7. Post Launch Content Is Free
Whoa. Yeah. This one blows me away. In an effort to keep the player counts high in the game, Bethesda’s intention is to give away all post launch content for free. That’s freakin’ awesome, mostly because some of the things developers vaguely alluded to sounded like massive content expansions.
8. Feels Like Fallout
This is an important point. With the shift to online, there was a big risk that Fallout 76 just wouldn’t feel like Fallout. It was certainly the biggest question I wanted answered before getting my hands on it. Good news: it does. You’ll be snagging desk fans and pencils left and right, wiping out ghouls, and getting lonely in the wasteland just like in the other games. Fantastic.
9. VATS Is Still Around
VATS obviously had to be overhauled, but it’s still in the game and works quite well. When you activate VATS, time no longer slows down – that would totally suck for other players – and your shots instead have a percentage to hit the target based on your positioning. At first the system is whole body only, but can be upgraded with various perks as you advance.
I found VATS particularly handy for fast moving enemies like bugs and molerats – who are incredibly quick now – as a sort of panic button. Bonus: the % to hit values seemed somewhat believable.
10. Chaos Reigns In Appalachia
It’s madness out there in the wasteland. Fallout has traditionally been very much about weird systems crashing together and seeing what happens. This is absolutely the case in Fallout 76, where the addition of other players makes every situation infinitely less predictable.
While checking out one area, a Deathclaw happened to roll up and start attacking the Protectrons and Sentry Bots near me. Great! I’ll just shoot at the beast from over here. Until I made a slight miscalculation and hit one of the bots… Suddenly, every robot in West Virginia (or so it seemed) was on my ass, thirsty for retribution. My escape attempts led me into another pack of Deathclaws, where the bots decided the beasts were more of an issue than me. In the chaos, I managed to slink away up a mountain to safety.
My play session was filled with that particular brand of Fallout insanity, and it was a hell of a good time.
So there they are – 10 things you absolutely need to know about Fallout 76 before it releases next month. What do you think? Are you stoked to play, or do you still have reservations? Let us know in the comments below.