Preview of the gameplay of Fallout 76: the biggest revelations of our first look

Moments of loneliness or loneliness define the experience of Fallout. So imagine how surprised I was during my three hours playing at Bethesda Game Studios' first multiplayer online experience, "Fallout 76".

My teammates were engaged in a fierce battle between super mutants, ghouls and other new creatures irradiated in the West Virginia Desert, the scenery of "Fallout 76," which is expected to be released Nov. 14. I decided to run away, not to go out of cowardice, notice, but out of curiosity.

Video game journalists and influencers were invited to play the first game in the famous Greenbrier complex in West Virginia, represented in the game as the White Springs Hotel. For decades, this hotel has kept a secret for the American public: a nuclear bunker for members of Congress, intended to ensure the continuity of the government in case of nuclear apocalypse.

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In fact, the Washington Post discovered this secret government project in 1992. As a Post reporter, it seemed appropriate that I personally distance myself from the goals of my team to find myself the video game version of this bunker. I arrived at the hotel and there was not a living soul. The housekeepers and concierge staff were all robots, still performing their duties despite decades of death and degradation. I walked in the dark, barely lit alley behind the hotel. I knew where to go because I had just walked the real path the night before.

And of course: there was the 25-tonne armored door leading to this secret bunker. I had just stepped through the doors in real life (thanks to the visit provided by Greenbrier staff), but this time, in the game, I was alone. It was my adventure and nobody else.

Or so I thought. By the way, there was actually another living soul on the property – Larry Hryb, known as Major Nelson, the face of Microsoft's Xbox Live service and its director of programming. Hyrb and I were the only players in the group who decided to look for the bunker. It was a solitary experience shared between the two of us.

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My three hours with "Fallout 76" were punctuated by many moments like this. One minute we run across the vast hills of West Virginia fighting robots and insects, and the next minute I could be completely alone, looking for my food and supplies. Sometimes I would be inclined to share. Most of the time, I was not there. I have finished the party with a surplus of about 20 stimpaks, or healing kits.

Elders Scrolls series creators of resounding and culturally significant success, Bethesda is a titan in the solitary role-playing solo experience. "Fallout 3", published 10 years ago, was his first entry into the famous PC franchise.

Since the first game Elder Scrolls, players have always been curious: how the experience of Bethesda RPG, which relies on connection stories affected by significant player decisions, can it work as a multiplayer experience? In the end, it's much closer to what you've imagined. It's really "Fallout, but with your friends."

The game uses an upgraded and modified version of the authoring engine used to create "Fallout 4", and the similarities are obvious. The control scheme and user interface of the menus are taken from the game of 2015.

The only other humans you'll encounter in the game are other humans like Hryb, which is a radical change from previous games, but also compared to most multiplayer RPGs, which usually have non-playable characters , or NPC, to add color and content.

The stated purpose of the game? To rebuild America. Each player is a member of Vault 76, a fallout shelter designed to accommodate the "best and brightest" states in the United States. We are in 2102, 25 years after the dropping of the bombs that decimated the country. On "Reclamation Day," residents of the 76-year-old vault went to West Virginia to rebuild the government, infrastructure, and social structures of the United States.

Did I mention that this game is a precedent of the entire Fallout franchise, which will later include a decimated Washington DC and a secluded "New California Republic" that the state's iconic flag is replaced by a two-handed bear heads?

((Courtesy Bethesda Game Studio))

In the great fortune of Bethesda, the mechanisms that link the multiplayer aspects seem solid. There is an easy-to-use menu interface to team up with your friends. You can immediately travel quickly wherever your teammates. And approaching other players opens the possibility of trading with them.

The game introduces with other players a system of barter and exchange that reflects the way you traded with NPCs. Other players can offer you items for free or at a fixed price. These items include weapons, clothing and armor. They could also make artifacts collected around the fallow land, which are used to make better armor and weapons, as well as workstations for campsites. Although you can get powerful weapons, the most powerful weapons are locked by levels. So, you can have a level 65 player wearing his powerful X-01 armor and handing you a high power Gauss rifle. But you will not be able to use it for dozens of levels.

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The reasoning behind the decision to turn each game into a real human becomes obvious as soon as you meet another player in the wild. This changes the rules of engagement: there will always be a consequence with another human. It can be a friendly emotion or a dance, an invitation to trade or a fight between players.

If a player kills another player who does not defend himself, the murderer is then called a murderer. Like "Grand Theft Auto Online", the criminal player is rewarded with a bonus and will appear to other players as a large red star on the card. The murderer would also lose the ability to see other players on the map. Once the murderer is killed, he will have to pay a considerable premium to the player who defeated him.

And there is no way to seize the property of other players apart from a voluntary exchange. Killing another player means that he leaves only his notes. Grievors will not get any benefit in addition to having the thrill of hurting other players. If a certain player wants you too much? This multiplayer menu system also includes a "Block player from session" option. Think of it as Twitter shadowbanning. This player will always be in the world, but it will be invisible to you and can not affect you or your game.

Each session will include a maximum of 24 players browsing a map of West Virginia about four times larger than Boston in "Fallout 4".

"When we arrived at 24 [players] and we were doing tests internally, we were like, "Wow, there's a lot of dead space," so we added four times more content, "said Chris Meyer, director of development for" Fallout 76 ".

The game has about 70,000 mods of weapons and armor and workshops. In addition to an "aggressive" patch schedule, Bethesda is developing and plans to post free content after launch, said Jeff Gardiner, project manager.

The game also has an end. The story begins when you find the "supervisor" or Vault leader 76, who left the vault first. She is from West Virginia. So you're supposed to follow his journey (via environmental cues and audio recordings) during his journey to his home country, 25 years after the end of the world. That bunker that Hryb and I found? It was largely inaccessible and probably related to the content at the end of the game.

The iconic "Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System" also makes a comeback, but in a different way from each previous Fallout game. Instead of slowing down or stopping time (which was supposed to keep the game close to its RPG roots on a turn-based basis), it was simply a "lock" mechanism. The game always calculates the probability of hitting an enemy, but the time normally goes out. Since Bethesda took power, the franchise has been moving away from its slower, more meticulous role playing roles. With this remodeled "VATS" system, the game is the closest it has ever been to a shooter.

The game in its current form does not allow private sessions. Bethesda promises private sessions in the future, but can not provide a schedule, probably because she also wants private sessions to offer mod support. So, do not count on that in a short time.

The graphics represent a significant improvement over "Fallout 4." The lighting and shadows have been significantly improved, especially because the game contains much more detail on the greenery and wildlife so that the sunlight can play. Although it is about to come out, Bethesda said the stabilization of the frame rate was continuing. The game crashed against one of my teammates. Fortunately, the ability to return immediately was painless. A game of this size is bound to have bugs. And the Bethesda Games are known to be so ambitious that you are sure to find open seams.

Questions about the longevity of the game persist, especially because some of the missions that we gathered were MMO type garden missions and shooting missions, such as hunting a number of creatures or defending a point against waves of enemies. Bethesda may be betting that these missions would be more interesting with a Fallout wrapping. And there are probably other missions (like the one involving this bunker) that are much more interesting and complicated than we could see.

There is also the question of how the community will act. Yes, "Grand Theft Auto Online" has a bonus system, but given the popularity of this game (as the the most profitable entertainment product of all time), this community is known for its toxicity.

Given the persistent calamities of previous games, are the residents of Vault 76 doomed to fail in their efforts to rebuild and live in society? Probably. And that will remain a question for "Fallout 76" as well, and we probably will not know it without at least a few months in hindsight. But Bethesda is doing everything in its power, with a particular focus on creating an interesting and tight player engagement while punishing bad players, while maintaining that lonely feeling of "Fallout." We will know better when the day of recovery finally arrives.

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