A.K.A My first time playing Fallout76

This time last year (give or take a day or two) I was excitedly snuggled on my couch, with my popcorn watching the Bethesda E3 conference. We had all heard rumors a week beforehand about the new Fallout game with Bethesda’s bizarre live Twitch feed, and a little sneak peak in the Microsoft conference but we needed more. When it was announced that Fallout76 was to be an MMORPG my heart sank. I struggle with gun-play on single player games, there was no way I could play this online. Although it was stated it was playable in parties and solo alike, I had my doubts. I mean first off how would you stop a gang of players ganking a lone player? No NPCs? what the heck Bethesda? What are you playing at? No…just NO I refuse to partake in this game! Naturally my excitement at a new Fallout game died.

In the months that followed all I saw were complaints about the game, even YouTubers who make a living from recording Fallout footage were enraged. Bethesda apologized and I don’t know how much they spent/lost by trying to calm the raging storm of vault dwellers. One thing was for sure, I was glad I hadn’t jumped in and bought it, that I waited and saw my worse fears come true. I mean come on Fallout is a well known single player game making it multiplayer would just kill it. I just carried on with life playing Fallout4 quite happily in almost perfect bliss.

Then this year. Be3 2019 everything changed. As I watched the conference, (you can find my views on that here) Todd was saying how proud of the community he was, and how great they are. How the community and Bethesda worked together to improve the game for a more all round smoother experience. Curiously I listened intently as Todd listed the up coming updates and improvements. Then he announced the free trial of 76 and my cogs started to turn. I had always been against 76 from the start but what if? What if it wasn’t as bad as I had envisioned? What if they had corrected all of the mistakes? What if….I tried it? After all free is free and it couldn’t hurt right? So I downloaded it on my PS4. Well this is it, time to take the plunge. How many times would I be killed by a higher ranking player? who knows. I’m only playing it on the free trial so it’s not as if I have anything to loose right?

Challenge 1- Vault 76

So I arrive in vault 76, the character customization was pretty simple. Now I just needed to get out. As the curious person I am I HAD to look at everything. I picked up my pip-boy from the wall and left my room. I couldn’t pick anything up and the only thing I could really interact with was the terminal in my “room” OK I thought to myself as I navigated through the vault, either I can’t interact with things until i’m outside or my game is broke, lets pray it’s not the latter. I wandered downstairs and interacted with the Mr Handy there who told me about the vault boy cut outs. OK cool. Well this idiot obviously didn’t take that info in very well. I was trying to follow my quest marker which took me to a door I could not open. So I thought there was a key or something I needed to open the door. After going around the vault trying to open every door, which I couldn’t I was starting to give up. How hard is it to leave a damn vault? wandering around in circles for a good 10 minutes completely bamboozled. Then it clicked…. The vault boy cut outs were pointing in the direction I needed to go…. “I am such a dumbass” I whispered to myself. So I followed the directions and headed finally to the exit.

He’s mocking me isn’t he?

Challenge 2- What am I doing?

So I finally emerged from the vault and looked at my quest. OK I need to find the overseers camp. Cool. Uh one problem, I have NOTHING apart from a few bits from the vault. More importantly I have no weapons, I feel I maybe screwed. Oh look a conveniently placed corpse yup I’m looting that, Yes I now have a machete! So armed with a machete and no knowledge I went on my merry way. I came across a few small robot things and some wild animals, which I took down and reached the camp. The camp had all the things I needed to make things and even a gun and some ammo. I used the cooking station to cook my meat and made a couple of pieces of leather armor. After a quick nap to regain my health (I didn’t want to use all my aid right at the start) I went to the next place on my quest objective. Flatlands.

At least it has beautiful views

Challenge 3 – People

I arrived at the Flatlands and there were hardly any people. OK cool at least i’m not going to get killed in my first hour I suppose. I carried on going around looting things, went to the vendor in the church and did my quest objectives with no hassle. This is when I realized not only did I have to keep an eye on my health and rads, I needed to keep and eye on my new food and water meters. I killed some more animals such as braham and mole rats made a small C.A.M.P. with a cooking pot and just did some general exploring in the area. My quest objective took me to the agricultural facility and I went around there looting and what not. As I exited through a door an event triggered and the Mr Handy’s that were once docile attacked me on sight. Aw crap! So fighting for my small insignificant life I made my way through the building and bumped into another player. Together we took down the hostiles and completed the event. At this point I was only level 4 and the other player was level 7. At the end he gave me a “thumbs up” emote…. I stood there like the lemon I am, because how the heck do you use emotes? (If you are reading this Mr level 7 Thomas something thank you) I then decided I needed more armor and to do so I needed a armor station for my C.A.M.P. I went around looting for the materials I needed to make it and came across a building with ALL the crafting stations in it. OH. So I went to the armor station and created some more leather armor. As I exited the station I saw a level 60 something character at another station. I cautiously walked around the player to see what else was in the room. Then he spotted me. Ugh I hope i’m not going to die. He tried to get my attention (By this point I had googled how to use emotes) and to my surprise he gave me a full power armor chassis. I was in shock and this kind gesture from another player who was so much higher than myself actually brought a tear to my eye. I gave him a love heart emote and he replied with a thumbs up. I gave him a thumbs up back and went to store my new gift. (Again Mr level 60 odd who’s name I didn’t catch thank you so much ❤ ).

Flatlands, where it all begins

Challenge 4- low level

I had decided at this point I needed to level up as the place my quest marker had taken me, I was struggling to survive at my level. So I did some side quests. One of which was to get to a tower and request a government air drop. I made my way up the hill and reached the tower… I was not alone. 2 level 5 protectrons, a level 8 Mr handy and 4 turrets. (I was level 5). I felt for sure this was it. this was how I was going to die, so I went for it. I managed to take down the Mr handy 1st then ran and hid from the protectrons. when they had given up looking for me I threw a grenade at them them and in sneak mode made a few pot shots. Then I ran out of ammo. I had to resort to hacking at them with my faithful machete but I did it! I looted a bit of ammo form them and used that to take down the turrets. Success (very surprisingly for me) was mine. I activated the drop and went to wait for it. When It eventually landed an other player was trying to access it. I thought to myself “You best not mate I almost died getting that” I went to access the drop but I couldn’t as I had no bobby pins. Luckily for me there was a large tool box behind me that had bobby pins. I accessed my drop took the stuff and stored it in my C.A.M.P. At this point I realized I had been playing for about 3 and a half hours without knowing and decided it was time to log off and have some lunch.

I literally survive off Dogmeat in this game

So I actually had more fun then I thought I would. I am considering buying the full game when my trial runs out. The PS store has it on sale at the moment but I will not have the money for it until after the sale ends. At full price the cheapest one is around £60 and I am certainly NOT spending that much on a game that has been out for a year already and has had problems. I found a disc copy on amazon for around £13 so ner! I’m looking forward to playing it when the human NPC’s are introduced and there are full dialog trees. Well done Bethesda you made good on your promise. Thank you.

Thank you too for reading this. Don’t be afraid to leave a comment, and please share this (share buttons are below somewhere)

Happy gaming ❤