Fallout 76: “No Battle Plan Survives Contact With the Enemy” Says Bethesda About the Beta

Though Fallout 76 is clearly a spin-off to fulfill a desire a decade in the making for the studio, many players are upset that the next in the Fallout franchise – though not in the main franchise – is an online game. There are just as many happy to share in the co-op experience, but the community is clearly divided on the quick pivot for the Wasteland. With the beta coming soon and the release date following shortly after, the team over at Bethesda is taking a very healthy approach towards feedback.

Bethesda’s Pete Hines recently sat down with IGN to talk about the preparations going towards the coming release and how the team is bracing for both sides of the reactionary spectrum.

“It’s interesting and exciting, but I’m also going into this having done this enough to know this is definitely not going to go perfectly,” he told the site. “There’s just no universe… nobody’s ever done it and [has been] like: ‘Oh, zero problems. There’s not a single thing that went wrong.’

“We just have to be ready for that. That’s in part what the beta is. Break it Early, Test the Application. It’s a joke, but you need to break it early. We have to find what problems we can find, and then fix it and figure out if the processes that we put in place to fix it hold it. If not, we have to change those and do it again. We need you to break something else.”

A common thing to see in the Reddit forums and other social media posts is that many seem to think this is replacing Fallout 5, despite the team’s multiple assurances. Because of that, the studio knows that not all of the negative feedback will be coming from a constructively organic place. He even joked that “no battle plan survives contact with the enemy,” and he couldn’t be more right.

That being said, Hines mentioned that every person on this team knew about the potential blowback – which is part of the reason why they’ve been sitting on the idea for so long – but are fully prepared to face it head on because they have faith in the 76 and what it brings to the franchise. He also mentioned that they are doing everything they can to adapt to the coming feedback and are prepared to do “all we need to to make it a great game.

We’ll be able to see for ourselves when Fallout 76 releases on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC on November 14th!