Fallout 76 Review (DarkStar_4V)
This game could be really amazing. Being a fan of the series, for quite some time, I cannot deny that I liked an experience that strongly reminded me of Fallout 4, a game that I truly loved. However my negative review is based on the following 3 main issues:
I. First things first as the game isn’t f2p and carries that kind of price tag, I expected access to a wider variety of content and amenities, which now seem to be locked behind a series of paywalls. Additionally even with a Fallout 1st monthly subscription, which costs extra 15€ and in my opinion is quite overpriced, you still have to further purchase Atoms in order to fully unlock the desired cosmetics and utilities.
II. Secondly the game remains real fun until the moment you discover that your personal stashbox is full. From now on you have to keep a close eye on your inventory, scraping, donating and selling equipment that you may want to keep but cannot store. In a survival game where scavenging is a core mechanic, constantly worrying about your limited available storage space is definitely not enjoyable, at all!
In my opinion it is unthinkable that the scrap box and ammo box, are locked behind a paywall reserved exclusively for the owners of a paid subscription. For us “commoners” that do not want (or cannot afford) the subscription everything we collect goes in our stashbox, which may contain categories in there but most players of open world survival games (that like me came here directly from Fallout 4 and Skyrim), are accustomed in keeping their items categorized in few separate containers not in just one. I guess in this game some simple QoL amenities cannot be taken as granted.
III. Third and not least you may ignore the grind, the walking simulator quests and the absurd in-game price system where the NPC vendors seem to blatantly steal your caps worth of the items you trade, but you can definitely not ignore the fact that some main quests are plagued by game breaking bugs that do not allow you to complete them. Few personal examples are the “IAM Become Death” quest where the nuclear code pieces don’t work as well as the infamous “Ol’ Weston Shuffle” quest that bars you from following the Raiders quest-line.
Summing up, I joined this game with high hopes and expectations that the previous series had cultivated and so I expected to find something, at the very least, amazing. The developers have shown us with their work that when they want they can truly perform miracles creating epic open world RPGs. Unfortunately apart from a distant reminiscence of Fallout 4 what I found in 76 was a game rife with micro-transactions, constantly strangled by self imposed limits, basic content that was barred with paywalls, game breaking bugs that still haven’t been fixed and so my authentic survival game experience was totally disrupted.
Right now you pay good money for a game in which you have to pay again, each month (Subscription), to gain access to some fundamental amenities and then you may have to pay again (Atoms) in order to further purchase any desired cosmetics, utilities and content.
For all those reasons I cannot recommend this game to any fellow gamers.