When it comes to backlashes and outrage, Star Wars: Battlefront II's lootbox announcement probably takes the cake. Fallout 76's launch had nearly as much backlash, but it was strange - a mixture of outrage and disappointment or maybe even sadness. Bethesda Game Studios is one of gaming's most beloved developers. While there's always a contrarian crowd, by and large, gamers overwhelmingly loved their games. To see Fallout 76 coming from BGS just imbued a sense of extreme disappointment resulting in anger.
But is Fallout 76 really that bad? When Todd Howard announced Fallout 76 at E3 as a multiplayer-only title, alarm bells were already ringing. The trailer was great, but people weren't impressed by the now-outdated graphics. Still, some remained cautiously optimistic. As the months rolled by, through the press event, the beta, things became pretty clear - this is not the game that people had been wanting. So, to, thought Bethesda themselves, openly admitting that they were stepping into the unknown, and had no idea how things would turn out.
Then came the launch, and oh boy, what a disaster it was. BGS' games are infamous for being buggy, but in the past we'd overlook those as they were the only studio in the world who were creating such rich open world RPG simulations. Granted, we have seen the likes of Kingdom Come Deliverance and The Witcher 3 attempt to recreate the model, and those games were incredibly buggy at release too, so I suppose it's part and parcel of this genre. Fallout 76, however, took the cake. It was impossible to play the game at release without some kind of glitch or bug affecting your experience. To be fair, it's not as bad as some make out - there weren't really any game breaking bugs. Indeed, it's probably a better state than Fallout: New Vegas was at launch. Still, it was a tremendously disappointing launch, to the extent that I sat out the first month waiting for some bug fixes.
The bug fixes did come, and by month 2, the game was in a much better state. Funny visual glitches galore, but at least the game was now playable. There was the occasional server disconnect, but with the constant cloud saving, it was never more than a minor annoyance. By now, most of the audience were long and gone, and few were discussing the game that was underneath it all. Fallout 76's open world is incredible, wonderful, a real thrill ride from north to south. It's arguably BGS' best open world yet, and that automatically makes it one of the best open worlds ever created. No, I'm not being sarcastic, this is not a joke - it really is that good - thoroughly inventive, full of creative touches, and always a sheer joy to explore. This is one of those rare open worlds where I would want to explore and see every nook and cranny for myself, for no other reason than the joy of exploration. The art direction is impeccable, but it's let down by an aging engine - the graphics are quite simply not up to modern standard. There's definitely an effort to update it, but ultimately it all feels a bit lipstick-on-a-pig. Another issue is, while BGS nails the macro world, it does lack micro detail.
Another area where Fallout 76 shines is with lore and environmental storytelling. Without giving any spoilers, every quest and storyline has its related environmental story that fills in the details. The overarching narrative itself is quite the journey, with elements of mystery, horror and wonder throughout. Finally, there are some incredible side questlines - The Order of Mysteries being one of the very best of Fallout, and by extension, gaming in general.
The whole gimmick about there being no human NPCs is most likely a technical one. At first, it's pretty neat to go investigating and discovering so much through pure environmental storytelling. The game also has a brutal, isolating feeling, ironically for a multiplayer game. However, it gets old in a few hours. While the narrative is pretty cool, like I mentioned above, discovering it all in such a passive way for the entire duration just feels forced and repetitive. Playing the game in co-op with a friend does somewhat mitigate this.
Fallout 76 also features an incredibly deep simulation, featuring a whole plethora of mechanics. Come to think of it, it's probably the most in-depth simulation ever committed to a game. Whether it be weapons, cooking, armour, or just basic objects - there's an insane amount of content here. There are plenty of quality-of-life improves over Fallout 4, and the Perk card system is BGS' best levelling up system yet.
So, Fallout 76 is definitely not a lazy cash grab. You can really feel the developers' passion all over the game, in various ways. There's a ton of fundamentally high quality content here. What went wrong, then? I think it's simply a matter of being over-ambitious, and the engine simply not being up to the task of delivering on this ambition. The developers have admitted themselves that they did not anticipate so many issues, and many of them weren't even known till after release. In hindsight, there should have been a much longer beta period, and the game should have been released a year later. In short, wonderful vision, woeful execution.
It's not all over though, for now, BGS has committed to Fallout 76 long term. Over the course of 2019, there was pretty cool content. Indeed, using the live service model, they experimented with long form narratives, where certain stories were teased over weeks, through environmental storytelling, before finally dropping questlines. This is definitely a really cool way of using a live service game, and Fallout 76 had a pretty clever execution. The battle royale mode was fun too - offering a uniquely Fallout twist to the genre. Unfortunately, right when things were looking up, a bunch of exploits started popping up. While BGS has been quick to mitigate most of these, there lingers a shadow over the game's anti-cheat capabilities.
The next big step for Fallout 76 is Wastelanders, due to release in a couple of weeks. Indeed, this post is in anticipation of it. My first major complaint is being scratched off - human NPCs are back! It's not just a reactionary addition, but completely justified by the lore of the game. Those who played Fallout 76 will know that humans were always going to be back. To make this happen, they had to develop new instancing tech, which will isolate your world (and your friends) from strangers when it comes to RPG-like interaction decision making. There's more good news - the dialogue system is reverted to having arbitrary choices, unlike Fallout 4's contrived 4-option layout. Tons of skill checks are back, making it more like Fallout: New Vegas, including some clever innovations like negative skill checks. The new RPG camera is pretty neat too. My other criticism about the world lacking some of the micro detail - a lot of it is being filled in as humans return. What about stability? BGS delayed the DLC by a quarter to ensure polish, and there's been private beta servers running for a couple of months now. I still expect plenty minor bugs, but I remain cautiously optimistic that it'll be well playable at launch.
So, should you play Fallout 76? No, not right now, but definitely when Wastelanders releases. Or maybe after a month or so, as bugs are inevitable for the launch period. For Fallout fans, it's a must play - even the base game, which will also be enhanced with Wastelanders. But with human NPCs returning, I remain cautiously optimistic that a lot of people will return.
That sounds really positive! 🙂
I was interested in Fallout 76 when it was first released but I needed a new gaming laptop before even seriously considering to try it. Maybe in a few months!
The good thing is, the game is continuously improving. Here's hoping it'll live up to expectations in the months to come.