The premiere apocalypse
Fans have been waiting for an online game in the Fallout universe for many years. Fallout Online was created under the wings of Interplay, but it never saw the light of day, including the conflict over the rights to the game. Unexpectedly, the topic returned to E3 in 2018, when the current brand rights company Bethesda announced Fallout 76 , an online spin off.based on mechanics from the fourth installment of the cycle, but set in a completely new location. The expectations could have been quite high, but, to put it mildly, they could not be met. The premiere version of the game turned out to be full of bugs, often preventing comfortable gameplay. Under the faults, at most, there was an average shooter, glowing empty (there are only 24 players on one server) due to the lack of real story characters, forcing you to perform generic activities. It would seem that it was an irreversible project, a failure that had to be quickly abandoned and moved on …
Successful resuscitation
Nevertheless, Bethesda decided to develop the project to bring it to a better state and did not end up just fixing technical problems. At the beginning of 2019, the ongoing expansion of the content and improvement of the mechanics began. In this way, today we are dealing with a much better production, also friendly to lone wanderers, and also in some ways surpassing Fallout 4 . Although the initial assumptions were a problem, in part imposing the construction of the game.
We start the adventure quite standard for the series, i.e. by leaving the Vault-Tec crypt to the post-nuclear wastelands. The problem is that the crypt with the title number 76, according to the assumptions, was to gather the most outstanding individuals who would be able to rebuild society after the apocalypse. This is directly related to the premiere vision of Fallout 76 , where the coherent storyline did not exist as such, offering only different thematic tasks in different parts of the world, and the building of bases by players was of great importance. Currently, since the Wastelanders update ,there is much more history and new threads continue to appear (at the time of publication of the text, a new free extension dedicated to the Brotherhood of Steel is already available). A moment after creating the character, a pretty good plot with characteristic characters starts, which, as it happens in the series, emphasizes faction conflicts in the post-apocalyptic reality. Moreover, bugs in the previous main game regarding choices have been fixed. Instead of the infamous, almost identical answers hidden under enigmatic buttons, the classic, often varied dialogue choices are back. What’s more, some of them, giving the most interesting effects, were dependent on the character’s attributes. This is related to the redesigned SPECIAL system.
This time, points are not awarded at the beginning of the game, but as you gain new levels, they also allow you to increase the number of active perks (passive skills) assigned to specific features. Such character development is a step in the right direction with the current shape of the series. It is worth noting that dialogues and occasional choices seem to be the main attraction of the tasks. The quests themselves use the simplest online game patterns: go to a specific place and kill a group of enemies, collect an item or interact with banalities, although fortunately there will be exceptions. Worse, the same pattern applies to earlier tasks that appeared before the Wastelanders, and therefore not offering the simplicity of a “fallout” fictional experience. Communing with them is necessary because a lot of the added content is unlocked only at level 20, which forces a good few hours of grind in the initial period of the game, i.e. when you can especially bounce off the game. These moments remind you that Fallout 76 was designed primarily as a network game and it is cooperation with other players that gives the greatest satisfaction in two basic gameplay activities: exploration and combat.
Famous formula
The first of them is particularly engaging. Whatever the case with Bethesda, this team has always had a hand in creating interesting worlds. Full of vegetation, including forests, mountain landscapes stand out significantly from the previous parts, so even despite the slightly outdated graphics, there is no shortage of attractive views. Especially since the map is much larger than the one in Fallout 4and is characterized by a lot of variety. Traditionally, we have a combination of climatic corruption with exaggerated remnants of the Vault-Tec corporation, satirically depicting consumerism. It’s just a place to be explored, especially as part of pandemic escapism. The more that the world has been scaled to the level of the player for a long time, which reduces the problems with the inaccessibility of certain areas. Worse, free exploration will often be interrupted by sequences with combat, which at first glance looks almost the same as in Fallout4. So there are quite a lot of weapons, but they wear out, but you can always eat home-made ones. The problem is that the mechanics seem to be not fully adapted to the network formula and shooting is often accompanied by something like lags , despite the low ping. It is also understandable that the known VATS system, which allows you to target specific parts of the body in slow motion, with a percentage chance of hitting, could not be maintained when playing online. Instead of removing this element, it was made shallow and reduced to the role of a simple aimbot, consuming endurance. So this is not the most enjoyable gameplay model, but the whole thing saves the variety of weapons and adversaries. Although you can also complain about the much greater intensity of the clashes than before (especially due to the fast, infected Scorched, introduced in this installment), it is rather an individual matter.
The wastelands are tempting?
Despite these inequalities, do I regret my time with Fallout 76 ? Actually, it’s not. After years of patches, we are dealing with quite a pleasant production, especially when there is someone to travel with West Virginia. So I will definitely come back to the game again, especially since there is no shortage of content. However, it is by no means a mandatory item. There are many much better items on the market to play together, and independent experience, although it can have fun, is more repetitive. However, unless you mind the direction Fallout 4 has taken, or you just like post-apocalyptic atmosphere, it’s worth giving this production a chance. It is often available on numerous promotions, as well as in the Game Pass subscription, and the prospect of further development of the content inspires optimism.
