Fallout 4 MP rev... wait no no, Fallout 76 Review

Introduction

Rather than bringing the next game in the Fallout series, Bethesda decided on a detour and release a spinoff game set before the first Fallout and focus on bringing Fallout players together. How does this work out? Well we'll check down below.

Welcome to Fallout 76!

Gameplay

I'll stars with some of the weirdest "features" of 76. UI navigation. TAB works as a back button in the menu, if you're in a sub menu in Settings, like Sound for example, you can't just click Video to the left, even if it's there, you have to press tab to cancel sound and then click a new tab. The second weird thing is that while usually in Bethesda games you got M for map and ESC for menu, you now have both M and ESC for map and if you want to get to the menu you need to press Z afterwards.

Welcome to Appalachia!

Now to more practical situations, like in pretty much every fallout game, you start inside a vault, as a member, and now you see there is sight of the celebration Reclamation Day and with the overseer leaving a trail of messages as she left on a personal mission around Appalachia. Pretty much following her trail will mostly act as a tutorial and even present you to a new type of foes, the Scorched, around which the game story seems to be based on. Now don't expect to find living friendly NPCs like in previous fallout game, In this one you'll have robots that act as Stores and well other players.

Time for some Music!

Okay so it sounds pretty meh-ish so far. So let's get to the more interesting part. There are other players, yep you can finally play fallout with your friends... Oooor be killed by random strangers. So the game pretty much feels like Fallout 4 with multiplayer. but you got a few changes to adapt to online. First of all you earn Nuka Cola Caps way harder, you got a C.A.M.P. device which helps you set up your base/camp so you can build, the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. tree from Fallout 4 is gone and replaced with a leveling system where you can invest a perk point each level in any of the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. skills and receive skill cards which can be upgraded, have a number value and can be added to the skill line they belong to. An interesting system which makes you think for a bit as you invest in your character and enables you to have skill builds.

Good Ol' PipBoy 2000

Building remained from Fallout 4 and was changed for a bit. To be able to build an item you need to get the plans first. Of course you have a few building items/modules unlocked to start your basic camp. But you can't just build anywhere! Your C.A.M.P. device has a certain radius and it can't be inside the radius of the C.A.M.P. device of another player. It can always be relocated for a small sum of Caps and every building you built is stored so you can simply place it as a blueprint/already built in the new area, as long as the space allows it. One interesting thing is that so far it seems that server connection is random so I had my camp place in a spot, logged a few times, it spawned there every time but at one point I logged into a server and my camp was all packed up in my inventory, apparently another player that was online already had his camp set nearby. This might cause some annoyance till you get used to it.

Another thing that is changed is that now gear has levels. of course they go up by 5 levels each and to modify them you now need skill cards like gunsmith and to scrap similar weapons to unlock mods for them. Gear also has a durability bar and needs to be repaired or it will break from usage. Gives it a more survival feeling.

And talking about survival, alongside health and radiation you also have to deal with hunger and thirst and most of the water you find is dirty and you have to either boil or purify it and unless you want to trade hunger for radiation you need to cook your food and also choose carefully what you eat.

Just die you bastard!

Now how does the multiplayer part work? well you will always be on a server with other players and you will see their locations on the map as dots. you can turn PvP on and engage in Pvp fights but even leaving it off puts you at risk of being killed by other players. Of course if you get killed that player gets a bounty on his head and you drop loot. Other than that you can easily interact with players through emoji postures and  you can instantly trade with them or invite them to party. you don't have a chat system but you can use your microphone to discuss with other players, making the interactions more personal and interesting. Also for the multiplayer part there are also monster events where you can participate or events to claim certain workshops that act like more permanent camps but can always be taken back by NPCs or other players if you don't defend them. And if you leave the server they are sometimes even lost.

Graphics

Well being built on the aging Creation Engine, you can't really expect a graphical improvement over Fallout 4 yet it has a few new systems like a new rendering, lightning and landscaping technology allowing for 16x increases in details and longer distance rendering for weather effects. But if you pay close attention to the game, except being a bit more demanding and having some stronger bloom, you won't really notice a difference. Also plenty of the assets are just recycled from Fallout 4 with no texture enhancements whatsoever. They could've done better but it's still not bad.

I wonder where does that hole lead to?

Well most of the Audio feedback of the game comes from the ambient sound, monsters,robots and recordings. you won't see humans talking left and right but the game sounds quite good and does provide an immersive atmosphere, at least until you hear another player talking in a random language you don't understand.

Wrap-Up

Fallout 76 provides a decent mix of multiplayer survival and Fallout atmosphere but it only really shines if you play it with friends and/or want to interact with other players as well. Otherwise you're better off sticking to Fallout 4 and adding a few more mods.

Overall Score 8/10

•     Graphics 7/10
•     Audio 10/10
•     Features 7/10
•     Gameplay 8/10

Game details:

Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Platform: Windows, Xbox One, Playstation 4
Release Date: Nov. 14, 2018
Launch Price: 59.99 EUR