Edit to the video: 12-30 player server size*
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Bethesda definitely threw everyone a curveball when they announced Fallout 76, taking online play and turning it into something unique to the Wasteland. This won’t be a large scale MMO like The Elder Scrolls Online, but still the knee jerk reaction to hearing the word “online” turned many off. It also didn’t help that before anyone actually even saw anything, Kotaku ran a report essentially telling people they wouldn’t like it and compared it to a not-so-popular online survival title, Rust.
But this game isn’t like Rust and the online components won’t be what may are expecting. This is also the reason why Bethesda has used the term “survival” when discussing their upcoming title, because they feel that it inaccurately represents what the game is about.
Bethesda’s Todd Howard recently sat down with The Guardian to offer some clarification to what genre Fallout 76 will fall into. “We avoid the word ‘survival’, because people’s minds immediately go to DayZ and Rust and certain other games, and those comparisons are not really accurate for what we’re doing. If you think about the survival modes we’ve made in Fallout 4, it has that vibe… Fallout 76, although it’s an online game, when I play it, I mostly still play it solo. We like those experiences as much as our fans do.”
For those worried about Griefing, Howard also touched on once more how they implemented a system to make sure that players can be protected. “No, that’s not fun,” Howard said when talking about stronger players taking out the newer ones early on in-game. “Well, it’s fun for whoever killed you, but not for you… Death is already bad enough in a game, because you’re losing time, that we didn’t feel we needed to add any further penalty. We wanted to make sure you don’t lose your progression.”
There’s a lot to this game that has potential, and genuinely sounds like a wonderful experience. Pair that with the fact that it absolutely can be played solo with no detriment to the players experience, and this game is a risk worth taking.
There’s nothing wrong with a little boundary pushing, and Bethesda has more than proven that they known how to weave a good tale. To stay in the know for all things Bethesda, you can check out our guide to everything we know about Fallout 76 right here.
Fallout 76 drops on November 14th for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.
