Fallout 76 finally triumphs – and there’s more to come

It has been a long and difficult road for Fallout 76 — but which ultimately led to a triumphant summit. The game’s disastrous launch has been covered thousands of times from all angles; it was a complex mess of overlapping issues that made the game difficult to play and extremely cuttable for memes. But in 2024, this struggling game is returning to the spotlight and enjoying a wave of positive attention. Bethesda has spent years repairing the ship, adding NPCs, companions, quests, expeditions, factions, a battle royale mode, and more cryptids than you can imagine.

The Fallout show on Amazon Prime sparked a wave of interest in all things Fallout; Steam charts have shown that each game in the franchise has found a new player base. Games published under the Bethesda umbrella are Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, And Fallout 4. Each of these RPGs is a meaty campaign with enough content – ​​and player-created mods – to support its own player fandom. But Fallout 5 is a way out, and Fallout 4 is almost a decade old. The game best suited to attract new fans who were just hoping for general Fallout vibes is Fallout 76.

Start the journey

Image: Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks

“It’s no secret that Fallout 76 had some bumps on release,” creative director Jonathan Rush said in an email interview with Polygon. But even in its beginnings, Fallout 76 has been defined by its enthusiastic community. These were players who loved the game, flaws and all, and stuck around. It is largely thanks to these fans that I was able to fully enjoy Fallout 76, and I have returned to the game from time to time over the years, tasting these delights. Early strengths came from other players and discovering the stories of the dead who came before them.

“The characters initially launched with 76 were nuclear shadows, whose purpose was to tell the story of what happened between (the time) the bombs are dropped and the point where you emerge from Vault 76,” Rush said. “As Appalachia was initially devoid of human life, we relied on these characters as tools to give our players an understanding of the new world they had emerged into.”

But without characters in the world and without dialogue trees, Fallout 76 a large part of I don’t know what This makes a Fallout game. While the community team gathered feedback and part of the team provided smaller scale updates and bug fixes, a larger group got to work on Wastelandsthe first expansion that added NPCs and a main quest to the game. “Development for Wastelands “Started very soon after launch and was a huge effort that involved all Bethesda Game Studios locations,” Rush said. “On these types of games, it’s difficult to support just one – a dedicated group to maintain the integrity of the live service is crucial.”

A new era

Image: Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks

Some of these updates have been much more experimental than others. Looking at the list of updates shows a good amount of variety. Nuclear Winter was a battle royale mode, designed by the game’s fictional super-AI and rich in cosmetic rewards. Steel Dawn was a two-part narrative update in which players fought alongside the Brotherhood of Steel and learned more about this enigmatic order. Pitt and Atlantic City hosted expeditions, new maps outside the main Appalachian area. Now with the newest Horizon Valley update, Bethesda expands the original map to include a strange and dangerous area to explore in the south. The bigger structural updates were interspersed with smaller experiments: killer aliens, roast meat with a super mutant and his Brahmin buddy, moth-man cults, and new tools for creating larger CAMPs comfortable.

“We are grateful to our community for providing us with all of their feedback and criticism so that we can sharpen our focus and address the most critical issues,” Rush said. “We believe that because of everything we have experienced with the game and the community, we have a strong and open dialogue with our fans to keep the game updated in the most effective way possible for our players.

“Having a great community team that listens to feedback and communicates it effectively to developers has been a huge benefit; Breaking down the walls between developers and players is key so we can have a constructive discourse where both sides feel engaged,” Rush added.

Not all experiments have been successful; Nuclear Winter has been removed, some events have been quietly removed, and some quests are more popular than others. But combined with greater stability and a greater sense of identity, the new updates have transformed Fallout 76 from a clown party to a truly captivating game in a No Man’s Sky-redemption arc.

Future forward

Image: Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks

Looking back on previous updates, Rush believes the most important lesson is this: “Our players really enjoy playing in our Appalachians. What I mean by that is that I consider Appalachia to be the main character of this game, and the story is told based on how it evolves over time, both on the developers’ side and of our players.

Horizon Valley, the latest update, is an example of what Appalachian expansion can be. While expeditions require the player to hop on a vertibird and fly to a distant location, Horizon Valley changes the map we’ve been exploring since 2018. “Expanding the borders of our map gives us additional opportunities to further flesh out the world through stories, new locations, and the people there,” explained Rush .

There are other updates in progress for Fallout 76, and at this point the designers have figured out what works for the game. Experiments like Burrows or Pitt haven’t always been perfect, but they have proven what works and what doesn’t. Throughout this process, Fallout 76 has been supported by a brilliantly creative community of actors who build CAMPs, tell cinematic stories, work as doctors, recreate Shakespeare productions or organize charity campaigns.

I recently loaded into Fallout 76 playing with a friend who had just downloaded the game, and we attended an event. Once the game was over, the veterans ran up to my friend and dropped off a few bags full of merchandise – a welcoming gesture to a new player and a common ritual among longtime veterans.

“As our gaming world evolves, we would like to open up opportunities for our most experienced veterans,” Rush said. “We have big plans to make the game more challenging and rewarding for our adventurers and builders. Powerful equipment and new playstyles to defeat extremely nasty encounters, as well as new systems to encourage our builders to go even further, are all on the table. Fallout 76 has come a long way in his life so far, and now that he’s crossed such a rocky road, the rest of the journey almost feels like a victory lap.