Fallout 76

An interesting experiment that fails to nail either side of the experience, it uses Fallout trappings to good effect and can be fun with great environmental storytelling and West Virginia itself is gorgeous. The lack of NPCs and overall cohesion along with lacklustre PvP hinder its identity, however.

A sort of big multiplayer mod of Fallout 4, which shares the features and interface errors that have not changed since 2015, Fallout 76 is a collection of uncertain mechanics and unclear rules, served in a dated and technically unstable fashion. All that remains is for Bethesda to work hard so that we can better understand the real strengths of the game, and not its many weaknesses.

There's no sugarcoating it: Fallout 76 comes up short at nearly everything it aims to be. It's not a good role-playing game and it's not a good multiplayer experience. It never really feeds into the gradual RPG power fantasy but it's also inadequate as a survival simulator. In wanting to be so much, Fallout 76 doesn't amount to much at all.

I can’t recommend Fallout 76 to more than a handful of people. A niche few will still be drawn to it, perhaps out of curiosity, a completionist’s need to devour all things Fallout, or, like me, a morbid desire to simulate life after the end of the world. For everyone else, hold onto the hope that Bethesda learns a lesson from this failed experiment.

Bethesda has betrayed Fallout's spirit to create a game full of bugs and without a soul.

Fallout 76 can look and feel like its illustrious predecessors at times, but it's a soulless husk of an experience.

Bethesda has chosen to release a half-finished, buggy mess of a title in its current state. This isn’t early access, nor is it a beta — this is apparently a finished product that I have to assess. I have: it’s garbage. This poor release provides Bethesda the opportunity to take notice of two key takeaways: the Creation Engine needs to go, and single-player developers shouldn’t bite off more than they can chew when making a multiplayer game. And this comes from a guy who looked past Fallout 4‘s last-gen engine and subsequent failings to give it a 10/10. Free pass no more, Bethesda.

Even if all the systems would work, this would be a mediocre and shallow Fallout experience. With all the bugs, inconsistencies and technical problems this is little more than a post-apocalyptic mess.

Fallout 76 is a confused product that blows it on so many levels. 76 represents a critical misunderstanding about what makes the Fallout franchise special, and sacrifices all those pieces to shoehorn in a half baked and barely functional online system. While I applaud taking a chance on a crazy idea, Fallout 76 would undoubtedly have been a better and more engaging experience as a traditional open world RPG. As it stands, this is a broken, unfun, and repetitive title that I can’t recommend. And that hurts me to say.

A disastrous failure whose technical shortcomings may one day be fixed but whose design failings, and obliviousness to its own potential, suggests a game that is irrevocably broken.

Stripped of the series’ trademark color and hi-jinx, Fallout 76 turns into a heartless trek through a barren wasteland filled with mindless enemies and arduous, inconsequential quest lines. Although there are some curious set-pieces, the lack of interaction with the world means even the most detailed of its environments fall flat. You shoot mutants, collect scrap, build things and repeat, all under the guidance of cosmically vast reams of recordings left by dead people. Despite its colossal size, Fallout 76 stretches out into a whole lot of nothing.