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Since Bethesda announced its latest game in the Fallout series, it was hard to understand what Fallout 76, an online RPG, is all about. While the concept of a Fallout online experience is appealing, it also conflicts with the typical role-playing brand of the series. Although Fallout 76 substantially reduces the details of a single player, it offers an attractive opportunity to explore online unknown and irradiated territory with other players.
With the pivot of the multiplayer mode, Fallout 76 focuses more on exploration and survival in the Appalachian West Virginia, with all its quirks and regional horrors found. Recently, we played three hours before the beta release of the month of October and talked to the developers at Bethesda Game Studios about the particular challenges involved in creating a different type of Fallout.
Defined only 25 years after the bombs were dropped, making it the oldest game in the series' timeline, Fallout 76 is moving away from previous games to show the completely devastated nature. Traditionally, you leave the confines of the safe to venture into the desolate lands, bringing you a sense of determination as well as a naivety that can result from a relatively comfortable isolation. After a quick introduction, you create your character, familiarize yourself with the new controls and systems, and venture to the surface. However, what sets this game apart from others is that you are one of the many survivors. And once you're out there, it's every Dweller Vault for themselves.
During the first hour, I made my mark by taking a walk in the immediate vicinity, even going to join a group to take full eyes. Fallout 76 has the role-playing mechanics and sense of exploration that are the hallmarks of the series, but it also has the feel of an amusement park, with several key attractions and venues clearly highlighted on the map, such as The Greenbrier Resort and the World's Top Ski Run. While exploring Fallout's vision of West Virginia, which is several times larger than the Commonwealth of Fallout 4, I felt that I was experiencing the greatest success of Fallout. First come the familiar weapons and armor found in previous games, then the wild ghouls, the super mutants, and references to the Brotherhood of Steel and Enclave.
Nevertheless, the new location in West Virginia looks totally different from Fallout 4's Capital Wasteland and the New Vegas Mojave, which is quickly introducing its own brand of strange localities and monsters that reside there. In addition to strange monsters such as dilated ticks, three-headed possums and even mole-men, there are other monsters that make reference to the urban legends of West Virginia. This includes the headless monster and imposing Grafton Monster and the enigmatic Mothman, the latter being revered by the hostile cabal of burned and heavily irradiated humans who end up becoming healthy spirits.
Combat movements and movements in general are generally similar to those of Fallout 4. However, the new mechanisms and survival systems involved seemed a bit complicated to master when we first introduced them. In 76, most of the tutorial takes place in a shooting scenario in an open world, where you must closely follow the first moments of the quests to learn the new mechanics, while fighting enemies and recovering Resource. Although I appreciate the fast pace with which players are coming out of the safe, picking up a few meager supplies along the way, I thought the integration process might be a bit more detailed – that got me makes me feel unprepared. to struggle to find a weapon on which I could put my hand.
With the new focus online, some returning mechanics have seen some changes. For example, the iconic V.A.T.S. Fallout, which allows you to target enemies and shoot precise shots, now works in real time. It is more of a lock in real time, the hit rate of your weapon being adjusted according to the movement of the enemy or his environment. This style of V.A.T.S. certainly took a little time to get used to it. Mainly because enemies often move and combine with the clumsy focus of V.A.T.S. camera, it was shocking to use it during a fight. For this reason, I focused mainly on aiming and shooting in a standard way, which seemed to me more reliable during fights. Although you can upgrade V.A.T.S. with benefits to make it more efficient, it looks more like an option that should be used sparingly.
The survival mechanisms of Fallout 76 are inspired by many elements of the more complex survival mode of Fallout 4. In addition to regularly feeding your character, you will also need to avoid ailments and diseases, such as contracting Rad Worms, who has a strange name but who always disturbs. Some enemies and some areas even carry specific diseases, which creates additional risks to watch for during exploration. These diseases range from diseases that undermine your maximum health, through the action points and general resistance to damage of your character, and even increasing your sensitivity to radiation.
With a significant emphasis on survival, almost every object and resource you can get hold of is much more valuable. Nothing really lasts too long in Fallout 76 – even Bobblehead fans and skill magazines only last a short time – so every tool you have will inevitably be scrapped for something new. As you search the open world, you will find unwanted objects, falls and craft plans that can be turned into new equipment and building materials for your constructions. Some of these materials can create weird weapons like the Heated Pitchfork or the Ski-Sword – a single ski sharpened to form a blade. But over time, weapons and armor will eventually need to be repaired or turned into materials for other objects. In addition, cooking stations and chemistry stations are now more important, allowing you to prepare meals and make support items.
Character growth is still at the heart of Fallout 76 and offers an impressive variety of possibilities and flexibility. After raising your level, you can place points in the usual categories of the SPECIAL system, each of them improving areas of your character's raw stats. Eventually, you will get a set of Perk cards that can offer special enhancements in the categories assigned to them. For example, the gladiator bonus card is a strength card that increases the damage with melee weapons, while the lead belly can reduce radiation from contaminated water consumption. The more points you have in a category, the more potentially you can insert Perk cards, which gives you a whole series of improvements. At any time, you can trade your Perk cards to readjust your character and better prepare you for different challenges.
In keeping with the focus of the pioneer game, the construction mechanics of Fallout 4 is also back. Now known as C.A.M.P. system, you have a mobile construction device allowing you to create a building at any time, provided that it does not overlap existing structures. You have the freedom to build what you want, whether it's a subtle haven for storing supplies or even larger mega-structures that house turrets and a place for relaxation. If you ever want to pack your bags and move somewhere else, you can save your structure as a template and dismantle it. This can be useful if your chosen venue becomes too popular with other players.
The main point of contention with the online nature of Fallout 76 is its lack of NPC and its refined story, which now serves to highlight the importance attached to instant engagements with enemies and other players. This lack of traditional interactions and stories was felt all the more deeply as we plunged into the world. Even if you're definitely free to play solo and avoid other players – and we've certainly taken advantage of it to attack ourselves, causing those familiar moments of loneliness and wandering, you'll be always a potential target in the online world. .
Fallout 76: Watch the first 20 minutes of play
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That said, I could not help but feel intrigued by the refocusing here. Legends and small amounts of stories are still surprisingly abundant, but passively told through the environment and scattered newspapers. Although there are no active NPC characters to find – with the exception of roaming robots that can offer exchanges and information – you will end up falling on the bodies of long-dead survivors who have had a notable presence in the world. In their possession are special Holotapes known to Survivor Stories, detailing the last moments of their life in the wilderness irradiated.
These stories told interesting stories for the Appalachian characters, who had poignant and sincere moments – which was reassuring given the fragmented nature of the story told in 76. Addressing Emil's Design Director Paglliarulo, he explained their refocusing for Fallout more on engagement with other players.
"We started with the principle that the only other people you see are those who come from the safe," he said. "We've never had the opportunity to play a game that would take place twenty-five years after the bombs fell, it's still two hundred years or so later. people who survived the initial war, and of course, without the NPCs or the dialogue trees – which was a huge fit for our quest designers, as they were used to doing it in a certain way – and now, the heavy legacy The content comes from holo tapes, which now have their own tab in the Pip-Boy, which is very interesting for us.What eventually happened is that we had a much more history lonely than in Fallout 4. All these people you do [learn about] are already dead, and it's almost like a strange ghost story. We did not expect that. "
Whether you want to play solo or within a group, the interaction between players is an important part of the game. Meet another person after turning the corner or reaching the end of a dungeon creates truly tense feelings – not knowing what the intentions of the other player are in front of you. To communicate with others, Fallout 76 offers a variety of in-game emoticons to use and proximity-based voice chat. During our session, however, we used Xbox Live's live chat client to stay in constant communication with our group – which will not be the case for most online players.
When you play in a group, communication is important and the emotions and the proximity chat are a great way to get your message across. This is especially important when you join some of the most active quests that require you to overcome odd obstacles, such as finding the keys to an arsenal in an improvised city built from a destroyed plane or looking for a crowd of feral ghouls golfer "in a luxurious resort maintained by protectotrons.This can lead to humorous and equally tense moments, where players struggle to rely on the special skills of their team to progress further.
Once you reach level 5, Fallout 76 PvP systems open. When you meet another player who has passed Level 5, you can use your weapon to inform him of your intentions. If they fight back, you will both run into a duel, the loser dropping his lot of unwanted objects – no cap or equipment is lost after a defeat. When you shoot at a player who has not engaged in the response, all damage will be halved, giving him enough time to react. It is possible to kill another player who is not in the idea of fighting, and as it should, this retrograde approach will call you a murderer and will be a huge target on the back in the sight of all the players in the game. world.
Our group of Level 5 explorers tried to take a level 58 Armored Armor in the same way, but it was not a success because it easily decimated the group with a high powered Tesla rifle. While damage calculation affects enemies, allowing low level players to take monsters several levels in front of them, the same is not true for PvP engagements. However, if you want to avoid PvP, or if a player is bothering you too much, you can block him or go safely quickly. Until now, the system in place is a sensible way to overcome the potential harassment that can often arise with this type of game.
To crown our time, the developers have launched a nuclear attack that erases specific areas of the map. We all had seats in the front row after the blast, and then we jumped into the ensuing fallout – with its intense radiation that quickly killed us one by one. As one of the more ambitious goals of Fallout 76 at the end of the game, the activation of a nuclear weapon can lead to new events in the irradiated areas, revealing rare materials and dangerous enemies to fight. It also highlights the more dynamic nature of Fallout 76, with many narrative touches informed of the player's decisions around the world.
The scale of Fallout 76 seemed impressive considering the early hours. The location of West Virginia – and all of its quirks – was an exciting place to explore, which was refreshing after leaving the Commonwealth of Fallout 4. However, much like the previous games of Fallout, there was a number of strange bugs and significant gaps in the frequency of images. This was particularly noticeable in large-scale combat against large groups of enemies, which reduced overall performance to a heavy load. The developers we talked to, however, assured us that performance would be improved in time for its launch on November 14th.
76 is definitely not like other Fallout games. After three hours, I had the impression that Bethesda was taking a risky approach to the series with regard to its story and its main gameplay. With its strong focus on survival gameplay and online experience, I think this largely experimental version of Fallout will become a rather polarizing input. Although the mechanics were a little painful to master, I can not deny that I enjoyed exploring the big map and engaging in the mysterious post-apocalyptic vision of West Virginia. . Fallout 76 seems to be able to thrive in the long run, and I'm interested in what can happen after many hours in its shifted and ever-changing environment.
