If you had told me back in October 2018 that some of the most fun I would have in a few years time would be playing the embarrassingly broken Fallout 76 with my friends, I would have laughed.
Fallout 76 has come a long way from the messy state that it launched in. For one, it actually has a lot of content now in the form of tons of quests, actual NPCs, public events, daily activities, seasonal events, and just generally so many things you can do either by yourself or with friends. Over the past 6 months, I’ve logged about 300 hours in Fallout 76. Most of that has been with my wife and some friends, often in a group of 2 or 4, but I’ve also done plenty of content solo. Additionally, I’ve met and made friends in the game as the community is generally quite good. When we were new, we’d often stumble across high level players who would give us stimpacks, outfits, crafting plans, and a variety of other useful items to help us get started. Eventually, when we were higher level, we started hanging around the starting area and doing the same for other players. It’s a fun community.
The other notable thing that has improved since Fallout 76’s launch is general bugs and game stability; however, this one comes with a bit of a caveat. While the game certainly performs better than it did at launch, this is by no means the stable bug-free experience you’d expect from an online game that’s been running for 4 years. It’s still very much a Bethesda game. The goofy bugs like enemies clipping through floors or standing with their back to you while having a conversation are fine, but the real issue are the bugs that halt progress or interrupt your gameplay. While disconnects are infrequent, they still happen and it’s annoying when they do. I’ve also run into quests that I’ve had to reset multiple times because NPCs fail to trigger correctly, walk the correct paths, or even show up in the location they’re supposed to be in. I’ve Google’d issues before to find that some quests have been barely functional for 2 years but Bethesda does nothing to fix it. Despite its massive improvements, the game is still pretty janky.
The other technical issues of the game come down to game limitations and general performance problems. The load times, for instance, are pretty awful. My wife is playing on PS4 and she’d have to wait for several minutes when fast-traveling. Even on PS5, because they never released a native PS5 version, the load times are pretty rough. The camp building portion of the game also suffers from the technical limitations. The game places a limit on the amount of objects you can have in your home but it often feels arbitrary and is not communicated particularly well. A small flat wall-mounted poster takes up the same amount of budget in your camp as a lush, potted plant. I’m no game designer, but that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
The CAMP-building portion of the game is ripped right out of Fallout 4. For our first couple dozen hours with Fallout 76, we completely ignored the base-building. I genuinely did not care about making some cool camp. But the more I played, the more I came across rad player camps and found more plans of my own, that eventually I wanted to make something cool. Once we started actually making our camps, that became the number one draw of the game. Everything we did in the game from that point on was with one goal in mind - how can we get more plans to build more cool shit at our camps? Your camp isn’t just a place to go home and store your gear, your camp is your trophy shelf to show off all the cool rare things you’ve found in your time exploring Appalachia. Having another player roll into your camp, run around and check everything out, and then run up to you and do the “Cool CAMP!” emote was always immensely satisfying. I was proud of the home I built for myself, so much so that saying goodbye to it was the saddest part about finally quitting the game.
The ongoing support for Fallout 76 has been pretty impressive. Every few months they launch a new season with a new theme, and with that season they’ll add new content to the game that’s free for all players. Sometimes that comes in the form of an incredibly beefy update like the Wastelanders DLC, which added new quest lines, NPCs, new locations, and way more. Other times, it comes in the form of something smaller like the Nuka World On Tour DLC which added a new Nuka World location, some fun carnival games, and a bunch of Nuka World-themed public events you could participate in to earn unique weapons. The best part about all of this content is it’s not timed, so joining the game years into its run meant we had a ton of bonus content to enjoy.
As with any ongoing game like this, there are microtransactions that help fund continued development of the game. The microtransactions in this game come in the form of cosmetic items (armor paint, gun skins, and outfits), fun items for your camp (toys, decorations, furniture, etc), and their Fallout 1st monthly membership. The problem is, they kind of make it so that not joining their monthly program makes your gameplay noticeably more of a pain. You have an extremely finite amount of storage in the game, and with a survival game like this where you’re constantly looting and hoarding materials for crafting, it ends up being a pain in the ass. However, for just $10 a month this can all be solved by joining Fallout 1st which unlocks a junk box (with unlimited storage for crafting materials), and an ammo box (with unlimited storage for ammo). I relied on these so much that when it came time to cancel or renew my 1 month trial of Fallout 1st, I kept it because not having those would’ve made my gameplay experience noticeably worse. I don’t love having something like that locked behind a monthly membership. Sure it’s not necessary and you can play without it, but boy does it make your life a lot easier to have it.
All-in-all, I genuinely loved the few months I spent with Fallout 76. It was a great multiplayer experience that I looked forward to playing with friends several times a week. The quests and all the other content they’ve added to the game over the years is surprisingly good - it actually feels like a true Fallout game. I loved my time in Appalachia even with the problems the game still has.
+ Great multiplayer experience
+ Fun world to explore
+ CAMP building is surprisingly enjoyable
+ Solid quests with good voice acting and good writing
+ Good progression system
- Still plenty of bugs, even if they aren’t game-breaking
- Performance issues and limitations
- Some predatory microtransactions
- Solo quest instances even when playing with friends
Fallout 76 has come a long way from the messy state that it launched in. For one, it actually has a lot of content now in the form of tons of quests, actual NPCs, public events, daily activities, seasonal events, and just generally so many things you can do either by yourself or with friends. Over the past 6 months, I’ve logged about 300 hours in Fallout 76. Most of that has been with my wife and some friends, often in a group of 2 or 4, but I’ve also done plenty of content solo. Additionally, I’ve met and made friends in the game as the community is generally quite good. When we were new, we’d often stumble across high level players who would give us stimpacks, outfits, crafting plans, and a variety of other useful items to help us get started. Eventually, when we were higher level, we started hanging around the starting area and doing the same for other players. It’s a fun community.
The other notable thing that has improved since Fallout 76’s launch is general bugs and game stability; however, this one comes with a bit of a caveat. While the game certainly performs better than it did at launch, this is by no means the stable bug-free experience you’d expect from an online game that’s been running for 4 years. It’s still very much a Bethesda game. The goofy bugs like enemies clipping through floors or standing with their back to you while having a conversation are fine, but the real issue are the bugs that halt progress or interrupt your gameplay. While disconnects are infrequent, they still happen and it’s annoying when they do. I’ve also run into quests that I’ve had to reset multiple times because NPCs fail to trigger correctly, walk the correct paths, or even show up in the location they’re supposed to be in. I’ve Google’d issues before to find that some quests have been barely functional for 2 years but Bethesda does nothing to fix it. Despite its massive improvements, the game is still pretty janky.
The other technical issues of the game come down to game limitations and general performance problems. The load times, for instance, are pretty awful. My wife is playing on PS4 and she’d have to wait for several minutes when fast-traveling. Even on PS5, because they never released a native PS5 version, the load times are pretty rough. The camp building portion of the game also suffers from the technical limitations. The game places a limit on the amount of objects you can have in your home but it often feels arbitrary and is not communicated particularly well. A small flat wall-mounted poster takes up the same amount of budget in your camp as a lush, potted plant. I’m no game designer, but that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
The CAMP-building portion of the game is ripped right out of Fallout 4. For our first couple dozen hours with Fallout 76, we completely ignored the base-building. I genuinely did not care about making some cool camp. But the more I played, the more I came across rad player camps and found more plans of my own, that eventually I wanted to make something cool. Once we started actually making our camps, that became the number one draw of the game. Everything we did in the game from that point on was with one goal in mind - how can we get more plans to build more cool shit at our camps? Your camp isn’t just a place to go home and store your gear, your camp is your trophy shelf to show off all the cool rare things you’ve found in your time exploring Appalachia. Having another player roll into your camp, run around and check everything out, and then run up to you and do the “Cool CAMP!” emote was always immensely satisfying. I was proud of the home I built for myself, so much so that saying goodbye to it was the saddest part about finally quitting the game.
The ongoing support for Fallout 76 has been pretty impressive. Every few months they launch a new season with a new theme, and with that season they’ll add new content to the game that’s free for all players. Sometimes that comes in the form of an incredibly beefy update like the Wastelanders DLC, which added new quest lines, NPCs, new locations, and way more. Other times, it comes in the form of something smaller like the Nuka World On Tour DLC which added a new Nuka World location, some fun carnival games, and a bunch of Nuka World-themed public events you could participate in to earn unique weapons. The best part about all of this content is it’s not timed, so joining the game years into its run meant we had a ton of bonus content to enjoy.
As with any ongoing game like this, there are microtransactions that help fund continued development of the game. The microtransactions in this game come in the form of cosmetic items (armor paint, gun skins, and outfits), fun items for your camp (toys, decorations, furniture, etc), and their Fallout 1st monthly membership. The problem is, they kind of make it so that not joining their monthly program makes your gameplay noticeably more of a pain. You have an extremely finite amount of storage in the game, and with a survival game like this where you’re constantly looting and hoarding materials for crafting, it ends up being a pain in the ass. However, for just $10 a month this can all be solved by joining Fallout 1st which unlocks a junk box (with unlimited storage for crafting materials), and an ammo box (with unlimited storage for ammo). I relied on these so much that when it came time to cancel or renew my 1 month trial of Fallout 1st, I kept it because not having those would’ve made my gameplay experience noticeably worse. I don’t love having something like that locked behind a monthly membership. Sure it’s not necessary and you can play without it, but boy does it make your life a lot easier to have it.
All-in-all, I genuinely loved the few months I spent with Fallout 76. It was a great multiplayer experience that I looked forward to playing with friends several times a week. The quests and all the other content they’ve added to the game over the years is surprisingly good - it actually feels like a true Fallout game. I loved my time in Appalachia even with the problems the game still has.
+ Great multiplayer experience
+ Fun world to explore
+ CAMP building is surprisingly enjoyable
+ Solid quests with good voice acting and good writing
+ Good progression system
- Still plenty of bugs, even if they aren’t game-breaking
- Performance issues and limitations
- Some predatory microtransactions
- Solo quest instances even when playing with friends