the bombs, weapons are a little cleaner than usual and more of a variety presents itself. As people have evidently struggled to survive, you’ll find more creative weapons within the world too, whether it be a ski that’s been sharpened into a sword or a snare drum that’s been turned into a make-shift spiked sledgehammer. Weapons feel satisfying to use and combat feels smooth enough to remain entertaining throughout. Sound design for the various firearms and weapons has also received some fine tuning, with each shot feeling more impactful than ever and ringing out into the environment in a more believable way.
What helps bolster this though is the huge amount of modifications you can make to the weapons and armour you find. The level of depth means there is plenty to see and do before you unearth all of the modifications within the world. What’s nice is that two players could have different variations on a weapon that function so differently despite being based on the same framework. Combining this variety with the gameplay cycles of repairing, modifying and scavenging leads to a satisfying loop that’ll keep your character and combat style forever changing for some time to come.
What could potentially cause issues for players in combat, however, is the further troubles that come with an online game. One thing that plagued me in my first session of the game was a particularly poor internet connection on that night. While it’s hopefully something that most won’t have to worry about, any player that has poor internet will struggle with the game. During the worst instances, this made the game unplayable: melee hits simply wouldn’t register and made combat a complete guessing game. Loot within containers wouldn’t load and audio diaries would reset repeatedly when they were half way through playing. This was an issue that didn’t surface in later sessions but it is always worth keeping in mind. With the previous issues that surfaced with V.A.T.S, these too may well be exploited in PvP modes.
Likewise, I did experience a handful of server disconnects, though only 3 times in the space of around 25 hours. It’s not a major issue given the small amount of them I faced but it did lead to some unexpected consequences. During my second unfortunate kicking from the game world, I had just levelled up and opened up a perk card pack. Before being booted, I hit level 10 and looked upon the cards (and stick of gum wrapped in a joke) I’d earned from my efforts. I was relieved to see one of the perks I had gotten allowed my junk items to weigh considerably less which would certainly help me in the early game as I learnt the new mechanics. It was rather upsetting then that, when I rejoined after being disconnected, my last saved instance was from moments before I opened this perk card pack. Opening it once again rerolled the numbers and I was left with a bunch of different cards I instead had no use for. Some would argue it isn’t a huge deal but I felt cheated for reasons that were beyond my control. Other instances of server disconnects also led to me losing out on loot I had found, XP that I had earned and upgrades I had made. It’s a shame that these performance issues were actually in the minority when compared to various other problems I experienced during my time with 76 because these were minor in comparison. There were a number of other performance issues that popped up very consistently through the sessions and these are ones that shouldn’t be so incredibly frequent so close to the launch. What’s more, the potential for constant updates or server down-time could potentially hamper the game for some, though that’s in the hands of Bethesda.
Firstly, framerate issues were rampant and so much so that it made me question if the game should be releasing this November. When game media types were given the chance to play the game in early October, framerate drops were a common problem here too. At the time, Bethesda cited the fact the build was a little old and said that the area around the spawn point and been heavily optimised but was less so the further players wandered. With an explanation like that, you’d think it was understandable. Much to my dismay though, the games performance was rocky consistently. It’s hard to point to an exact cause because it was so often, with the frame rate dropping pretty often and even to single figures in a good number of instances.
Certain areas of the map seemed to cope well, with the Forest area beyond Vault 76 holding up well. Areas that spawned in large numbers of enemies, particularly during timed public events, began to cause the framerate to drop somewhat noticeably however. Things seemed to worsen as I ventured far beyond the Forest and gameplay became choppy during thick fog or within busy interiors. However, the worse instances were when managing weapons and armour within workbenches; every time I spent a while scrapping, customising and tweaking multitudes of weapons the game would drop to a rate of only a few frames per second. I’d be unable to scroll through menus or exit the workbench because the game couldn’t register my inputs and with the game focusing so heavily on weapon/armour/junk management, this was outright baffling to see. For a big-budget game to drop in terms of performance here and there isn’t unheard of but the issues were so common during my 25 or so hours of gameplay that it made the game seem outright unfinished and certainly not ready for “full” release in less than a week.
Just as common were issues with lighting in the world, with the dense forestation seemingly to be the root of it. New lighting, landscaping and rendering technology have done a lot to bring the visuals of the game forward, and being able to see the landscape with increased detail at a further distance is stunning, though not without its flaws. Scanning your horizon you’ll often see shadows pop in and out under surfaces rather jarringly at will. There was also a good number of times where my environments would fail to load properly causing me to be stood at the foot of a building that had blurred and stretched textures instead of the crisper and more detailed ones it should’ve rendered by the time of my arrival. It’s something that’s not unheard of in Bethesda games but the rate with which these problems surfaced was too much to simply shrug off.
It’s a real shame too because, for the most part, Fallout 76’ version of Appalachia is a sprawling, beautiful and often exciting place.
Within every Fallout game, the exploration of the world and discovery of the bizarre things within it are what keep most players hooked for countless hours. Fallout 76 presents a region like none we’ve seen before and gives us a chance to see what the world was like in the more immediate aftermath of the bombs. During all of my time with the game, I was constantly impressed by how engrossing most of the world was. The combination of superb environmental design, environmental storytelling and a breathtaking soundtrack from Inon Zur made for quite the memorable adventure.
With so little time passing since the Great War, we get to see more mutated creatures then ever before, more fairly intact locations than ever and more diversity in environments by a country road mile. With a map that’s four times the size of Fallout 4’s, there should be plenty more to see and do during your time with the game. Having visited a number of the 6 regions during my time with 76, I can certainly say that the usual visual flare and style of Fallout remains, while still offering something new to see round every corner.
It’s interesting to see how the new playable area is designed, with each of the 6 subsections having its own distinguishable style. The Forest acts as the more tranquil and rural training area. Toxic Valley and the Ash Heap give players two more inhospitable and barren landscapes to scavenge from. The Mire and Cranberry Bog provide players with gloomy marshland and overgrown vegetation that is now twisted and overgrown and full of nasty creatures. Between all of this is the Savage Divide, a mix of all the regions that gives players a bit of everything. The variety in locales gives you a reason to keep moving and there’s always something in the distance that will grab your eye. Just as Fallout 4 aimed to introduce more verticality in the map design, so to does Fallout 76 though to a far greater and more successful extent. You’ll often find yourself atop a highrise or cliff-edge staring out at your surroundings.
That said, you’ll have a plenty of tasks to undertake in these regions too. Enemies are plentiful and, as so many other aspects of the game, strike a balance between old and new. Feral ghouls are more abundant in number given the history of the region since the bombs, but you’ll still see your fair share of mole rats, radroaches and Protectrons. Unique to Appalachia are new enemy types like the Scorched (a not-quite-feral-esque bunch of mysteriously infected humans), Mole Men, Possums and dreaded Scorchbeast mini-bosses.
This push for variety has also extended to the buildings and sights of Appalachia too. The more rural aesthetic has allowed for a departure from the abandoned concrete jungles of past games and, while derelict towns and cities are more dense than ever, other places of interest are scattered generously around too. You’ll still see the more familiar and common locales but the more rural touch of West Virginia now allows for trips to nuclear power plants, ski resorts, independent restaurants, mine shafts, logging companies and more. Vault-Tec University, the place to be for wannabe Overseers, was a particular delight and featured some of the funniest written lore I’d seen in some time. The world feels bigger and more diverse than ever before. And somehow, it’s also the most empty a Fallout game has ever been.
Unlike the Capital Wasteland, Mojave or Commonwealth, Fallout 76 gives you a landscape that will make you feel truly isolated. Despite the ability to explore the world with friends, Bethesda have designed the world to feel like a lonely place. It makes sense. You are, after all, the first large population of people to explore the region in some time. But key to this change is the fact that the only humans you will interact with are other players and that Appalachia features no human NPC’s at all. This design choice was supposedly made so that player to player interactions would tell their own stories; if you hear a gunshot in the distance, that likely means another player is gunning down enemies… or gunning for you. This of course also means that you won’t be finding any functioning settlements or any quest givers in the world and your story and lore will be delivered instead through terminal entries, found notes, audio logs or robots. It’s a shame knowing you’ll never stumble across desperate survivors or a bustling merchant town. Even Raiders are absent from the game unless you count the corpses you find.
This design choice is reflected in the world around you, especially so as you venture out from your Vault and explore the town of Flatwoods to the South. You’ll begin following a trail of breadcrumbs left by your Overseer and head from A to B to C as you’re drip-fed further details. Doing so provides you with a steady feed of holotapes that pad out the story of the world around you and the Overseer you’re on the trail of. Likewise, being introduced to a group called the Responders early on provides further quests and information. While those stationed at Flatwoods are nothing more than corpses, you can choose to follow their trail and go from A to B to C. Sidemissions found within Flatwoods also give you a chance to soak up further story and find out what happened to the bodies you find scattered around the town. For the first few hours, it was quite the mystery and one I wanted to get to the bottom of.
What’s a real shame is that nearly every quest I had within 25 hours boiled down to one of a handful of mission types. With the main plotlines revolving around the Overseer, her personal logs, the Responders and/or the Scorched, they all ended up being a case of following a trail of breadcrumbs that was occasionally stalled by the inclusion of a corpse and/or note to read or listen to. In a world that has so much potential for great storytelling given the chaos that would ensue after a nuclear event, you’re instead treated to far less of it than ever before. Instead, you find yourself plodding from empty location to empty location catching up on an interesting story you’re not really a part of. The design choice to make a world absent of human NPC’s instead becomes a design flaw so baked in to the game that it likely won’t ever be addressed.
It’s heartbreaking to see because there are promising moments throughout that tease what could be a brilliant game. Writing within the audio and written logs have seen a significant improvement and strike a nice balance between informative, world-building and the dark humour that Fallout is known for. They can never make up for the hole that a lack of NPC’s leaves, but they do their best at least. There are no memorable people to meet and interesting interactions last little more than a minute before they fade from memory. This huge world somehow leaves little of an impression on you and you leave no impression on it. This change means that Fallout 76 is forced to lean on the combat and exploration further but the latter also suffers because of the lack of colourful characters.
Half the appeal of exploring new locations is wondering what you’ll find there. You’ll still be able to gather supplies and read info that supplements the world around you, but that curiosity is hindered. Whenever you approach somewhere new, you won’t be wondering who you will meet within because it’ll either be empty or contain a bunch of corpses. This is less apparent in the first 10 hours but once you’ve played more than that, it quickly becomes repetitive and disappointing. With junk and weapons so plentiful, exploring becomes a little fruitless quite quickly. The potential for interesting stories is certainly there and meeting a Mrs Nanny robot who goes on to tell you the story of Little Red Riding hood (albeit with an ending that involves her killing the Big Bad Wolf herself to save the day) is a weird but fun ordeal. It’s just a crime that you’ll never meet a character who has lived and survived in Appalachia and has branching quests to give you. Why explore new locations when all they really have to offer you is junk and enemy encounter you can find almost anywhere else.
This very well may change going forward if the game is given the longevity we’ve been promised. Separate world hubs could easily be introduced, akin to Destiny 2’s Farm, and could be full of living and interesting characters without muddying the design they aimed for within their version of West Virginia. In my opinion, this is a necessity - the world above ground is not really an interesting one and simply isn’t engrossing enough to keep people entertained for the hundreds of hours it will probably take to explore the map. Looting and upgrading may keep people hooked for some time but, rather ironically, the lack of humanity in the post-apocalypse really holds the game back. We have less reason to be invested in the world, less reason to explore this world and, worse yet, less impact upon it.
Of course, this design choice may well have been chosen in an effort to both help further encourage those player interactions Bethesda was excited for. Having teamed up with various players and teams of various sizes, the game certainly shines a little brighter during co-operative play. Public events and campsite defense is far more rewarding when working as part of a collaborative effort and the ability to trade or communicate with players helps you find those elusive items you’re hurting for. Given the focus on inventory management, having to work together as well as share your rewards adds a nice extra layer of strategy to the game. Do I want to horde my loose screws for myself or give some to my buddy so he can repair his armour and help me venture into tougher areas for better rewards? For a game that’s clearly more intended for larger and more casual audiences, this is a smart move. Teaming up certainly makes the game flow and play better but likely means you’ll miss out on things as a result
This philosophy does counteract the behaviours of most Bethesda game players though who tend to horde items, explore at a slower pace and pause to soak in the story elements they find. If you’re one of those people, waiting around is something you’ll be doing an awful lot given how often you’re given notes to read or lengthy audio logs to listen to. Slower paced players will hopefully enjoy the game just fine but may be hindered by interruptions and increased time dedicated to reading. For solo players, many perk cards will also prove useless to you, enemies will ramp up in difficulty more quickly and events and the like become much harder to complete - a slightly unfair balance if you’re unable to join groups for reasons beyond your control.
Of course, whether you like to play together or alone, the player versus player aspect of the game will likely draw players of all kinds in, to some extent anyway. When news broke that Fallout 76 would be an online game players instantly became concerned about how Bethesda planned to combat toxic behaviour and trolling from other players. What were the risks and rewards of facing off against another real person? Have Bethesda done enough to keep it fun but fair? Well rest assured there are enough measures in place to keep rotten Vault Dwellers at bay. Dying leads to you dropping only your junk items and you’ll never lose your most coveted clothing or firearms taken. You can backtrack and collect your dropped loot if it’s still there but anything stolen is usually easily replaced. Likewise, players who repeatedly attack the innocent are labelled as “wanted” and have a bounty placed on them that other players are encouraged to claim.
During the reveal of the game, Todd Howard stressed that a “slap mechanic” was in place so that you can avoid unwanted confrontation; initial damage is lessened until your opponent chooses to engage back. It’s clear they’ve put plenty of obstacles in the way for those who want to ruin the game for other people. But, as with other elements of the games design, 76 is trying to be the jack of all trades and instead becomes the master of none. With the player to player interactions intended to be a key in telling stories within the world and providing meaningful gameplay, the scales have been tipped a little too far. Rather than discourage unwanted excessive behaviour, the game has instead discouraged people from these kind of behaviours entirely. Players can’t initiate tense interactions on the fly because of the checks in place and more often than not will instead shrug off or outright ignore other players. Firefights among players are never genuine simply because a non-verbal agreement has to be forcibly placed via gameplay first. You’ll never stumble upon another player and panic. Most of the time, you won’t even care.In my 25 or so hours I only ever saw one instance of PvP and it was over in a matter of seconds before the players skipped off away from each other like nothing had ever happened.
Once again, this is something that could be easily fixed. Rather than opt-in versus, an opt-out method would likely work better. For a game that revolves around online survival gameplay and tense player interactions, such a method would leave players always looking over their shoulders and more likely to duke it out amongst each other instead of throwing an emote and strolling on by. Equally, the lack of PvP and non-PvP servers is a little baffling. It seems like a lack of forethought on their part and is another reason that I left the experience feeling like it was far from completion. There’s so much potential for dynamic gameplay and stories to come purely from the players themselves but, as it stands so far, these opportunities have yet to be utilised.
By the time the server shut off for the last time before the launch, I had seen a lot of Appalachia. I’d explored a variety of colourful environments, looted and upgraded a plethora of armour pieces and weapons, soaked in an array of stories and mediums and gotten to grips with what to expect from a game that would likely take hundreds of hours to “complete”, if that is indeed the word. As a huge Fallout fan, I now know what I’ll be getting from the game when it launches and if it’s a game I want to play more of.
Fallout 76 has a lot of potential. With the chance to be supported with frequent content updates for years to come, there’s plenty that Bethesda can do with it over time. Appalachia is a land of opportunity or, maybe more aptly, missed opportunities. Bethesda wants you to absorb its vast and gorgeous landscape but riddles it with performance issues. Bethesda wants you to explore the long list of locations but gives you less to find in them. Bethesda wants you to tell your own stories with how you interact with other players but doesn’t give you the tools to do so. Bethesda wants you become engrossed in the story that unfolds but doesn’t keep things fresh or alive enough to hold your attention. Bethesda wants you to know that even though Fallout 76 is an online game it won’t be a lesser experience. Sadly, it is exactly that.
There’s a lot of potential nestled within Fallout 76 but for every improvement they’ve made there’s another aspect of the game that suffers and only time will tell if that huge potential will be properly tapped into. With feedback comes changes and with changes comes improvement, or so I hope. This sprawling new world full of colour and variety just doesn’t have anything to do within it. It could be a fantastic game but instead it struggles to even be a mediocre one.
I’ve had a chance to play a decent chunk of the game and, coming from someone who has happily spent countless hours and multiple playthroughs in each Fallout entry to date, I find myself happy to skip Fallout 76. Maybe I will revisit it some months down the line but that entirely depends on how Bethesda handles the game going forward and perhaps it will be a different and more complete experience by mid 2019. Fallout 76 seems to be a little confused as to what kind of game it wants to be and, as such, fails to be a competent game of any kind at all. The only thing I can say for sure is that it somehow hasn’t won over this series fanatic. Not yet.
