Fallout 76: 10 Most Significant Changes Made Since Launch

With the almost-disastrous launch and initial reception of Cyberpunk 2077, many observers got flashbacks to the infamously botched release and legacy of Fallout 76. Billed as a multiplayer expansion of the famous post-apocalyptic role-playing game (RPG) franchise, Fallout 76 debuted to abysmal reviews from across the board.

The game was all but broken on day one, requiring nearly two years’ worth of repairs, updates and damage control to count as playable. Since its release in November 2018, Fallout 76 went through a lot significant changes, some of which improved the game and others that may have worsened things.

10 Most Bugs Were Fixed

Bugs have long been a charming feature in Bethesda games, but Fallout 76 took things to an unfunny extreme. Glitches and exploits ranged from the humorous such three simultaneous nuclear strikes crashing an entire server to the infuriating, like game crashes wiping out progress or hackers being able to remotely pickpocket players.  The weirdest issue was the game code being so lax that anyone could spawn Fallout 4 assets like Preston Garvey or the Brotherhood of Steel’s airship Prydwen.

Subsequent patches fixed these however, some either brought back old bugs or worsened them. At one point, the nukes wouldn’t even fire while the weight of bobby pins kept changing from tolerably lightweight to ridiculously heavy. The latter was such an issue that Bethesda boss Todd Howard was sent a box of bobby pins with a note bluntly ordering him to weigh them. Currently, Bethesda continues to undo these exploits before more damage and/or shenanigans are wrought.

9 Enemies Function Properly

When it first came out, Fallout 76’s enemies were so horrid that they rendered the game broken. At best, enemies would have choppy animation or none at all, standing around waiting for players to kill them. At worst, high-leveled beasts would either respawn too fast or just be invisible. Another issue was that many monsters were lazily recycled from Fallout 4, with the final boss (i.e. the Scorchbeast) being an obviously and barely-reskinned dragon from Skyrim.

All of these were fixed in recent updates, especially the DLC Fallout: Wastelanders that rebalanced existing monsters while introducing new ones like the Wendigo Colossus. Also, players were given new weapons to help them in their monster slaying.

8 There’s An Actual Story

One of the biggest criticisms lobbied against Fallout 76 was its lack of a story. While this may make sense for an online multiplayer shooter, it didn’t jive with a Fallout title’s expectations. After all, the franchise made a name for itself through complex, multi-leveled plots that were determined by the players themselves.

After demanding an actual storyline for roughly two years, players finally got what they deserved through Wastelanders, which added missions and an overarching treasure hunt. While simple compared to the political intrigue of Fallout: New Vegas, this was still better than having literally nothing to do.

7 There Are Interactive NPCs & Towns

Fallout games are known and loved for their massive roster of memorable non-player characters (NPC), who can either help or hinder a player. Fallout 76 fixed what wasn’t broken by removing all NPCs, encouraging players to be the NPCs themselves. If not, there were robots and literal answering machines that just told players what to do before clicking off. Unsurprisingly, this sparked outrage.

Wastelanders fixed this by populating the almost barren West Virginia with hundreds of NPCs, who came with optional conversations plus corresponding quests, interactive towns and factions (i.e. the Settlers and Raiders). Companions (with romantic options, of course) returned, making Fallout 76 feel more like a Fallout game than another open world survival/shooter.

6 Classic Dialogue Trees Are Back

A key part of the Fallout experience is deciding the fate of the wasteland or a random wastelander through intricate dialogue trees, which makes their absence in Fallout 76 all the more egregious. Since it was a multiplayer game, the developers probably didn’t see the need to add interactive conversations… much to Fallout veterans’ annoyance.

Wastelanders brought the dialogue trees back, with unpredictable conversations reminiscent of the dialogue-heavy Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Skill checks are once again entwined in these dialogue trees, with certain replies and comebacks only available to those with an appropriate state value.

5 Fallout 76 Works On Steam

Originally, the only way to get Fallout 76 was through Bethesda.net. This changed earlier this year, when those who bought the game on Bethesda.net got a free copy on Steam, and they could even play it with friends. Newcomers could also buy the game on Steam whenever they pleased. That was, of course, assuming it would even work.

Many Steam users attempting to visit West Virginia and Vault 76 reported game-breaking bugs, long loading times, abrupt crashes and the game not even starting at all. Following some patches and updates, Fallout 76 now works as intended on Steam. It’s worth noting that an attempted Steam review bomb was stopped by the game’s fans, who cited Fallout 76’s vast improvements since its disastrous 2018 debut.

4 The Atomic Shop Sells More Than Cosmetics

A common criticism about Fallout 76’s initial phase was that more worked seemed to be put in the Atomic Shop than anything else. Bethesda quickly assured people that the store would only sell cosmetics but to no one’ surprise, Bethesda turned on its word.

This change was gradual, starting with convenient consumables like weapon repair kits and scrap kits. The final straw for some was the store effectively locking powerful conveniences like refrigerators and collector robots behind paywalls. While players can buy these with in-game currency, Fallout 76 was made in such a way that paying real-world money is less tedious than slaving for Atoms or Caps.

3 Fallout 76: Battle Royale Is Real

Fallout 76 was ridiculed for how transparent its trend-chasing was, with many joking about the lack of a Fallout: Battle Royale given the massive popularity of Fortnite and PUBG (PlayerUnknown’s BattleGrounds) at the time. As it turns out, players just had to wait a bit for this to become reality.

In June 2019, the Nuclear Winter update revealed the titular 52-player free-for-all that’s currently still in its beta phase. Aside from the very idea of a battle royale going against Fallout’s core anti-war themes, Nuclear Winter was buggy and problematic on launch. These issues have since been fixed and addressed, with some players getting a genuine kick out of the post-nuclear battle royale experience.

2 Fallout 1st Isn’t Too Broken

As if coming out practically broken wasn’t enough, Fallout 76 threw salt on the wounds with its exclusive subscription service Fallout 1^st. For roughly $13 a month or $100 a year, players could score some exclusive benefits, like more Atoms and a subscriber-exclusive Scrapbox that, for some reason, deleted everything players put in it. Worse was how Fallout 1st apparently inspired “class war” styled griefing, with regular players going out to their way to target paying subscribers.

Upon launch in October 2019, Fallout 1^stwas unsurprisingly messy. As of this year, Bethesda addressed this, adding to the subscription’s baseline perks while also fixing problematic ones, like expanding the C.A.M.P. (plus its accompanying resources) and making sure the Scrapbox works. That said, the subscription fee remained the same.

1 Fallout 76 Is A Lot Cheaper Now

On launch, Fallout 76 came with the standard Triple-A game price tag of $60. But given the sorry state in which it was shipped, players and pundits alike rightfully called out the exorbitant price. Fallout 76 was declared a rip-off at best, with those who played it first warning everyone to skip buying on launch.

Bethesda responded to the flood of scathing reviews, , and lawsuits by dropping the price just a week after the game’s debut. Fallout 76 settled for around $39 on Steam and physical copies can still be bought on Amazon for no more than $25. Meanwhile, stores are still desperately trying to clear stock by sticking the game into random bundles, effectively giving Fallout 76 for free. Long story short, Fallout 76 is mostly worth its price now.

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