When Fallout 76 first released in 2018, it was a letdown to Fallout fans who were looking to explore an intricately crafted wasteland akin to the franchise’s past titles. Since then, however, Bethesda has been working hard to fix the things that made Fallout 76 a subpar Fallout experience. Even so, the game has yet to reach its full potential.
In the past years, Fallout 76 has received multiple patches, bug fixes, and even content expansions that sought to make the online game a more player-friendly and enjoyable experience. While the game has certainly succeeded in turning things around, the community still has a few gripes — issues that make Fallout 76 good rather than great.
Fixing What Was Wrong with Fallout 76
Bethesda has genuinely made plenty of improvements to Fallout 76. One of the earliest problems that players had with the title was the lack of NPCs and player dialogue. This was a huge turn-off for long-time Fallout fans, as part of the reason why they enjoyed offline titles was because of the quirky and, occasionally, silly NPCs. Bethesda remedied this in 2020 with the Wastelanders expansion — one of its biggest additions to the base game, which included a whole new questline with new events, features, and the return of NPCs the player could talk to.
Outside of Fallout 76’s narrative, Bethesda also made some quality-of-life tweaks for the playerbase. For one, the developers scrapped the eating and drinking requirement, which debuffed the player if they failed to maintain their hunger and hydration levels. Though a few players enjoyed this particular mechanic, the majority found it to be tedious, as it detracted from the game’s exploration aspect. Later on, Bethesda updated the game’s inventory system to make it easier to navigate and able to store more player items.
Suffice to say, Fallout 76 is a very different game now compared to when it was first released. Though it’s vital to note the changes were not implemented to make a good game better. They were necessary to make a bad game passable. As it stands, Fallout 76 is an enjoyable game with lots of content, especially for new players. However, Bethesda still has to do plenty of tweaking before its online Fallout title can go from good to great.
Roadblocks to Greatness
Fallout 76’s comeback is nothing to scoff at. It’s clear that Bethesda listened to and implemented the changes the Fallout 76 community wanted to see. That said, the work is far from over. There are a variety of technical issues that hold Fallout 76 back from being a great online Fallout experience.
First and foremost are the bugs, but what’s a Bethesda game without its fair share of bugs? Well, Fallout 76 has them — a lot of them. These range from relatively small annoyances, like the player being unable to exit their power armor for no discernable reason, to game-breaking instances that lead to server disconnections or even the blue screen of death. While it’s normal for games to host a couple of glitches, having a whole slew of them does nothing but detract from the gaming experience.
Aside from bugs, the community also isn’t happy about how the game handles progression. Many players lament how grindy Fallout 76 is, citing how difficult it is to gather ammo only to use it all in one fight against a horde of enemies. While legendary weapons can balance the playing field, the perfect one can be difficult to come by, considering that legendary drops hinge entirely on luck.
Bethesda introduced a new legendary crafting system last year, but this, too, is incredibly grindy, with players having to collect legendary cores and legendary modules. Additionally, its crafting system also hinges on luck as it grants the player a random legendary mod, meaning there’s no guaranteed payoff for the resource grind.
Finally, there’s the issue of monetization — specifically the contentions around the Fallout 1st subscription. The paid subscription service granted players the option to create a private server, which could house up to eight players. Alongside this, it provided unlimited Scrapbox storage, a deployable survival tent, which functioned as a fast travel point, and a number of other rewards.
Long story short, the community wasn’t at all happy with Fallout 76 putting these long-requested features behind a steep paywall, and it’s led to many players signing off from the game permanently. Even so, Bethesda hasn’t changed the structure of the subscription system and is even introducing more world customization options to the private server feature.
Fallout 76 Could Be Great
There are many things that make Fallout 76 a game worth playing. For instance, the settlement building features have vastly improved since its first appearance in Fallout 4. This has resulted in intricate player-made creations that make the Appalachian wasteland a lot more fun to explore. Additionally, Bethesda continues to release story content, populating the world with more NPCs and giving players plenty more quests to experience.
Developers even teased a new Fallout 76 expansion — Expeditions. The trailer for Expeditions features the Pitt, which is a callback to an expansion pack from Fallout 3. Whether the new content will introduce the monstrous Trogs is still unconfirmed, but this is certainly a possibility. Overall, Expeditions seems like a step in the right direction for Fallout 76.
Though with all that said, Bethesda needs to take a step back from expanding Fallout 76 and, instead, focus on ironing out the kinks of the base game. Because while the new questlines are certainly worth playing, the game’s bugs and balancing issues are a huge stain on an otherwise enjoyable experience. Throw in the problematic subscription service, and it’s no surprise that so many players are turned off.
In short, Fallout 76 could absolutely be a great game. However, with developers seemingly ignoring its most salient issues, it’s unlikely that the online Fallout title will ever be more than passable.
Fallout 76 is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
