May 13, 2022
FallOut
There are plenty of games that come out nowadays that are optimistic and promising. When they hit the limelight, however, they turn out to be falsely advertised, and you end up buying a patchwork game with a big-franchise name attached to it. The game I am referring to is Fallout 76. In this game, you start underground in Vault 76. You awaken to find all the other vault dwellers gone, and you must then go out into the open land of Appalachia. Nukes have devastated the world, and you were chosen from the brightest before the country fell to help rebuild America. You leave the vault only with a few items provided to ready you for the outside world and your trusty Pip-Boy, the device that lets you use items to replenish your health, hunger, and thirst, or arm yourself with weapons if in danger. You are the future, and you must get out into it so you can restore your surroundings to a land of peace and happiness rather than war and fear.
Why was this game so well-known? Not for its gameplay loop but for what the game went through upon its initial release and where it stands now. The director and executive producer, Todd Howard, promised ten times the detail and ten times times the size of Fallout 4, so the hype for the game was understandably high. When launch day came, many gamers were surprised that the company quickly followed up with a 45-gigabyte patch, but even after that, gameplay was rough. Calling the game “buggy” was an understatement, and Bethesda (the company that makes the Fallout games) was slow to fix things and make them playable. There were videos that were three hours long just featuring all the bugs upon release. People somehow got into a developer-exclusive room, where everything in the game was housed. The one thing that got Bethesda’s attention more than anything else was people exploiting the things inside for their own benefit—they used developer cheats to gain infinite XP, infinite ammo, and infinite cash—so the company just started banning people from the game that had the best loot, regardless of them being legitimate or glitched.Despite all this, Bethesda would then learn that they had ruined the game to start, but over the years since its initial release, they have been doing events in-game, giving free stuff, tweaking things to be more playable and better than when it was first released. Playing it now compared to back in 2020, there is a stark difference in stuff to do and all it has to offer. The game took a turn for the better with updates with free stuff, quality-of-life improvements, and new cosmetics for those who love variety.
—Will Kosmal, Gaming Editor