Like so many people, I never really considered playing Fallout 76. I’ll be honest: my reticence to pick up the game has been due to some personal biases.
I like my Fallout games like I like my books. The story has to be gripping, the characters interesting, and the world colorful. While I did not doubt that 76’s world would be as vibrant as any Bethesda Fallout title, I doubted its potential story when it was first announced.
After all, this was a multiplayer game. How could its narrative compare to its predecessors? To continue this tortured metaphor, if Fallout 3, New Vegas, and 4 had a story we might compare to the Lord of the Rings books, then it seemed to me like 76, with its emphasis on multiplayer and live service, was akin to a crossword.
Sure, it would be diverting and entertaining for a while, but not capable of nourishing the soul in the same way a truly great story can. Then, when Fallout 76 was finally released, my biases were confirmed.
I don’t want to set the world on fire…
The game was ripped apart by critics like a hungry Yao Guai tearing through an unsuspecting wastelander. According to reviewers, the world was empty, broken, and boring, so I went about my life with some smug satisfaction about my own precognitive powers.
However, in the intermittent years since Fallout 76’s release, I’ve heard from several friends that the game isn’t as bad as I heard and that a lot of work has been done to improve it since its botched release. Under this barrage of praise, I must admit my Geiger counter of interest sparked to life.
Yet it wasn’t enough to convince me to pick up a controller. After all, I had New Vegas, the best Fallout game ever made, to play again, and again… and again (I just really like killing Caesar, okay). Everything changed when I sat down and watched the new Fallout TV series. With its quirky charm, that show gave me a hankering to return to the Wasteland.
So I booted up New Vegas and tore through the Mojave once again like a ripper through a Fiend’s chest. It was fun, distracting, and completely failed to scratch my Fallout itch. I couldn’t work out what was different this time, but something was missing. As I trudged through New Vegas’s DLC, though, a friend kept texting me screenshots from Fallout 76, and I realized something.
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Old World Blues…
Seeing them battle the Mothman and explore new locations, I understood what was missing from this New Vegas playthrough. I just knew the Mojave too well – I wasn’t really exploring.
I was like a cyborg sent back to 2008, playing out the route I learned on my first New Vegas playthrough. Like an automaton, I visited each location, completed the quests, and moved on. There was no emergent storytelling or role play. I was treating the game like a to-do list.
What inspired me to play the game again was MacLean’s adventures in the Wasteland and the shock she had at finding new and bizarre experiences. If I wanted to replicate that, I wouldn’t find it in the well-worn paths of New Vegas or Fallouts 3 and 4. My future lay in the unexplored Appalachian mountains.
The future’s brighter than an atomic bomb
I’d already decided that I was going to commit some time to Fallout 76, but then something incredible happened. At the 2024 Xbox Showcase, it was revealed that the new expansion of Skyline Valley would let you play as a Ghoul. Now, playing as a radioactive corpse might not excite everyone, but it’s a feature I’ve always wanted the games to introduce.
That burning desire to play as a Ghoul’s only been enhanced since we saw Walton Goggin’s rotten badass shoot his way across California in pursuit of Lucy MacLean. I honestly can’t wait to set off on a new adventure as a Ghoul, and hopefully Bethesda will let us play as Ghouls (or even Super Mutants) in a hypothetical Fallout 5.
If you love Fallout and want to know more about the Wasteland, why not, check out our guide to Fallout season 2? We’ve also got a list of the best Xbox games and the best video game characters for you to peruse at your leisure.
