Fallout 76

The first hour of this game may be fun, exploring this huge Appalachian wasteland. The map may be 4 times as big, but feels like it has half the content as fallout 4.

If you like listening to holotapes, NPCs (robots) talking AT you, instead TO you, then Fallout 76 is your game.

I've played every Bethesda game and every Fallout game.

After 30 hours of game play I can say this game isn't worth sixty dollars.

The story is limited to notes and recordings in a medium that's "Let the player do" instead of "Tell them what happen", normally that kind of story telling is an optional addition to the games experience.

Fallout 76 and Fallout 4 both have lore that goes against established cannon, retconning those previous games is disrespectful to the writers and developers of past games.

The PC edition launched without a number options typically found in sixty dollar triple A titles. From the options menu you cannot, turn off depth of field, bloom, god rays, bloom, change the Anti Aliasing settings, or set an ultra wide screen resolution. The strange thing is the game does support all those settings if you change them from the configuration files. However the normal user would have a difficult time figuring out how to go about that process. Bethesda omitted those options from the game for seemingly no reason.

After exploring the map, the size of which is one of the games few positives, the gameplay would consist of mostly building your camp and controlling public workshops. The building mode in the game while aggravating at times does work and is improved slightly from Fallout 4.

Other players from my experience will have voice chat turned off and will ignore you after a wave. After twenty hours of leaving my microphone on in hopes that I would make a lasting connection with someone I decided to turn it off so I could listen to an audio book without having to worry about others at all.

All of the good things in Fallout 76 can be better found in Fallout 4, and basically this game is Fallout 4 striped of it's substantial story elements and combined with the restrictions of a multiplayer game.

The game is set in the former, sparsely populated state of West Virginia-so don't expect the ruined metropolises from previous Fallout games. Right away, you'll notice that the flora and fauna are thriving much better here, which creates a different atmosphere. The main storyline revolves around you deciding to save and rebuild the human world around you, just because you apparently have a kind heart. The year is 2102, and the world has been destroyed by nuclear war, leaving it radioactive and in ruins. There are several empty vaults in the area, but instead of gathering the locals into these safe shelters, you leave your own vault-completely empty, clean, and functional-to head out and wage war against the local wildlife, mutants, and raiders, who, of course, respawn every few minutes anyway.

The presence of online players adds some variety, but at the same time, it means quests can't have any real impact, since each player is doing their own thing, and changes to the world would interfere with others. As a result, the game has virtually no storyline and no real ending. The quests themselves are peak stupidity. Take Something Sentimental as an example: Miss Maggie tells you that her father was trapped in the Monongah Mine... 27 years ago (!!), but the rubble is too heavy to remove and free him. So she asks you to go to a military facility and launch a nuclear bomb (!!) at the mine's coordinates, because the explosion will clear the debris. And you actually do it. The rubble is gone. Then you enter the mine and discover that her father has mutated into a five-meter-tall, three-headed, four-armed creature that spits some kind of slime at you. What else is there to say? Maybe just that this isn't the only nuke you or your fellow players will drop in the name of rebuilding the world. (Just a reminder-the same world you're supposedly restoring was destroyed by nuclear war.) Throughout the entire game, you never get the chance to do anything that would actually help humanity in a meaningful way. The whole story is just one giant logical mess.

Besides the main quests, you have side quests, daily quests, events, challenges, and Steam achievements. Robotic rangers and scouts constantly nag you to "train for the battle against the communist threat," giving you thrilling tasks like "Kill a deer with a crossbow," "Kill a bear with a shotgun," "Kill a wolf with a knife." Or a robot might send you to hunt a "beast," only for you to sneak up and find... a peacefully grazing sloth. (Speaking of communists, imagine discovering a secret underground base, still filled with Chinese communist soldiers, 25 years after the war! LOL.)

Everything that moves can be killed, and you always get points for it. It doesn't matter if it attacks you or not-your mission to make the world a better place for humans means you can slaughter completely harmless squirrels, frogs, rabbits, chickens, fireflies, cats, beavers, brahmin (two-headed cows), foxes, opossums, and even owls. Naturally, you can eat them too-you can even cook up some owlet nuggets from a dead owl. But if you like animals, don't worry-there are perks like Animal Friend and Wasteland Whisperer that let you befriend even aggressive creatures, so you won't have to kill them anymore.

You can cook or prepare over 90 different solid foods (another 80 can be found pre-made in the wasteland) and 25 types of soups, including tomato and tofu soup. Over 40% of the solid foods are meat-free, and nearly 75% of the soups are completely vegan! Plus, you can consume several types of fruits and vegetables (10), legumes and seeds (4), mushrooms (6), and other plants (24) for energy and hydration. Unfortunately, there's no vegan achievement in the game, so reading this whole paragraph was completely pointless.

Just like in Fallout 4, you can build your own camp. This even includes your own vault, which serves absolutely no purpose beyond aesthetics-just like most of the disgusting decorations you can add to it, such as a mounted owlet (a dead owl nailed to a wooden plaque), a dog's head, a gorilla's head, a frog stuffed in a jar, and patriotic propaganda posters.

The factions were pretty forgettable. The Brotherhood of Steel has never been as useless as in this Fallout (though the Steel Dawn update improved this slightly). The Enclave was similarly pointless. The only group that somewhat caught my interest was The Free States, thanks to their idealistic anarcho-individualist philosophy, which actually could have worked in a post-apocalyptic world-too bad Bethesda didn't let them. The goals of the other factions didn't seem worth caring about, though I did actively help The Settlers.

Somehow, I ended up playing 430 hours. I didn't save the world-because the game doesn't even give you that option. Uninstalling.

You will notice there is two kinds of reviews here ones that trash the game (mostly from 2018 at launch) and newer ones that say a lot has been added. I am here to tell you what's actually in the game without spoiling it and let you determine what you want from it.

Ok this game was released in 2018 to much anticipation as a online multiplayer Fallout Game. At launch it was filled with various bugs and glitches most of which have been fixed at the time of this review. I beat every expansion and the main quest this year on Xbox series and ran into no bugs except an occasional moonwalking NPC which just added to my entertainment.

This is not a flex but simply for context of my critique I have beat Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 4, on console and PC. I have done my share of player made content through mods directly installed or using vortex if I am lazy. I have also been game master to many tabletops so I know different people like different things. Some like story and dialogue, some like exploration, some people just want to kill stuff and roll dice. None is wrong just particular taste.

In regards to that I am rating this a 7/10 based on the content available in 2023. Everything from the base game is still available and all major glitches and bugs have seem to be fixed.

As a whole nearly every other Bethesda single player game is glitchier then Fallout 76 in year 2023 based on my console experience. The worst I encountered was on a side quest I had to leave and reenter an area which took 20 seconds.

After leaving the vault your character has many options:

-You can build you're C. A. M. P. and set up your residence customizing it how you want.

-You can follow the main quest and learn the basics of Appalachia

-You can choose one of the many story expansion updates to complete: Wastelanders, Brotherhood: Steel Dawn/Steel Rain, The Pitt

-You can choose one of the many miscellaneous side quests or miscellaneous quests to complete.

-You can do public events that happen roughly once or twice an hour. This is what most veteran players seem to be doing at this point.

-There are daily aspects to the game as well from Daily Ops and expeditions which let you travel outside Appalachia (currently available is Pittsburgh for the Pitt mission)

-There is two raid bosses in The Scorch Queen and Earle Williams which if their area is nuked which seems semi-common they can be fought with a group of other players in a large scale boss battle.

-There is various trading in the game between player and NPC as well as player to player. You trade protectrons at train stations with caps for various goods or trade your goods to get caps (1300 a day from all NPC vendors) and with the expansion there are some human NPC's that are also vendors, you can trade gold bullion for special goods after completing one of the expansions (as well as treasury notes for gold bullion (40 a day I think), You can trade your bad Legendary items for legendary scrip that you can use to get random legendary gear from Murmrgh at The Rusty Pick.

-Besides that you can explore the random locations of Appalachia, collect and display the different teddy bears and board games, and emote to your hearts content.

Features of the Game

Combat

After acquiring the plans you can craft any base weapon at a 10 level intervals up to your level (Max 50). The highest level requirements go for weapons is level 50 and after that you can use any weapon.

Ammo can be bought, looted, or crafted if you have the plans

Weapons and Armor break again like Fallout 3/New Vegas. You have to repair them with weapon kits or junk reagents

Enemies will scale to your level and while a lot of classic enemies/monsters returned there are also some new ones

Classic: radroaches, ghouls, deathclaws, robots, mutated insects, mutated animals, etc.

Added Via Update: Raiders and other human enemies part of new and old factions New: Cryptids which include enemies based on the creatures from various folklore or pseudoscience cryptozoology, the scorched which are basically sentient ghouls that are insane and can use weapons, scorch beasts which are basically giant bats, and many more.

Weapons/Armor: Nearly all gun, armor, and melee weapon types from previous Fallout games are here. There is of course an assortment of new armor and weapons as well.

Combat Style: While any is really viable as once your geared and stocked up with items you can do any style you want some have major benefits over others. An important thing to know is similar to some other online games in order to get the loot off an enemy you have to have dealt some damage to that enemy which is easier with some types of weapons. Damaging an enemy to get it's loot is something my friends and I call "tagging an enemy". It seems that if you are in a team close to one of your three team members you do not need to tag the enemy but simply be present. Here is my list from bad to worst:

Unarmed: By far the worst but honestly this combat style has been devalued for so long. By the time you get paralyzing palm in Fallout 3 the game is over, Fallout New Vegas did it right, and in this one it's nerfed because it's given less perks then any other combat style and like in Fallout 4 you can't use unarmed weapons while in power armor (even though you could in New Vegas). It's also hard to tag enemies by punching them one at a time.

Melee: Significantly better then unarmed as you can stack 3 damage perks compared to 1 it still is hard to tag enemies bonking or slicing them one at a time. The chainsaw seems to be a lot of peoples favorites and you can annoy them by keeping it out as it will constantly rev.

Pistols/Shotguns/Rifles

Pistols: I've seen this used the least but with all the other weapons in the game I think unless you want to be the pistol guy its best used as a sidearm when your main weapon breaks and/or runs out of ammo

Shotguns: I have seen a few players use this as well as my two friends I know IRL that I play with. They told me they like it because of the damage and high abundance of Shotgun shells they find. I imagine at close or mid range a gun with a spread could make good for tagging.

Rifles: I have mainly seen people use the generic assault rifle or a burst version and it seems more common then the pistol and about as common as shotgun users. I haven't seen anyone rocking a sniper build but hey maybe their on a perch somewhere.

Explosives/Heavy Guns

Explosives: I use grenades a lot personally but with explosive being a legendary effect for certain ranged weapons it's more common to see that.

Missile Launcher: I have not seen too many people using these compared to the Fat Man. I think a couple people used it at on of the Scorch Queen fights I was at.

Fat Man: I have seen many high players use this as nukes is a big theme in Fallout and with the ability to craft mini nukes you can make them in abundance and you tag everything.

Miniguns/Gatling Lasers: By far the most common build I see high triple digit level players in power armor just blasting away with these things. You can get explosive on minigun and while not as good as FO4 it's still nuts

*additonal combat notes

*I don't know the "best" weapon in this game but the only time you would really care about top tier damage is against Scorched Queen or Earle Williams (raid bosses) and likely if you have enough people it won't matter as much. The best gun is likely a 3 star rifle of some kind but remember use what you like.

*Dealing with the level requirements suck but once you hit 50 your options really open up.

*if you use explosives I recommend turning pacifist mode on while in group events or risk harming or killing other players

*in general automatic is better for tagging then semi-automatic but if you're quick with the semi it won't matter as much.

Loot/Inventory Management

You can hold a certain amount of weight that increases based on your Strength just like previous Fallouts. You get a stash with a limited amount of storage (1400 pounds, it used to be less), and if you have Fallout 1st (a monthly or yearly subscription) you get unlimited ammo and base junk reagent storage. In other Fallout games you have unlimited storage but playing any MMO like Runescape, World of Warcraft etc. You notice that you also have limited inventory options and that's because when you have a bunch of players to track their items and data the game can only handle so much of that information. So in short a finite inventory is expected in an online game or MMO. Everything except holotapes, notes, and a few select items have some weight but they do decimal weight now where some stuff only weighs 0.1 of a pound.

Perks/Leveling System

You get experience from killing enemies, completing quests, picking locks, hacking terminals, and passing certain checks.

The fast exp is from killing mass amounts of creatures in events with other players.

You start at 1 and go into the quad digits for levels. Each level up to 50 you get a SPECIAL point to put in your attributes. Whatever your attribute level is ends up being how many perk points of perks you can equip. Most perks have a perk value of 1-3 but some like explosives have up to 5 value. The highest you can get a special to and equip perks I believe is 15 but it could be more. You get 56 Special Points total and eventually you can have every perk in the game to choose from.

As you level up past 50 you get more perks and even legendary perks every 25 levels then later every level 50 levels. You can upgrade legendary perks with perk coins as well as pay perk coins to switch them. You can scrap redundant or unwanted perks for the coins.

The big negative at this point is the monetization. To get the full experience you really need Fallout 1st and even then they entice you buy utility and cosmetic items from the Atom Shop.

This "Fallout" game, is an unpolished unfinished mess of a game that not only contains many bugs seen in Fallout 4 but, it even creates several brand new bugs that break things that worked almost flawlessly in Fallout 4. Many heavy weapons refuse to work seemingly at random, with enemies healing all damaged taken from the weapon. This glitch also extends to the Gauss Rifle which at times cannot even kill level 1 enemies. I am dissapointed in Bethesda for creating this mess and selling it to us completely unfinished and broken, and i hope their next project is of a higher quality.