π’ LADIES AND GENTLEMEN KEEP CALM! THIS IS JUST AN ARTICLE, IT CAN NOT HURT YOU! π’
Much... π
Yeah, many of you probably cringed when you saw the title. With good reason? Yeah... a lot of people got burned with this game. A lot. But, as this new era of video games has shown, it has gotten better with time. Dare I say playable? π€·ββοΈ Let's check it out.
NowβοΈ In this edition of Through the Lens π, we'll be taking a look at Bethesda Softworks's post-appocalyptic, live-servise (RPG?) from 2018: Fallout 76, Roll it! π½
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πΆ UP TOP πΆ
Like we always do, I present to you the Fallout 76 soundtrack for your listening pleasure. πΆ It has the same themes and musical touches as all the other Bethesda Fallout games. This makes sense seeing as how one person composed every soundtrack. π
This one def sound like something you'd put on in the background while doing dishes or folding laundry (or reading a gaming column on a blockchain social network π§).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Sv3V1_w0Q0
I've played this game for about 10hish. And that after all the updates that salvaged it. We will talk about said updates and what exactly needed salvaging later. For now, let's just say that this game's reputation at launch prohibited anyone that wasn't a diehard Fallout fan from skipping it entirely. Yea, it was that bad. π Let's scavenge the wasteland to find out why!
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πΆ NUCLEAR DISASTER πΆ
Fallout 76 was announced at E3 with a great fan fair. A multiplayer Fallout game? You can send your own nukes? All of this was true, and people were hyped. The poor fools. Little did they know...
It's kinda weird to call it a Cyberpunk-level launch when Cyberpunk wasn't even out at this time but that's what it was - a nuclear disaster. The game just didn't work at launch. It was a sandbox with no sand. Just an empty box. π There were no quests, no NPCs, buggy as hell, a lot of people rightfully asked what's the point of this game? Was it even a game? Safe to say it was one thing - Bethesda's biggest flop to date. π―
It also came out at a time when live-service games were the bee's knees π (remember Anthem? ππ€£) devs, or should I say greedy corporate publishers, are still trying to make this monetary model work. I personally don't see it, as you need the IP and gameplay loop to match.
When the game came out in one of the most pathetic states a AAA game has ever come out in, everyone piled on it. Fallout 76 was a meme. A laughing stock of the industry. The fact that they have more or less made the game that should have been released at launch, is commendable. πβ
Make no mistake, this game is still underbaked, but at least there's something there. What is this mythical something I speak of? Well, let's see...
The push for cosmetic items also hurt the game's image. As many thought it was just a quick cash cow. π This reputation would haunt the game for years to come, until people stopped caring. Regardless, this is something that Bethesda is gonna have on their resume for all time. Live services are meant to be heavily monetized, and Fallout 76 is no exception.
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πΆ DESIGN SHIFT πΆ
You wouldn't believe the kind of crazy talk Bethesda was spewing around the time of the game's release. They actually thought that the game didn't need any NPCs, any questlines, any anything. This was just sad, honestly. They were delusional enough to think people would just... what? Make their own fun? How? The game was just a glorified FFA (free for all) with subpar shooting mechanics. π
I think the pathetic sales numbers changed their tune, however. As with every update they actually started to make... check this out, yo... the game is better! π± // I know right?
Before we talk about the steady improvements, let's discuss why we were in this situation to begin with - the engine. Bethesda's creation kit engine has largely remained the same for almost 20 years... (this is a topic of concern for Starfield and TES6 as well, but that's a topic for a future article)
The engine is singleplayer focussed. It was never designed to have multiplayer elements. Trying to patchwork these in proved to be way harder than the engineers over at Bethesda ever assumed. π© Who knew that rewriting a framework would be so catastrophic? π€·ββοΈ
I think most of them knew. π But deadlines have to be met, and this game was always meant to live on as a live service. So they rolled the dice, got a 1, and fell on their face. BUT! They kept rolling. And while the new rolls don't discount the first, they do change things:
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πΆ BOUNCE BACK πΆ
Steadily but surely, the game became... a game! What a novel idea! They started adding quests, NPCs - actual things to do!
This really came to a head with the Wastelanders update a HUGE upgrade that revolutionized the way the game was played. There hasn't been an update nearly as impactful as this one since, but still, each patch has added to the foundation that Wastelanders set.
New world bosses, new hub areas, new events. Each update would give the game an additional coat of color. The Nuka-World on Tour update is a clear example of amazing patchwork: a hub area around which several co-op events are set up, culminating with a world boss that you have to tackle with your friends.
This trend of releasing games in an unfinished state, only to then fix them over the course of several years is... interesting. Def worthy of an article of its own. But should Fallout 76 be forgiven? Or should it suffer for the sins of its release? I think both things could be true at the same time. β°
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πΆ LEGACY πΆ
This title is still building its legacy, but its shoddy launch will forever haunt it. Regardless of how good of a game it becomes, its lackluster beginnings will always follow it.
It is the only way to play multiplayer Fallout. So there's that. π also the game is actually playable now, which is nice. But legacy-wise, it won't leave a dent in the history of gaming. Maybe a bad dent, which is never what you want.
A dent is still a dent I guess, and if they bounce back even more than it might become a No Man's Sky, who knows?
As for a recommendation, if you have a couple of buds that are into Fallout, and you want to roam the wastelands together, then go for it. π
Thank you for reading, you rock! (and maybe roll) πππ
Shout-out to the πPIZZAπ gang, π€ gang. π€
This concludes our Fallout series of articles. Kinda sucks that we end up on a whimper. π But that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. What's next? I have no idea! Funzies!
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Have a great start to your week! And watch out for them tactical nukes (I guess (they might launch this time!))! πππ
Return from Fallout 76 π½ Through the Lens to ΠΠΎΡΠΊΠΎ's Web3 Blog
