Tech Talk

What you need to know

• Fallout 76 is the latest in Bethesda's post-apocalyptic RPG games.
• It has had a pretty unenthusiastic response from players since launch.
• Pete Hines said in an interview that Bethesda was surprised by some of the responses.
• Bethesda is commited to fixing some of these mistakes in the future.

If someone were to say that Fallout 76 had a bit of a rough launch, that would be a massive understatement.

The ambitious evolution of Bethesda's notorious post-apocalyptic RPG's didn't feature NPC's, single-player events or a cohesive story line, instead focusing on multiplayer and co-op, as well as environmental storytelling. Suffice to say, that combined with the rough state the game launched in led to a negative response from many of Fallout's fans. Pete Hines, Bethesda's senior vice president of global marketing and communications, had more to say about the subject in an interview with USGamer.

I think we were a little surprised how few people wanted to take part in PvP and how many more they were interested in PvE together. As opposed to, 'I want to test my mettle against you and let's get into a duel.' There's some folks who do, don't get me wrong, but I think it's a smaller percentage of our player base than we thought

Of particular interest was Hine's comment about PvP in Fallout 76. While a lot of fans have said in the past that future entires in the series might benefit from player-versus-player action, the response to Fallout 76 has shown that most players are more interested in co-op instead. In hindsight, the response is likely expected, since much of Fallout 76 has come off like a hashed together experiment of a Fallout game. That being said, Hines says that Bethesda is committed to making Fallout 76 the game everyone wanted it to be at launch, similar to what they did with Elder Scrolls Online.
The upcoming Wastelanders update will make extensive changes to Fallout 76, like adding NPC's, dialogue trees, single-player events, and a whole lot more. It's the beginning of Bethesda's plan to revamp Fallout 76 over the rest of next year into the next. It's good that Bethesda is owning up to their mistakes, and are working hard to fix them. Hines says they'll discuss more about their future plans after the Wastelanders update, but progress is progress.

The Wastelanders comes out for all platforms later this year, coinciding with Fallout 76's re-release on Steam, and marks a big change for the game as a whole. If Bethesda continues to make strides like this, Fallout 76 might be able to redeem itself, and grow into the game it should've been the day it came out. No Man's Sky shows us that redemption stories are possible, and welcome, in the gaming world.

War has changed

Fallout 76

$16 at Amazon