Regardless of the fact the game does still have a sizeable community, Fallout 76 is often regarded as one of the biggest flops of this generation. From its countless bugs and repetitive gameplay to Bethesda's failure to deliver upon pre-order bonuses, the game has seemingly spiraled further and further since its release in late 2018. However, it appears one of the key figures over at Bethesda doesn't regret making the decision to put the controversial online game into production.
Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communication for Bethesda, Pete Hines, took to KindaFunny's 'We Have Cool Friends' podcast to discuss some of the backlash of the game, claiming that it was worth trying something different even if the end result didn't turn heads like he was expecting. "We tried something that was a pretty big change of change of direction for that studio," Hines states, before continuing "And just because it didn't go well doesn't mean you shouldn't do that."
The industry veteran goes on to clarify why the team elected to take a new direction in the first place, citing that Bethesda "wanted to expand a little bit and try something different." The team had heard players frequently claiming they'd enjoy a version of Fallout or The Elder Scrolls that integrated "multiplayer and shared experience," deciding that it would be an interesting new direction for the franchise. Hines claims this is the reason the team announced Starfield, in hopes that it would send a message to fans that "we're going to make another single-player epic role-playing game...We just wanted to try something that was more shared and online to see what that was like."
Hines claims it's good to make games like Fallout 76 as otherwise studios get stuck making the same type of games forever. He finalizes his claim with an example, claiming that "you don't get Horizon Zero Dawn if that team sticks to what they were known for and had always made, they pivoted and tried something that I think is substantially different than what they had made before."
Clearly, Hines feels quite passionately that, despite the intense backlash that came from Fallout 76, it was evidently worth making the game so that the team could experiment with new types of games. There's no denying that Hines is completely correct about the importance of trying something fresh, however, the podcast has drawn a lot of criticism in of itself, with many claiming that Fallout 76 was less of the unique passion project Hines claims it was and more of a way of delivering a microtransaction-heavy cash cow for Bethesda. The podcast is currently sitting at 400 likes and 1,100 dislikes, showing that Hines' words might have added more fuel to the fire rather than snuffing it out.
Fallout 76 is available now for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
