Fallout 76: Wastelanders first impressions — It's now a lot less lonely

Fallout 76 Wastelanders Source: Matt Stanley/Windows Cardinal The mysterious Deep!

Fallout 76: Wastelanders is a game with a flawed past, a hopefully brighter hereafter, simply bugs have dimmed it. It's a game that I relish despite itself and the difficulties it throws in its ain path. Similar them or detest them, Bethesda did create a beautiful earth in Fallout 76, and the studio finally breathed some life into it through its free Wastelanders expansion.

Fallout 76 has suffered from the typical Bethesda graphics and physics engine glitches. More worrisome, people have also exploited game and server mechanics to accept powerful and rare items and duplicate them endlessly. In a single-player game, duping is just cheating yourself, simply in Fallout 76, your targets are other players. That, and several PR blunders involving promotional materials, has given Fallout 76 a negative reputation.

A lot of my enjoyment comes from building my personal settlement and sharing it with the community.

That has to make y'all wonder why anyone would play this boondoggle. Despite its numerous flaws, Fallout 76 is a love letter to people who can't get enough of the Fallout universe and exploration. The West Virginia Wasteland is vast and varied; the unlike areas of the map might equally well be different planets. They range from a verdant wood, hellish ash waste, alien swamp, bleached toxic valley, and mutated mangrove bogs. You take valleys, mountains, rivers, lakes, caves, and ruins, and they're pretty much all yours to settle.

A lot of my enjoyment comes from edifice my personal settlement and sharing it with the community. A community that, I might add, has been exceedingly generous and supportive.

Wastelanders adds to the game by broadening the player'southward opportunities for adventure. Sure, the add-on of the Raider and Settler factions has expanded the story, but other elements of the background have something new as well. I stumbled upon a hidden Chinese base, fought bizarre Mothman cultists, and tangled with the Blood Eagles, a raider group that even the Raiders of the Crater can't get along with. The mural of the game has changed, and for the ameliorate.

A Solitary Route

Fallout 76 Wastelanders Source: Matt Stanley/Windows Primal The Crater before the Raiders took it over.

The West Virginia Wasteland was a desolate place at the launch of Fallout 76. By pattern, the only human beings you met were other actual players. Every other human in the game had been mutated across redemption or long dead.

Information technology was an heady concept for a roleplaying game and a radical experiment in storytelling. Bethesda'southward design was conspicuously to have a world that was open to whatever the players wanted. Equally an avid player from launch up until the gyre-out of Fallout 1st, I have to report the results were mixed. You'd be introduced to these interesting people on recordings or letters left behind and hear their stories and their struggles.

At the same time, you'd also know that their corpse was out at that place in the wasteland somewhere, and y'all could never really collaborate with them. No matter what heroism or villainy you showed, the only person you lot'd affect is yourself. I've rarely had a game brand me feel and so alone.

The bones of the game were solid, though. Despite the initial roll-out bug that whatsoever online game has at the beginning, and the typical ongoing Bethesda bugs, the game had such a massive world to play in. The C.A.Yard.P. organisation immune yous to build your own role player home on nearly whatsoever part of the map, including cliffsides, caves, mountain tops, and the eye of utility towers. Bethesda created a organisation allowing you lot to swap out your histrion build on the fly, going from a crafter in one minute to a heavy weapons specialist to a melee-oriented grapheme with relative ease. And the earth, as empty equally it was, was beautiful.

What does Wastelanders bring to the table?

Fallout 76 Wastelanders Source: Matt Stanley/Windows Central The updated Crater, now full of Raiders.

Like whatever proficient expansion to a game, there are more than toys and more enemies to use them against. I accept only played with the bow then far (I started a new character to play Wastelanders at the suggestion of the devs), just new toys similar the Plasma Caster, the Gauss Shotgun, Pistol, and Minigun are things that I'm looking forrad to getting my easily on. I have yet to face the Wendigo Colossus, a nightmarish meld of three Wendigos into one horrid monstrosity, though I've heard it'southward quite tough.

Then there are the Floaters, which are an older Fallout monster brought into Fallout 76. Although they expect comical, they are non messing about in the slightest. They tend to attack in packs and are relentless. Information technology'south a fun ramp up in challenge.

Like any expert expansion to a game, there are more than toys and more enemies to use them against.

Those changes are all well and good, just the meat of the update is the add-on of the Raiders and Settlers. The Settlers are new to the area, just bring progress and a cooperative mental attitude to the Wasteland. The Raiders are sometime residents of the area, forced out by the plague that ravaged the land. While they are cruel and barbarous, they did own the country that the settlers are now challenge, which sets up the disharmonize the player has to resolve. Which of these 2 do you support?

The master quest the factions offer centers on building a crew to pull off a heist, and I have to admit the quests are pretty fun. The characters y'all meet were full of personality, and it's just about the only time I've e'er heard a Fundamental Pennsylvian emphasis in a video game and didn't want to cringe. Nosotros love you, Lucky Lou.

Plus, these are 2 factions of actual people you lot can speak to! Yous can practise that with the dialog system, which was modeled on the system in Fallout iii/New Vegas. While your character isn't voiced like it is in Fallout four, that element won't exist missed. Through most of the conversations of Fallout 76, you'll build your relationships with either or both factions. Yet, you lot'll also encounter people unaligned with either faction in the game. Information technology'southward startling to accept a scavenger greet you, or comment on their finds when you've had nothing but silence for over a year. They'll offer random events too. I encountered a woman whose robot was malfunctioning. I had the choice of helping her or sabotaging her robot to attack her. It was very unfortunate for her that I happened to be playing my evil cannibal grapheme that session, simply the Wasteland is a deliciously imperfect place.

Fallout 76 Wastelanders Source: Matt Stanley/Windows Central And no, he's non supposed to be able to wing.

Speaking of imperfections, I encountered a few technical ones. At that place is the obvious issue of the player vending machines and display cases beingness disabled due to dupers using an exploit to copy powerful items. Disabling thespian vending machines, in particular, makes other histrion's camps challenging to observe. When a actor adds a vending machine to their C.A.Thousand.P., it makes the C.A.M.P. visible on other thespian's maps and allows players to fast travel to that C.A.Grand.P.

The lack of player vending machines likewise makes it harder for newer characters to gain more mutual C.A.One thousand.P., weapon, and armor plans, equally older characters generally have surplus plans that they sell at reasonable prices through those machines. That's not ideal when you're welcoming new and returning players to the game, just Bethesda has promised a ready soon.

There's also an issue with a filibuster in dialog options being displayed. At that place can be a gap of several seconds betwixt the cease of dialog and your adjacent options to continue the conversations. Even more frustrating, in that location was a main story quest that kept having an NPC's action begin, merely never fully resolve. This caused me to accept to stop the quest and restart information technology past server hopping, merely to have the same quest bug out at a different point. Information technology got to the bespeak where I got sick of it and stopped playing. I hope that this is merely a sign of roll-out issues, simply it's not a adept look to accept your main quest non work.

A brighter time to come?

Fallout 76 Wastelanders Source: Matt Stanley/Windows Key

Wastelanders is a net positive for a game I already liked. While my first impression is marred by the issues I encountered, this isn't my first ride on an online-but game having problems at an expansion launch. Nor is this my outset Bethesda game.

For all the flaws that Fallout has had under the Bethesda umbrella, I've e'er enjoyed their globe-building. The base of operations game built that world; Wastelanders breathed life into the game. I experience similar when I round a corner, there might be another person there waiting for me. Volition they set on me, trade with me, attempt to eat me? Who knows? It'south that chemical element of surprise that's hooked me back into wandering West Virginia's country roads once more.

War has changed

Fallout

Fallout 76

W Virginia is calling

Fallout 76 is a major change for the Fallout franchise. This game lets players see the irradiated lands of West Virginia every bit they try to rebuild, constructing their ain domicile bases, and in a offset — playing online with friends.

Come on back

Fallout 76: Wastelanders update promo

Fallout 76: Wastelanders Deluxe Edition

Stock upwards your library

Ready for the Wastelanders expansion? You can stock up on all the extras with this deluxe edition for Xbox 1, which gets yous the full game and some bonus content.

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