REVIEW

Fallout 76 Review

by Luke Walsh, November 23rd, 2019

Fallout 76 has a spate of different reviews over the last week or so and we’ve sunk some hours into the game to try out a variety of different systems, quests and fought some monsters to see if we agreed with the overall consensus or if a diamond in the rough is waiting to be polished for it to be truly what it should be.

Fallout 76 is an experimental version of the wasteland that Bethesda has concocted to see if the open-world RPG formula can work as a smaller based MMO type game. The map is larger than ever but the NPCs have been removed and the other humans left to explore the wastelands tie in with the narrative of other Vault 76 dwellers looking to reclaim the wastes.

Each part of the map is broken into six main areas each with their environmental differences from the lush forests, to an irritated bog. Walking through the different areas are both beautiful and eerie at the same time thanks to the aftermath of the atomic war. This is where the lack of other characters adds to the overall feel of the wasteland. West Virginia is still not completely mutated like Fallout 3 & 4 and wildlife is still mutating and changing. This makes for much brighter scenery which has not been seen before, along with more familiar animals.

A good idea on paper of removing humans from the world apart from the handful of vault dwellers becomes a problem though when your main connection to the world is through one-sided computer screen interactions, pre-recorded notes left from humans long dead and the odd chance encounter with the other surviving real-world players.

This translates into the quest structure as well with the mainline following the investigating of a plague that is spreading which requires you to follow the commands on screen and track down notes and voice clips left by the survivors to progress. It all adds to the isolation which as apart of the overall story makes sense but when in the world as it plays out, you feel disconnected from the other players in the world and the actual need to even care about this main questline.

Isolation aside, however, one of the great things about playing Fallout 76 is exploration and scavenging, something which I’ve long since enjoyed. Wandering through the different places and seeing the small details the Bethesda has included add to the world in more ways than just an NPC talking to you. Reading between the lines is needed and you can add some of your creative flairs as you wonder why guarded fortress is in the middle of a water park ride or an abandoned Raiders outpost is littered with corpses. Why did they not run and hide? Are there any survivors that we don’t know about?

There’s plenty of these moments littered throughout the landscape which is further compounded when you require supplies and can get a real sense of the world before the bombs dropped or shortly after before everyone died from radiation sickness. The only problem though is waiting to meet them, fight them or trade with them but you can’t and it is something that you can adapt to or not having played the previous games.

Combat, on the other hand, is still the usual array of madness and a dash of bullets, nukes and sharp objects flying around the place. It stays pretty much unchanged from the previous Fallout games but sticks closer to its recent sibling Fallout 4. V.A.T.S sees the most changes making it more useable in an online game. Still useful but not as interesting as it once was being able to slow down time but still useful when trying to target fast-moving monstrosities.

Guns even without the old school V.A.T.S system are a joy to play with, you can rocket launch a Deathclaw type sloth in the face while throwing Molotov cocktails and laying down mines as it scurries over to you to try and rip your face off.

Like the guns of old, they need some TLC to keep them in tip-top shape. Like armour, both of them require you to repair them over time as you use them or take damage. You can do this at workbenches which are all over the map or build your bench by using your C.A.M.P and with a few bits you’ve found laying around in the nearby buildings will keep your stuff in good condition.

Although repairing does seem to take its toll, having to be constantly on the lookout for supplies and heading to workbenches, the chor subsides as you unlock new crafting recipes being able to build your weapons and armour from scratch, upgrading them to make more weird, wonderful and downright nuclear.

Another way to improve your weapons, supplies and make the slog to gain craftable components is by taking control of the public workshops which after a little bit of defending reward you with additional supplies and resource extractors, which you can build on vents of materials to gain additional quantities overtime of useful, rarer crafting components.

Soloing the game is doable just like you would in a single-player Fallout game, it was mainly how I played when reviewing the game but I did jump on a couple of times with some friends. In places playing alone still outshines playing it in a group which can be a strange thing to say for a dedicated online game.

Reading the lore, listening to the audiotapes and feeling more at home in the experience of previous Fallout games made it better. Plus it’s much more immersive than when you have some random stranger just hanging around looting the places you’ve just cleared.

Co-op is still a fun mode to play tough in the online world and one which can be the best experienced in public events which have much more tougher enemies similar to raid bosses in MMO games. As expected of these foes, they are much tougher than the regular enemies but also have a much bigger bounty of loot at the end.

Even when in a party, you don’t have to be joint at the hip you are still free to explore as you please, only touching base again when needed for assistance or just to do some exploration in a new area. The fluid approach to the multiplayer in Fallout 76 is what makes it a game that can become a decent chilled experience with some friends and an enthralling adventure all in one go. You are able to go at your own pace.

PvP is featured in Fallout 76 but for a post-apocalyptic game, it is extremely shallow. You can attack anyone you like but you might as well not bother unless they also agree to it, otherwise, your weapons regardless of power are like potato guns taking off the tiniest of health. It’s one attempt to stop PKing all the time but they could have better handled it by allowing players to select PvP vs PvE servers and make it more open.

You can also start PvP by taking control of a player-owned public workshop but only while you are contesting it and the owner has to actually show up which never once happened when I was playing as there are plenty out in the world it seems for them not to bother too much about losing it.

Finally killing a player in PvP is hardly worth the effort in the end anyhow, all you end up getting it their junk which is the same lose when you die from a monster. Hardly worth wasting bullets over for something you can easily find the in world abundantly.

One aspect of PvP which is enjoyable though is the bounty system, which players are given when they attack players over and over who choose not to defend themselves or attacking another player’s C.A.M.P and sometimes when taking a public workshop that is owned.

This system shows the player who has the bounty on their head on everyone’s minimap while hiding everyone else from the bountied player. This creates a cat and mouse-like scenario where you can stalk your prey without them knowing. While the player who has the bounty on their heads will be constantly tense about the imposing surprise attacks possible.

Stakes are further raised by offering a finical reward for any player who kills the person who has the bounty. Plus, the longer a bounty is not claimed it grows in value-adding more reward to those willing to head into battle. It’s one and the only issue is not many players ever got a bounty and did not seem willing to become one so a fun aspect of the game never really surfaced.

Social aspects of the game outside the party system are also limited, unlike MMOs, there’s not really a place players can gather to team up, trade or shop and craft. A hub town like the initial vault you crawl out of would have been cool. Even having a chat system like every MMO ever like world chat would at least at some sort of central narrative between players.

Bugs like most Bethesda games are rife, from frame rate drops to models and monster bugging out completely while exploring. Quest markers would sometimes not show up, animations have broken an AI was spotty in places making enemies just not function as they should. Bethesda plans to continue developing the game and adding content, so hopefully, bug fixes are high on their list.

Even with the problems, Fallout 76 was fun to play with friends or on my own. With the problems around the PvP and overall lack of community, playing solo was my prefered option for most of my time spent in the game. Bethesda has crafted some amazing environments each with their own feel and theme of monsters, fun weapons and craftable upgrades that add an additional layer to their already over the top combat.

Sadly though after time, exploration has been done and the respawning of the same monsters can make the magical feel mundane. Hopefully, Bethesda can continue to tweak the game and improve the game and keep it alive.