Fallout 76 had quite a turbulent launch, struggling both critically and commercially. The game was criticized on a number of fronts, with a majority of complaints concerning the frequency of bugs and the large but empty game world. At launch, were it not for the classic Fallout styling of the game, it would have been impossible to identify Fallout 76 as a Fallout game because of the lack of NPCs or interesting missions that made the series so popular.
However, since then, plenty of content drops for Fallout 76 have been released, leaving the game in a drastically different state to what it was in all those years ago. Fallout 76 is unrecognizable from its day one state, and is probably worth checking out for those who haven’t played since launch. The laundry list of changes Bethesda has made to Fallout 76 is long, but there are a few key changes that stand out.
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When Fallout 76 launched in 2018, fans had a number of major complaints, but the most glaring issue was the frequency of bugs and glitches. These bugs were varied, including enemies who would T-pose and float around the map instead of having a usual walk cycle. But not all bugs were quite so humorous, and a couple proved to be game-breaking. Notably, at launch traveling to the eastern section of the map brought with it some significant risks, as there was a bug that would make the player’s game crash, rendering them unable to load back in. These bugs proved to be much too frequent for players to avoid or jokingly dismiss as being a feature in typical Bethesda games. Fallout 76’s bugs were majorly hampering the overall experience.
Years on from release, Fallout 76’s updates have left the game in a different state, and Bethesda isn’t done yet. Players are highly unlikely to encounter similar issues to those that were faced by Fallout 76’s early adopters. Bugs and glitches are a fact of gaming and their presence will always be felt, but if they don’t dominate the experience they can be easily overlooked. Fallout 76 has released a number of updates since launch to address issues with the game, the most recent coming this month that was comprised almost entirely of bug fixes. It seems that despite its rocky launch, Bethesda has not given up on Fallout 76, and has instead dedicated resources to fixing the game, molding it into the experience fans hoped it would be. However, bug fixes weren’t the extent of Fallout fans’ complaints, and nor have they been the complete focus of Bethesda’s attention.
Upon release, one of the biggest issues with Fallout 76 was the lack of NPCs in the game world. The Fallout franchise had to that point been built upon the foundations of story-driven single-player experiences. Fallout 76 was always likely to change up the formula, but the changes Fallout 76 brought felt extreme. Players were stranded in a world that felt more like Rust or DayZ than any Fallout experience to that point, and fans heavily requested the inclusion of NPCs. Pete Hines has since confessed the Bethesda team was surprised by how few players wanted PvP, as most Fallout fans’ preference was to team up for PvE battles. However, Bethesda has remedied this issue, introducing a broad range of NPCs into Fallout 76 starting with Wastelanders in April 2020.
Fallout 76 Wastelanders was a free DLC, and it did plenty to bring the world of Fallout 76 to life. The game now feels a lot more like an authentic Fallout experience, and less like an MMO survival game with a Fallout skin. Wastelanders’ NPCs also brought with them some pretty major improvements to the dialogue system when compared to even Fallout 4. One of the main criticisms of Fallout 4 was the dialogue system, which many believed was shallow and ultimately inconsequential. Fallout 76 has addressed this issue, reverting to a New Vegas-style dialogue system in which the player’s speech and intelligence skill can have a real impact on the outcome of conversations. If the player doesn’t allocate their skill points carefully enough, they’re prone to coming off as a fool in conversation, which can have some hilarious outcomes.
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Aside from bugs and the lack of NPCs, players also encountered issues with a lack of content outside of the game’s main objective. Players soon grew tired of exploring the map of Fallout 76 and craved something different to take up their time. There have always been plenty of enemies to face in Fallout 76, including ghouls, robots, and a variety of regional beasts. However, battling the same enemies time and time again was always unlikely to hold players’ attention for long, so it needed a solid endgame. The endgame at launch was fairly repetitive, which proved to be an issue when the grind it took to get there seemingly wasn’t worth the hassle. This is another issue that has been addressed by Bethesda over time, with the game containing plenty of content to satiate players’ desire for action-packed modes.
Fallout 76 has two modes outside of the main game to provide players with variety, preventing the gameplay from getting too stale. Nuclear Winter has been met with fanfare as Fallout 76 battle royale mode, essentially. It allows for up to 52 players, which makes its battles smaller in scale than other battle royale games such as Warzone and Fortnite. However, it is very popular among Fallout 76 fans. The novelty of playing a battle royale within a Fallout game alone makes Nuclear Winter worth checking out, but players may stick around for the addictive gameplay.
The other Fallout 76 game mode is Daily Ops, which as the name suggests provides players with daily missions to complete. They function as a Fallout take on dungeons, and aim to provide a scalable challenge for the more experienced Fallout 76 player. These daily ops can be repeated as much as the player likes while they are available, and the player faces no repercussions for dying, making them harmless fun. Compared to Fallout 76 at launch, the game now has plenty to hold the players’ attention outside of the game’s main objective. With the quality-of-life improvements, the additions of NPCs, and all-new game modes, Fallout 76 is a vastly different experience from what it was at launch. Despite this, the game shows no signs of slowing down, with more content to come.
Fallout 76 is out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.