Fallout 76 review

Performance Issues

Another thing, albeit unwelcome, that has also made it to Fallout 76 is a wide range of bugs. Bethesda’s big open world games are known for glitches, and this game is no different. Chances are you’ll run into issues with item swapping, mission markers not displaying correctly, and enemies behaving strangely. Sometimes this could mean you can’t complete a task or you’ll lose a valuable piece of equipment. Although there have been many updates from the original version of the game, the bugs still persist.

Outside of the performance-based issues, Fallout 76 looks and sounds pretty good. While Bethesda’s RPGs never strive to be the best in terms of graphics, they have a distinctive style. That fits into this game, which faithfully recreates the West Virginia vibe and tone. The small amount of music present is usually quite pleasant. Meanwhile, the sound design and voice acting are generally of a high quality.

Final verdict

Even with all of the problems described in this review, the most obvious is a separate problem. It’s that Bethesda doesn’t seem to have designed Fallout 76 for anyone in particular. Longtime fans will feel alienated from the multiplayer components and the lack of story or world building. However, the online offerings aren’t sophisticated enough to make the game fun to play with others.

There is only little fun to be had in this game. While developers can sometimes make significant changes to save a game after release, this is likely impossible with Fallout 76. The core gameplay isn’t interesting enough and would require drastic changes that aren’t possible after launch. We’ll see when the free Wastelanders expansion comes out on April 7, 2020.