Unpopular Opinion - I like Fallout 76

Hi All, I need to start this post by stating that I was given a code for Fallout 76 by a friend who works at Bethesda.

I will also add to this that, I was not planning on picking up the game and had very little interest in it as it originally looked like a Sea of Thieves style game.

So a friend an I have been playing this together. He is a big Fallout fan and has played every game since Fallout 3, whilst I only played Fallout 3 briefly and though enjoying it, never finished it.

When we first loaded up 76, I was bewildered.

The control system is baffling, it is far from intuitive and I am still trying to learn bindings. On top of that, if you have a controller plugged into your pc then you cannot use the keyboard or mouse.

The menus and online social system are clumsy and prone to issues. One day my friend and I after googling for 30 minutes had to restart our pcs just to join each other's games. Also the fact that the voice option auto's to always on and does not remember my setting drives me mad.

As for the core game, I was not underwhelmed, as much as confused. Playing other Bethesda games, I was expecting a rich tapestry of quests that would send me around the world to open up quests and let me adventure. Instead, the early game feels like a big tutorial and even though I have found some interesting quests, I have such a lack of investment in characters that a lot of the time the highs are too short and quickly forgotten.

So why do I like Fallout 76?

I am not really playing the game solo as I will admit it I get no satisfaction from what feels like continuous grinding. What I am really enjoying, is adventuring throughout the world with my friend. As a duo going through the quests and puzzle solving is scratching a similar itch that Minecraft used to. Learning the mechanics and collecting resources in a group is enjoyable. We often get distracted with side events and hijinks ensue. It feels like an open world where you can mess around and have your own fun. This is not a conventional Fallout game and actually feels like an open world, make your own adventure game. This works for me as a go online play for a couple hours and drop off style game. The low commitment factor plays a big part.

So after a couple weeks of playing, I am happy with my experience so far. I did come in with no expectations and that may be playing a big part. I can see why people who paid for a 76 and wanted a fully fleshed out Fallout experience would be bitterly disappointed. This is far from that. What it is, is a Fallout-themed Minecraft Survival game in its earliest form. I'm enjoying the post-apocalyptic setting and even though the story is thin, there is just enough of it keeping me engaged. Let us see if a free battle royal mode is added and it becomes the next big thing. But the base game has potential and as someone who has got over the initial (large) hurdle, I can see myself spending more time with 76 and exploring its world with friends.

Love to see if anyone else agrees with my opinion.

I have not played the game myself but see where you are coming from. Getting it for free is a huge point to bring up. If you spent $60 on it from the jump, would you still feel the same? If I bought the game at launch and saw that it dropped to $30 this weekend I would be mad. I hope they fix the issues everyone has with the game. I think they can turn it around, no man's sky style. They are talking about patching various systems asap. I am interested, but only in my periphery. I will keep a distant eye on it and probs swoop in for a $20 cop when it seems worth. ?

I think the framerate on console kills it for me. I should've considered the PC version, but I heard that it was worse? I dunno. I like the idea of an open world online shooter, it just needs a lot of work. Hopefully the negative press does force them to consider doing well by this game, because it does have potential.

I mean... I would also probably just play and have a reasonable time with the game as well if somebody just gave it to me. It neatly circumvents a lot of very frustrating things happening around it when you have not paid in.

I mean the part where it costs money is the part that makes it a worthless pile of barely-functioning trash.
If it was 'free' I might've been more accepting of this terrible beta/thing Bethesda is doing.
Thankfully the refund came through though and all is well!

I think it's perfectly fine to have a great time playing the game (or any game, really, even Mario Party), especially if you're playing with friends, and people shouldn't have to feel defensive about saying that.

That doesn't mean Fallout 76 isn't a below average game riddled with bugs (even for Bethesda standards) that's both graphically inferior to contemporary open-world games and runs extremely poorly, as well as many, many other deficits that probably have been discussed to death by now.

It's ok to have fun with games that are bad, I played through Earth Defense Force with a friend and we had (generally) a great time, but I'm not going to argue that it's not a heap of trash in a lot of ways.

I play a decent amount solo but the game is loads better with a friend or more. The XP system is kind of weird when it comes to kills but getting XP from friend's quests as they're completed is nice (it's a fraction). I definitely wish I had more than one buddy to play with and I certainly did not pay full retail on this, I would not have bought it at 60. There is a litany of problems I could mention about this game but it -does- have some cool locations to explore. The endgame is stupid as hell but exploring The Ash Heap was super cool to me with the burning coal veins and the remainders of 'strike breaker' robots and the skeletons of people protesting the automation of mining. There are a lot of good stories you can find about the region adding more and more automation and people's struggles to find work and support their families. As well as corporate bigshots exchanging emails about improved margins of profit or grisly malfunctions as well as middle-men forced to hire robots just to stay competitive and the lament of having to let good people go. If this had been a more focused sort of singleplayer thing about the region and how automation caused it to erupt and destroy itself I think it could be pretty engrossing but there's so many MMO hooks that make it weird and hard to feel immersed in. I don't understand why they couldn't actually have people representing the factions, with the BoS the person could literally just be in a helmet and you don't have to worry about lip sync or facial expressions at all.