Completly BiaS Review: Fallout 76

(Spoilers for Fallout 76. But hey, who actually cares about the story of Fallout 76 at this point, right?) Written after they have added the NPCs back in. (Also spoilers on Fallout New Vegas DLC Lonesome Road)

Having played Fallout New Vegas extensively, I always looked forward to a new modern Fallout game that can recapture the magic of New Vegas. Unfortunately with Obsidian focusing on their own games and Bethesda pretending New Vegas doesn’t exist...It seems very unlikely it will happen. When Fallout 76 was launched, it was a complete disaster. So I waited almost 3 years to see if it will be improved before diving in. What I got is pretty much what I expected.

Gameplay related problems

Perhaps it is the online latency, the gunplay somehow feels more laggy than Fallout 4. Fallout 4 gunplay was not perfect, but you can still rely on VATS for a precise shot. Unfortunately in this game, VATS does not slow down time because this is an online game. Fast moving enemies such as ghouls and dogs become extremely awful to deal with, as accuracy in VATS calculates in real time and never settle down making it impossible to land an accurate shot. You are instead forced to aim yourself, but with enemies zipping around and texture often blocking your shots. It makes combat very annoying and I found myself trying to avoid fights most of the time. I have also ran into problems where enemies spawned right behind me while I am in a hostile area. Either that or they managed to remain completely silent until the second they strike. There is this one time I was tasked with searching a location during the main quest, so I cleared out the site and started searching. Half way through my search, a couple of enemies suddenly appeared and I had to clear them out again. This repeated 3 times until I realized what was happening and quickly finished what I was doing and back out of that location.

The UI is unfriendly to use and not very responsive, it often takes a delay for button press to register. It's hard to scroll through your inventory for the item that you want. While the quick select wheel is helpful, it lets you bind ANY items onto the wheel which makes setting it up also a nightmare because it also involves scrolling through ALL your items.

My advice is find a sniper rifle and clear the area from far away

Did patching up the story work?

It is very clear NPCs weren't there from the start. At the beginning of the game, right after you walk out of the vault, you are greeted by NPCs telling you that 'People have returned to Appalachia'. While there are more human NPCs in the game. Many instances during the main quest where there are NPCs around and yet they do not add any meaningful interaction with you, instead you have to talk to a computer for quests. Because of the fact they try to patch work the story to include NPCs, you sometimes have to go through these areas that are designed for solo play only. Which causes problems when you are playing with your friends, as you and your friend will have to go through those story moments alone. This damages the multiplayer experience severely. What you left with is a game that doesn’t do solo or multiplayer well enough.

Nukes are cool! right? RIGHT?

Theme park aspect of modern Fallout

Some locations in this game are impressive visually, Watoga and The Whitespring Resort comes to mind. But it is sad to see that Bethesda has decided to stray away from creating a complex, politically interesting post-apocalyptic world. Instead what we got is similar to Nuka-World, a theme park sandbox. In Fallout New Vegas’s final DLC Lonesome Road, during the final battle, your adversary Ulysses has rigged several nukes to bomb The Mojave Wasteland. If you cannot disarm the missiles, you are left with a couple of choices. Launch them at the NCR, The Legion or both. The choice weight heavily as those are the factions you can side with during the story and doing so will change their relationship with you. If you launch the missile at both sides, you failed as the hero of the story. If you launch it at the faction you dislike, you are no different than the people before the war proofing ‘War never changes’. But in Fallout 76, nukes are nothing but another attraction. We launch it because it's fun. Yes, I am aware at the end of the story we use it to fight the scorch plague, but what are the reasons for subsequent launches? Launching nukes is an event, it even gives everyone in-game an announcement, inviting them to see it happen. It is for fun and only that. It seems like we are losing that thought provoking identity of the franchise with every new entry and that is disappointing.

Conclusion

Fallout 76 is one big post-apocalyptic theme park. However it lacks substances that are usually found under the post-apocalyptic genre. Bethesda’s old janky engine did not help to make the case with its buggy gameplay. While it was admirable that they try to patch the game into a more complete state. The game was not designed that way and that creates a very uneven experience. In short, Bethesda has once again failed to present a complex and enjoyable modern Fallout entry. If you enjoyed Fallout New Vegas and are looking for something similar, you can give this a pass.

SCORE: *

(* = Very Bad, not recommended to anyone. Not worth ANY time investment)

(** = Overall an average experience, flawed but still playable game. Generally would not recommend)

(*** = Good, would recommend it to people who love similar types of games. If the game is part of a franchise, then it is a must play for those fans )

(**** = Excellent, EVERYONE who loves games should try this one out. It has my highest regard)