Fallout 76 is what happens when video game creators lose touch with their fans Modern gaming is awash with cautionary tales of developers alienating their core audience. Fallout 76 might be the latest example.

It’s fair to say that major new gaming release Fallout 76 has not received the warmest of receptions.

The reviews from fans and critics alike started off tentatively underwhelmed – and have only got more scathing from there. Meanwhile, the game’s sales are down considerably on those of Fallout 4.

Crucially for creators Bethesda, the strongest wave of disappointment is coming from long-time fans of the Fallout series, both ordinary gamers and professional journalists, who have found themselves frustrated and even angered by this always-online multiplayer entry in the franchise, which awkwardly attempts to permit standard ‘solo’ play within it.

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And while technical issues, graphical shortcomings and gameplay annoyances are certainly at the forefront of this negativity, it is the very foundations of the game – and not just its execution – that is also turning people off.

This is what happens when a video game creator loses touch with its core fanbase.

Falling out of love with Fallout?

War never changes, so the mantra goes. And neither, really, have the problems Fallout series enthusiasts express with Fallout 76.

The speculative concerns fans voiced when the project was first announced at E3, have become the very real issues they are contending with now that the game has launched.

Veterans of Fallouts 3, 4 and Obsidian’s New Vegas adore the slow-motion VATS system and its crucial addition to the first-person combat. But in 76, it is re-jigged to account for online play in a way which all but slaughters any appeal it once had.

Fans of those aforementioned entries in the series value their considerable ability to immerse and enthrall for hours on end (even if graphical glitches and bugs have always been an issue). But 76’s server outages and the antics of other players disrupts that potential, and breaks the immersion on a frequent basis.

Devotees of previous games love the colourful, memorable NPCs [non-playable characters] that populate those experiences; handing out quests, engaging in entertaining and thought-provoking conversations, and sometimes joining the player on their adventures – helping to bolster the idea of a living, breathing world. But 76 replaces NPCs with robots and computer terminals; dispensing far less interesting objectives through text and audio-logs, and creating the sense of an ’empty’ or ‘lifeless’ landscape, despite the presence of other players.

Fallout 76 has a beautiful gameworld, in theory. One that Fallout’s fanbase would love to explore in a format more traditional to the series.

But in its current state, it just doesn’t appeal to many of the actual people who would normally buy a Fallout game.

Warning signs

Modern gaming is awash with cautionary tales of developers and – more importantly in many cases – publishers, who alienated the core audience for a series, with grim commercial results.

EA’s Dead Space 3 and Capcom’s Resident Evil 6 irked long-time fans in a vain bid to garner an even wider, mass audience, and ended up pleasing nobody as a result (Dead Space developers Visceral were shut down last year, while Capcom responded by completely rebooting Resident Evil with a horror-centred, spiritually authentic yet new-look entry in Resident Evil 7).

More recently, there was Mass Effect Andromeda; a game which did everything Mass Effect fans don’t care about pretty well, and everything they do care about pretty badly.

And only this month, the Diablo mobile fiasco saw Blizzard face a considerable backlash from their own long-standing fan community.

The warning signs for Bethesda, despite the considerable goodwill they continue to reap from seemingly immortal fantasy epic Skyrim, have arguably been present for several years.

2015’s Fallout 4 was a supremely enjoyable open-world game which made hay with its ‘explore, shoot, loot and improve’ loop. But it also stripped back on meaningful side quests and – most importantly – the series’ role-playing elements, leading to a much less deep and rewarding long-term experience overall.

Out went the karma system, the mostly ‘blank slate’ protagonist, perk and stat based dialogue options, and the usual variety of sprawling, option-filled story missions. In came a bland voiced hero, a much-maligned (and tediously limited) conversation wheel, and repetitive ‘radiant’ side-quests. As well as base-building, which continues as a core component of Fallout 76.

It was, judged on its own merits, a good game. But for a significant number of fans, who certainly made their opinions known, it wasn’t a particularly good Fallout game.

A risky ‘experiment’

It’s understandable why Bethesda would want to take a crack at the online multiplayer market. It can be incredibly lucrative (just look at Fortnite), and they are far from the only prominent Triple A company shifting away from a stoutly single-player heritage (BioWare’s Anthem, anybody?).

There are also Fallout fans who, in theory, really like the idea of exploring a retro future post-apocalyptic landscape with a friend in tow. Who could see themselves leading a gang of Raiders, or role-playing as a bounty hunter in a world of competing player-driven factions and moral complexity.

But Fallout 76 doesn’t scratch that itch, either. It simply isn’t deep enough. As it stands, when considering the consensus (there are, to be fair, those who are enjoying it), it’s neither proving a satisfying solo Fallout venture, nor an exciting PvP or co-op experience.

It’s important to recognise that game series can and probably should evolve and change over time. Bethesda’s own reinvention of the Fallout brand with Fallout 3 was a significant departure from what had come before. Though it arguably still felt somewhat true to the ‘spirit’ of Fallout; its history, ideas, and key role-playing elements.

Fallout 76 could be termed an ‘experiment’ (albeit a seemingly ill-fated one) or a ‘spin-off’ (albeit a full-priced one). But whatever you want to call it, the response has not been generally positive.

One of the most frequent questions raised by gamers and professional reviewers when discussing Fallout 76 is: ‘who is this game actually for?’

When so many of the series’ established fans seem to be concluding ‘not me’, it appears Bethesda may have a serious problem on its hands.