The Fallout series has tarnished its legacy over the past five years. While many loved Fallout 4, many fans were turned off by what they perceived as straying away from the series’ core tenets. Fallout 76’s launch was the biggest blemish yet, barely feeling like a finished product. Bethesda’s projects are often littered with bugs cleaned up afterwards, but this title took it to a whole other level.
Its disaster made fans question the future of the series. More than a year has passed since the lambasted title’s release, and some people are enjoying it. Despite several glaring issues, the game has numerous strengths. The following list will detail five reasons one should give the massive world a second chance, and why the game deserves its rancid reputation.
10 Second Chance: Multiplayer
Everything is more fun with friends, including Appalachia. When traveling and enduring the long load times, it helps to have buddy to talk to. The novelty of playing Fallout with other human beings is enough to propel one through the main quest. Don’t expect to meet up with many strangers out on the road, however.
With a maximum of twenty-four players per map, chance encounters with other humans are few and far between. Finding someone’s highly-developed camp, drinking some fresh water, buying their goods, and using their workbenches is another highlight of the community aspect, however.
9 Deserves Its Reputation: Story
Fallout games often have deep, rich stories balancing personal emotions with large conflicts. The player character often meets numerous interesting characters along the way and forge new relationships. The lack of other humans in the world means even the main quest is told through audio logs, terminals, and notes left around.
When playing with buddies, the last thing one wants to do is wait while someone reads a note or listen to someone’s recording. Most players opt to ignore the actual narrative and go through the motions just to reach the endgame. With the way information is laid out, they cannot be blamed.
8 Second Chance: You Can Skip All The Boring Stuff
Appalachia is brimming with side quests. Sadly, most of them are boring and lacking the emotional weight found in the studio’s prior projects. Fortunately, one can skip all of this nonsense and focus purely on the story content.
If one doesn’t get bogged down by all the secondary objectives, going from place to place during the main story is a solid sightseeing tour through the ruined world.
7 Deserves Its Reputation: Performance Issues
One does not expect such an old gaming engine to have so many performance issues, yet Fallout 76’s frame rate chugs along like a tractor-trailer driving up Lombard Street.
Updates helped, but console players should not be surprised if their game drops down to twenty frames per second for small stretches of time while exploring Appalachia. Not everybody can, nor wants, to play on a PC, so they either have to put up with it or play a different game.
6 Second Chance: Still Feels Like Fallout
Avid fans will still get plenty of mileage out of Fallout 76. The core gameplay is as it was in Fallout 4. Combat, exploration, and the world all scratch a similar itch.
The only major difference is V.A.T.S. losing its ability to stop time, an understandable compromise for an online multiplayer game. Just like some people watch any Star Wars media because of their fascination with the franchise, lovers of the franchise will find something to appreciate from Fallout 76.
5 Deserves Its Reputation: Fallout 1st
Starting in October, 2019, players can become a member of Fallout 1st by paying either thirteen dollars a month or one hundred dollars a year for access to exclusive features.
The controversial move understandably upset countless fans and drew ire from gaming outlets. A barely functioning, full-priced game adding a subscription service before fixing all of its problems is a bold move, and not in a good way. In protest, some gamers took to griefing those who paid for the service.
4 Second Chance: They Have Fixed Many Problems
While Fallout 76 is riddled with issues, Bethesda has released several patches fixing some of the game’s biggest faults. Early on, some of these remedies caused more problems elsewhere, but the world is semi-stable these days.
It still has a long way to go, and it is hard to say if Bethesda will fix everything, but it is at least playable. Besides, some of the current issues lead to some unintentional hilarity. Who doesn’t love dead enemies contorting crazily on the floor?
3 Deserves Its Reputation: Jank
It is difficult to overstate the amount of jank present in the title. Players see enemies in the distance before they become hostile as they just stand there waiting to activate, some parts of the game world load in after the player arrives, and button prompts often don’t activate upon first usage.
The title has made leaps and bounds in this department since launch, but it is still not up to an acceptable standard. One expects these issues from a Steam early access title, and not from a sixty dollar game from a AAA studio.
2 Second Chance: More Is On The Way
Despite its initial failure, Bethesda has not given up and is adding more content this year. The Wastelanders update will finally add NPCs, which will surely spice things up. We just hope it doesn’t come with its own slew of bugs and glitches.
Now is a good time to get in on the action and see the world change when the update goes live. Assuming this is not the last change, one can only imagine what other things Bethesda has up its sleeves.
1 Deserves Its Reputation: The World Still Feels Empty
Appalachia is the biggest game world Fallout has ever seen, yet it also feels the emptiest. The lack of enemy variety, large stretches of wilderness between locations, and absence of NPCs make journeying through the land boring. While the third issue will be remedied soon, it is hard to say if it will make up for the world’s other faults.
Size means nothing if there is nothing to do inside the map. It makes one remember Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind’s relatively minuscule map. Despite its size, one could find secrets and new stories in every corner of its world.
Next: Ranking The 10 Best Open-World RPGs
