![]() ![]() But in playing with both good friends and strangers, I found that each person's individual need to advance quests severely hinders the flow of progress. This is a great idea on paper, as it makes sure everyone sees each piece of a story themselves. But quest objective completion also isn't shared, and every member in your squad needs to activate things personally to have them count toward their progression. Containers that hold items, for example, will have unique loot for each person who opens them. By teaming up, you can explore the world together, get help in taking down difficult enemies, and complete any quest, but certain things are kept distinct to each individual player's experience. The reliance on things like audio logs and written notes also proves to be the biggest deterrent to playing Fallout 76 in multiplayer. It makes the idea of continuing to progress the story-listening to more audio logs, running across the country to search for more doohickeys, reading through more diary entries-feel exhausting. The lack of a more relatable and personal connection between your actions, the world, and its inhabitants-combined with your lack of influence-means quests begin to dissolve into wild goose chases around the world to check things off a list, and feel meaningless. But there's such an over-reliance on listening to disembodied voices and digging through pages of text in every aspect of the game that these standouts are easily lost. Some of these stories are intriguing to be sure, and when you come across a tale about a character who piques your interest, you get excited to discover more about their last living moments. there are no strong emotional anchors to help you become truly invested in the world. Your actions ultimately won't affect anyone, or the rest of the world for that matter-every location you visit will be reset with items and enemies regularly-so it's difficult to stay motivated. A quest will often explore the stories of certain characters, but they're characters that have long since passed, and all you get are long monologues and one-way directives from a person who no longer exists and you can't interact with. Without actually having people with needs and desires, initiating and undertaking quests frequently involves the use of explicit found-object storytelling tools-listening to audio logs, reading notes, and browsing through computer terminals for key information. It means the art of conversation is disappointingly absent, but more critically, it means there are no strong emotional anchors to help you become truly invested in the world, a complication that diminishes the game's other core activities. But without having any of those people present to tell their stories personally, 76's world is limited to being little more than just an environmental exhibit with things to kill. The game goes to great efforts to paint a picture that includes towns and cities with different populations and cultures, survivors who have banded together to form factions, and stories of people who managed to survive against all odds. However, the lack of inhabitants is also Fallout 76's biggest problem. Exploring a new wasteland and stumbling upon new settings, scenery, and oddities is one of Fallout's most enjoyable aspects, and it's 76's best trait. There's a curiosity about the familiar but unknown environment that drives you to veer off the beaten path, visit places that once were, attempt to imagine what life might have been like before everything went to hell, and wonder what the hell has happened there since. Without established characters to populate the world, the vibe of 76 is an eerie one, and it often amplifies one of the series strengths: creating the feeling of desolation and otherness. Many of the folks who did survive nuclear annihilation conveniently died shortly before your arrival. The justification is that, because the dwellers of Vault 76 are tasked to be the first to re-enter and reclaim this post-apocalyptic America, there are very few coherent beings. Fallout 76 can look and feel like its illustrious predecessors at times, but it's a soulless husk of an experience.įallout 76 has no artificial human characters to interact with. In doing so, both styles of play suffer from major compromises that exist only to serve the other, and as a result, both are weak. ![]() It introduces significant changes to the set structure of Fallout 4 to make it function as both a single-player and multiplayer experience. But Fallout 76 is a game without a strong focus. It puts a major focus on cooperating with other people in a world with perpetual activities that seek to sustain your engagement indefinitely. ![]() Fallout, the RPG series with a 20-year legacy, finds its latest entry taking another chance at braving a new direction. ![]()
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