The excellent quality of the first season of the "Fallout" TV series has brought the "Fallout" series back to the eyes of players. The online number of all games in the series on Steam has grown by leaps and bounds. Among them, the latest game in the series, "Fallout 4," directly brought the number of online players on Steam to 160,000, ranking third on the Steam list. It also ushered in a new update that gave players mixed joy and sorrow.
However, considering the 470,000 online numbers that "Fallout 4" reached when it was released, it is now just reviving its former glory. But for "Fallout 76", which has been controversial since its release, the "Fallout" TV series has been a powerful medicine. The number of online players has increased from an average of about 10,000 per day to an average of about 50,000. On April 21, it even reached 50,000. The all-time high is 73,000. Considering that the previous record of "Fallout 76" was 38,000 online when it first launched on Steam, it is no exaggeration to say that the "product delivery" of the TV series can be said to have given "Fallout 76" a new lease of life.
Some friends may ask curiously: In 2024, can "Fallout 76" be called a qualified "Fallout" game?
In the eyes of many people, although the story and location are different, "Fallout 76" can be regarded as the online game version of "Fallout 4" - a large number of basic systems and game skills are common between the two. However, compared to the criticized and oversimplified dialogue system of "Fallout 4", "Fallout 76" has honestly returned to traditional dialogue options, and also retained the essence of "mouth attack": for example, players who have reached the strength level can In the plot, you can intimidate the robber and scare him into immediately revealing the location of his accomplices and then fleeing; if your charm is high enough, you can bargain with the NPC who issued the commission to increase the mission reward; and in a certain dialogue where the "password" is asked, if the player does not advance in advance If you obtain the password through the branch line, you can try to use the attribute of "luck" to let the character hide the password. This makes the plot experience of many tasks in "Fallout 76" even more comfortable than the stand-alone version of "Fallout 4".
The new point-adding and perk system in "Fallout 76" is quite interesting. Players can build characters by loading and unloading different perk cards, and can also wash points through the "punch card machine".
In several large-scale updates with good reputations, players' choices will also determine the survival of NPCs and even forces. In addition, online games cannot "load files and re-select", which often really makes players feel full of immersion. Feel the heaviness of those key decisions in the plot.
In addition, the legendary entry system and home construction system newly added in "Fallout 4" have also been retained or enhanced in "Fallout 76". For example, the legendary system allows players to recycle unused legendary equipment into special currency through a "crusher" to purchase the legendary equipment they need. The home system provides a black technology tool called "c.a.m.p". Players can place their own camp in the wasteland at will. They can also spend a small amount of bottle caps to "pack it away" and move to a new camp as a whole, which is quite convenient. "Fallout 76" also retains the hunger and thirst settings of "Survival Mode" to a certain extent, but it is much looser. Rather than making players anxious about survival, it prefers to use "eating and drinking enough" to bring about The action value restores the buff to encourage players to "eat more good things".
As a continuously operating multiplayer game, "Fallout 76" does have many in-app purchases and payment points, mainly focusing on the membership subscription mechanism of "fallout 1st" and the pass unlock currency of "Atomic Coin". Fortunately, these The payment system is located in the main menu interface of the game and will not appear in the wasteland adventure. Friends who are not interested in in-app purchases can ignore them as long as they start the game as soon as possible.
If players are not satisfied with just playing "Fallout 76" as a stand-alone game, they can also experience social and online gaming gameplay that is not available in a stand-alone game, such as making their own camp a landmark building and exposing it to other players as a teleportation point that can move quickly , or place vending machines to trade equipment between players. You can also invite your friends to take the adventure together, recreating the plot of multiple protagonists fighting side by side in the "Fallout" TV series.The
game has also prepared a wide variety of multiplayer activities and world bosses. Some new players may be a little worried before engaging in multiplayer activities, but don’t worry, those who have survived early negative reviews and numerous bugs and persisted for six years Veteran players of "Fallout 76" are famous for their friendliness towards newcomers: "Donation boxes" can be seen everywhere in the game, which contain supplies and equipment that veteran players put in for newcomers; and in some world boss scenes, veterans Players will also specially prepare a full set of power armor for newcomers who are "joining in the fun" to prevent them from "sudden death" due to being unable to withstand the high radiation value in the scene.
Talking about the early negative reviews of "Fallout 76", in addition to focusing on Bethesda's consistent bugs and backward technology, there is also a point that has been criticized a lot: "the lack of living NPCs".
Bethedas’ original vision was to turn the “Appalachia” region into a pure “no man’s land”—the original surface survivors had long been slaughtered by mutated creatures called “radiated corpse beasts.” The "76 Vault Residents" played by players have become the only remaining living people, and cooperation or fighting between players replaces the stand-alone NPCs.
is a good idea, but for "Fallout 76", whose map size is nearly four times that of "Fallout 4", the largest public room can only accommodate 24 players at the same time. It is undoubtedly a fantasy to fill the map with these 24 players. Various deserted and empty buildings and settlements, dotted with scattered store robots and self-service machines, are the most common scenes that players see.
The absence of NPCs in the plot can still be seen to this day as its residual negative impact. In the early main tasks of "Fallout 76", players will find that some tasks are inferior to other tasks in the same period in terms of quality and arrangement. Players in this main line have to search for the recordings of the shelter supervisors and follow the guidance of the recordings to the next location. At each new location, they can often find more terminals and recordings, and learn about the survivors here before. What happened and how it became a "dead town". You even have to pass the "self-service test" on the terminal and join the annihilated survivor organization to get a false title.
Although searching for fragments of the story is indeed an important narrative method in the "Fallout" series, joining an organization that has long since died is also quite absurd. However, the entire main line relies on a narrative routine that is constantly repeated, which will quickly make players feel tired. Not to mention that in the recording, the supervisor of Vault 76 will emphasize again and again the difficulty of the task she has to perform, and the player's help is essential. However, the player is one step behind her every time and cannot meet her, and can only pick it up. , plays the recording to follow her "phantom" and is forced to continue following her instructions in the recording. In the gaming community, only a few players who enjoy extreme loneliness consider the lifeless "Appalachian" wasteland of the first version to be their ideal setting.
Fortunately, players' criticism prompted Bethedas to face the problem head-on, and later brought "Appalachia" back to life through the "Wastelander" DLC. This DLC not only added human NPCs to the wasteland, It also brings back many interesting new tasks, including the "talking" element mentioned above. Two large NPC settlements and corresponding reputation systems have also been added, making the entire "Fallout 76" no longer lifeless. "Wastelander", which was launched in 2020, is also regarded by many old "Fallout 76" players as a key node for the game to "get better".
Since then, Bethedas has been steadily updating every year. It has launched more than ten large-scale updates with good overall reviews, such as the plot updates "Steel Dawn" and "Steel Dawn" related to the popular organization "Brotherhood of Steel" in the game. "Steel Reign"; or further expand the map to provide new adventures such as "Nuclear World", "Pittsburgh", "Atlantic City", etc. We have mentioned before that the main payment points of "Fallout 76" are membership subscriptions and pass currency. On the contrary, these large-scale DLCs are all in the form of free updates. "Becedas is going to update "Fallout 76" until the sun goes out", which was quite ironic back then, now has some inspirational flavor like "No Man's Sky" and "Cyberpunk 2077".
So back to the original question, yes, in 2024, "Fallout 76" is already a qualified "Fallout" work.
It retains the classic and interesting dialogue choices of the "Fallout" series based on the evolved combat feel of "Fallout 4". Continuous updates not only fix bugs and add new content, but also greatly improve the early game experience. For players of the "Fallout" series, it is a good choice to satisfy their cravings before the second season of the "Fallout" TV series or "Fallout 5".
Of course, I would like to say a little selfishly here. For those who have never played the "Fallout" series and want to try it after watching the TV series, you might as well give "Fallout New Vegas" a chance.
It must be mentioned that the "revival" of "Fallout 76" is quite similar to the joke about "the Polish jackass owes Trigger a favor" after the launch of "Cyberpunk Edgerunner": after experiencing the initial release After the reputation of the game collapsed, the persistence and efforts of the production team were important, but the key to regaining those players who had lost confidence was the off-site factors such as "the popularity of spin-offs". This set of operating logic is feasible but full of contingencies and is not a "panacea." For game companies, instead of counting on Netflix or Amazon to “move in their brothers” after the release, or to receive “Best Sustained Operations” as an encouragement, it is better to polish it carefully before release to attract players who love these games. Have the confidence to go for a "first release" or even pre-order.
