Fallout 76 launched a few days back without too much fanfare, inviting anyone willing to spend $59.99 or their regional equivalent on a co-operative survival journey through a post-apocalyptic version of West Virginia. If you’re interested, you can pick the game up directly through Bethesda’s store. But before you do, you may want to check out a few early reviews (some of them still in progress):
PC Gamer In Progress:
For great stretches of time I’m having a lot of fun in Fallout 76. It’s a huge, interesting, comically violent world to inhabit. I’m not really invested the main quest, but several side quests have been intriguing, and ignoring quests and just exploring is rewarding, too. Bugs and optimization and lack of options aside (and that’s quite frankly a lot to set aside), I’m having a good time. It’s a huge, busy world full of diversions and distractions that I’m vaguely annoyed I’m not playing right now because I’m sitting here having to write this. I plan to have a full review up sometime next week.
IGN In Progerss:
But there are some interesting and bizarre quests I’ve encountered that made me forget I was just following a series of instructions from dead people. Having to shoot a rabbit with a mind-reading dart and listening to its deep, confused voice as it fled through the brush was pretty good. Or having to go “make friends” with a deathclaw while it tried to tear me apart at the behest of a foul-mouthed robot raider. Or running an obstacle course through the broken skyscrapers of a destroyed metropolis to prove my physical fitness. These are a welcome variety of mission designs that break up the monotony of the standard “go to a place, kill what’s there, loot a quest item, go to another place to analyze the quest item, collect reward” grind.
Metro In Progress:
To make it a proper survival game would have meant rethinking the basics. What Bethesda has done is shove a couple of additional status bars onto the screen, that you need to keep replenished. Pretty much everything else is carried over from Fallout 4. The pipe revolver neatly encapsulates this laziness: when you run out of ammunition, you can still see shells in the chambers.
All this leads to a whole new set of problems, where what worked in a single-player environment just doesn’t in multiplayer. Take the Pip-Boy inventory system, for example. It was always convoluted, fiddly, and a pain in the bum, but at least the game paused while you wrestled with it. Obviously, there’s no pausing in an online game, so you’ll frequently find yourself frantically scrolling through menus and sub menus trying to find the thing you want while under attack.
Even when you’re not being attacked, the sorting system is annoyingly inadequate. Why aren’t there separate tabs for food, drink, and meds? Why don’t guns, melee weapons, and explosives have their own tabs? Instead you end up with endless lists of disparate items to scroll through, which is just an irritating bore.
Just Push Start 7/10:
Fallout 76 is effectively a multiplayer version of Fallout 4 with a new, and interesting, setting but no conversations. At launch there is no choice but to use the official servers, and there is no date on when an option to run private servers will be implemented. Thankfully, other than a few hiccups on launch day, the official servers seem to be holding up well, and most interactions with other players were friendly enough so you probably needn’t worry about constantly being hassled by others.
Whether swapping NPC conversations for other players works is a bit subjective, though the change is not as severe a detriment to the experience as expected. While the roots of Fallout 76 are firmly in Fallout 4 the final gameplay experience is quite different and so there’s no guarantee that fans of that game will enjoy it. Fallout 76 is worthy of recommendation with two caveats. You have to go in expecting a light multiplayer survival game in an interesting setting, rather than a deep story-focused role-playing game. On top of this, Fallout 76 is a game that really is better with friends, as that is the real replacement for the NPC dialogue in the world – if you’re going in as a solo player you might come away dissatisfied.
Hooked Gamers 7.6/10:
Fallout 76 has me left with mixed feelings, and by and large the simplest way to put it is that it’s not for everyone. If you loved the gameplay Fallout 4, then the chances are you’re going to have fun with this game. If what drives you in games is a main plot you want to see through to the end, you won’t find that motivation here as it just sort of strings you along. If you admired how well blended the worlds were in previous games, you may be put off by how different areas are so clearly divided that it feels like a theme park. Fallout 76 is Fallout, and it isn’t Fallout at the same time. And for all the hype around the multiplayer, both friend and foe, it seems inconsequential most of the time. Just passer-bys on the street more often than not, it’s there but it doesn’t matter. It’s a fun game, but I don’t think it’s going to be a timeless classic I return to time and time again years from now once I feel I’ve had enough.
Xbox Tavern 5.6/10:
Fallout 76 is akin to Ark: Survival Evolved, being that much of its potential is lost in the midst of its many technical faults. To be clear, at its core, this isn’t a bad game, in fact, there’s a lot of fun to be had in its padded world if you enjoy this type of gameplay loop. It’s a shame that in its current form, most of that fun is frequently interrupted by horrendous framerate, countless bugs, delayed rendering, and shoddy design choices.
Attack of the Fanboy 2.5/5:
Fallout 76 is a bold experiment with one of gaming’s biggest and most beloved franchises. Unfortunately the experiment seems like a failure so far. Bugs and glitches are everywhere, but worse is that the core principles of design just don’t function the way they seem like they should. Concessions had to be made in all facets of the experience to make multiplayer work, and sadly the benefits do not outweigh the costs. If you have a good group of dedicated players that will help you dig into the deeper, higher level parts of the game then it starts to grow into something unique and fun. Without that though, most players will abandon the game long before the more interesting elements develop.
Fortunately, according to this this post, the game should be getting a number of new features and fixes in the coming weeks, and those should improve its performance and make it more fun overall. An excerpt:
UPCOMING FIXES BEFORE THE END OF THE YEAR
- November 19 Patch – The next update will focus primarily on game performance and stability on all platforms but will also come with a list of fixes to quests, UI, C.A.M.P.s, and more. Patch notes will be available early next week. This update will be large compared to what we expect for patches going forward. Regular updates will always vary in size, but future updates should be much smaller in comparison.
- Stash Limit Increase – We hear you loud and clear. We will be increasing the stash limit in the coming weeks. The current limit is there for technical reasons, to cap the number of items the game is tracking in the world, including every container and stash. We believe we have some ideas in both the short- and long-term that will address the size without risking stability, but this is one we need to take our time on to make sure it is done right.
- Push to Talk for PC – After listening to all of your concerns, we have made progress on getting this into the game and it will also be included in an update in the next few weeks.
- Ultrawide Support for PC – 21:9 support will be coming soon. We have seen it in testing and it looks awesome.
- FOV Slider for PC – We know this is popular request for our PC players— look for an FOV slider soon.
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