War never changes, but Fallout 76 sure has. The online game that launched to a negative reception with no NPCs but plenty of bugs has mutated in new directions since its 2018 debut. Now it’s finding new life thanks to the wildly popular Fallout TV series that debuted a couple of weeks ago.
In truth, it never died, though it has stayed in decidedly niche territory for the past six years. Developer Bethesda Game Studios has released regular updates fixing (many of) the bugs, adding new ways to play, softening the game’s rough edges, and yes, introducing Fallout 3- or Fallout 4-like, character-driven quest lines with fully voiced NPCs—something many players felt was missing in the early days.
It’s still not for everybody, but for a select few of us who’ve stuck with it, there’s nothing else quite like it.
Like many older online games, it eventually settled into a situation where most of the players were high-level veterans on the PC and PlayStation platforms. (Microsoft’s Game Pass kept a steady trickle of new players coming in on the Xbox.) That’s all changed now, though; thanks to the TV series, the low-level newbies now outnumber the vets. There’s a wide range of players on every server, and the community’s reputation for being unusually welcoming has held strong amid the influx.
If you’re looking to give it a shot, here’s what you need to know.
A weirdly welcoming wasteland
I generally find the communities in most online games off-putting and toxic. I enjoy the gameplay in Overwatch, for example, but a whole buffet of bad actors makes it a poor experience for me a lot of the time.
AdvertisementThat’s not the case with Fallout 76. It’s a phenomenon I also observed with No Man’s Sky’s online community: Games that had disastrous launches that drove away the enthusiastic core gamer crowd early on end up having the best communities.
With Fallout 76, the first few weeks were a storm of negativity like no other. But once the folks who were unimpressed calmed down and moved on, the smaller cadre of people who actually liked the game formed a strong bond. The community was small enough that bad behavior could have social consequences, and it turned out that the kinds of people who stick with a game like Fallout 76 tend to be patient and gracious. Who knew?
For example, there has long been a tradition of experienced players dropping valuable healing items and ammunition by the game’s starting area for newbies to grab. Fallout 76 has strong survival elements, especially at the start, so those gifts make a big difference. This gifting became so common that Bethesda formalized it with a donation box in that starter area. In fact, there are donation boxes scattered all around the game’s map now, and they almost always have stuff in them.
Players will generally be happy to jump on voice chat and talk through the game’s concepts with you or help you defeat difficult enemies. That extends to some communities that talk about the game outside the game, too. (Be sure to look up the subreddit r/fo76FilthyCasuals and its associated Discord; they’re great places to make friends and get advice.)
Time will tell how all that holds as a huge influx of new players shifts the makeup of the community, but so far so good.
How to tell if this unusual game is for you
I’m not saying this game is for everyone, though. Other than lore, it offers very little for fans of the first two pre-Bethesda Fallout games to latch on to. It’s closer to Fallout New Vegas than it is to those, but that’s still not its primary influence. It’s firmly in the Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 tradition.
Picture the questing and exploration of Fallout 3 or Fallout 4 combined with some of the crafting, building, and survival mechanics of a Valheim-type game—including that game’s difficulty progression and range of challenges—with a heavy dose of pre-EverQuest MUDs and MMOs, and an even heavier dose of progressive looter-shooters like Destiny and The Division. Like I said, it’s an odd one.
Frankly, those are a lot of love-em-or-hate-em genres all mashed up into one game. If you love Bethesda Fallout games and looter shooters but don’t like survival and crafting, tough luck. Same goes if you like old-school MMOs and looter shooters but don’t like Bethesda games. The appeal of this game is narrow because of its specific cocktail of divisive genres.
For me, the appeal came from my love of Bethesda’s games—yes, I love Skyrim, but I genuinely like Fallout 4 and Starfield, too—and my appreciation of the Wild West era of online RPGs that came before EverQuest and World of Warcraft solidified the conventions of the massively multiplayer RPG genre.
Fallout 76 is a collaboration between the same DC-area studio that makes Skyrim and Fallout 4, and a newer, Austin, Teaxs-based studio made up of veterans who worked on '90s pioneers like Ultima Online. Both parts of that DNA are here, and I loved that era. I’ll never forget Meridian 59 and Ultima Online or the text MUDs that preceded them. I’ve always resented EverQuest and World of Warcraft for ending that era.
Advertisement- There are now hundreds of NPCs all over Fallout 76's Appalachian wasteland.Samuel Axon
- There's a decent-sized emphasis on building and crafting in this game. This is my primary camp.Samuel Axon
- There is a real-money currency store. It's mostly cosmetic, but a paid subscription offers some benefits.Samuel Axon
The rough-around-the-edges-but-refreshing spirit of that time lives on in Fallout 76, and that’s why I love it. Even if you're open-minded to all but one of the genres I mentioned above, you should still give it a try. It might surprise you.
Just be warned that if you're the type to write off games with any form of in-game purchases, you won't love it. Most of the purchases are cosmetic, but there are some real-money things that add gameplay convenience (albeit not so much actual power in any substantial way, for the most part). There's also an optional subscription that's your only way to get some nice quality-of-life features. The game is totally playable and fun without spending a dime, but if that bothers you in principle, well, alas.
If you tried it before the Wastelanders update and its lack of human NPCs was one of the main reasons you didn’t enjoy it, definitely come back. There are plenty of fully voiced quests with interesting, non-robot characters now.
(I’ll confess that I actually liked the game before the human NPCs, by the way. Fallout 76 is set only a few years after the bombs fell, and I always liked the vibe of being one of the first humans to emerge back into the wasteland, forming a bond with other survivors as we dusted off the ruined world. But I get it. Most people disagreed. That’s fine!)
Some tips for the post-apocalypse
Since it's such an unusual game, not everything about it is obvious, and while it offers several quests that function as tutorials to get you initiated, there’s so much depth here that you can miss some stuff. So here’s an assortment of helpful tips from members of the Ars staff who have been playing the game these past few years.
Join a casual party as soon as you log in
Formal groups of players allow you to accumulate a whole range of bonuses, and established players can share powerful perk cards with party members. As such, it’s always worth it to navigate to the social tab in the map view and join a casual party.
Even if you don’t want to socialize, you should be able to find a silent one composed of solo players doing their own thing and still reap the benefits.
Don’t waste stimpaks early on
As in other Fallout games, you’ll come across stimpaks, which are basically healing potions. But because resources are so scarce early on, I don’t recommend using them as is. You can dilute them at a chem station into less powerful versions that you have more of early on or save them for later and use food and other items to recover health.
You’ll eventually reach a point where you have more than you need, but be smart about your resources at the start.
AdvertisementCheck the donation boxes at train stations
Fallout 76’s rendition of West Virginia has a network of train stations, and each has some key services: a robot vendor who will buy your stuff, an ammo station, access to your stash box, a place to scrap legendary items, a few crafting tables, a stand for changing your perk card loadout, and those donation boxes I mentioned earlier. Seriously, there’s usually something in the donation boxes. What’s junk to high-level players might be life-saving for newbies, so always check those boxes when you see them.
Do the main quest, get better backpacks
In the main quest, you get a plan for crafting a backpack to increase your carrying capacity. If you’ve played any Bethesda or survival game before, you know this is a big deal. It’s worth focusing on the main storyline until you get this plan, at least. You can get even better backpacks through a time-consuming series of quests at the Pioneer Scouts camp near Grafton Dam.
You’ll need a lot of wood—you’ll find it in Helvetia
Wood is needed for building structures of various types, yes, but more importantly, you need it for crafting almost all food. (Firewood, get it?) Fortunately, there's an abundant source in a town called Helvetia in the middle-north part of the map.
- This is the location of Helvetia, which randomly seems to have the best source of wood in the game.Samuel Axon
- This is the glorious stack of lumber. Enjoy!Samuel Axon
Find the house pictured here and activate the piles of lumber seen there. Even one trip is more than enough wood than a newbie needs, but you can quit and rejoin to find a new server where it hasn't been looted yet to stock up even more if needed.
There’s food that boosts your XP, and it’s easy to get
You can accelerate leveling up significantly by regularly consuming food that gives you a boost to XP gained for a period of time. It’s not immediately obvious where or how to find this food, but once you know where to look, it’s not hard to collect.
There are two ways that are easy for new players. First is the Feed the People public event at Mama Dolce’s Food Processing on the north side of the map. This event rewards XP-boosting food.
- This is the food processing plant with the XP food event.Samuel Axon
- And here's where you'll find the farmstead with cranberries.Samuel Axon
- You'll find this hay field down the cliff east of the map marker. This is where the cranberries grow.Samuel Axon
The second is making any food with cranberries. You can find cranberries all over the place, but the safest place for new players is Aaronholt Farmstead in the far northwest corner of the map. There’s a field beneath the farm on the hill that just has a few easy insect enemies and a whole bunch of cranberries to pick. Cook them up and enjoy the XP benefits.
The Uranium Fever public event is your ticket to power and riches
Occasionally, public events will be announced across the world that players can team up to take on. Most of these are worth doing, especially for a new player. But one is a fast-lane trip to a better future: Uranium Fever.
AdvertisementThe event tasks players with defending a handful of generators against attacking molemen. The molemen drop lots of valuable weapons, and every few minutes a legendary enemy will appear and drop a legendary item for anyone who hits him before he dies. Fortunately, Fallout 76 players are total buddies, and they’ll usually try to wait before delivering the killing blow until it seems like everyone’s tagged him for the loot.
Keep the legendaries if they fit your build or scrap them for legendary scrips that can be traded for random legendaries that might be a better fit. For the non-legendary weapons, trek your way to the nearby train station to sell them all to a robot vendor. If you keep doing this, you’ll make tons of caps.
Travel to the Whitespring Resort
In the first year of Fallout 76, a location called The Whitespring Resort was, for a whole bunch of reasons, the main hub of the game. That's not as true these days, but it is still worth a visit. The main reason: It has more NPC vendors than any other location, selling a wide variety of goods—especially those that are useful earlier in the game.
- This is Whitespring Resort, a sort of working mall in Fallout 76.Samuel Axon
- Here's where to find it on the map.Samuel Axon
It has some fairly high-level enemies outside, so you'll want to make your way indoors as soon as possible. Once you're in, you can fast-travel there without risk in the future.
Radiation is powerful in ways you might not expect
Radiation might seem like an irritation, as it reduces your maximum health. But it turns out that it offers a kind of devil’s bargain that unlocks true power in the endgame.
I’m talking about mutations. These are character traits you can randomly acquire when you’re subjected to a high amount of radiation.
- These are all the mutations my character has. There's a lot going on here.Samuel Axon
- On the right, you'll see "Starched Genes." That's the perk card in my build that negates the negative effects of mutations.Samuel Axon
Initially, they come with a crippling downside to offset their powerful advantages. But there are perk cards in the game that allow you to construct builds that mostly negate the downsides, meaning carefully curating a set of powerful mutations for your build will be key for endgame performance.
You can roll the dice for these by irradiating yourself, but you can also buy (usually expensive) serums from other players that give you specific ones. Once you have the perk card to cut the negatives, it’s absolutely worth acquiring some mutations.
AdvertisementBehold the strength of the bloodied build
The other trick with radiation is what the community calls “bloodied” builds. See, there are some legendary weapons that have an attribute called “bloodied” that increases their damage output by up to 75 percent relative to how low your health is. If you irradiate yourself down to just 20 percent of your maximum hit points, you’ll cap out your health there, so stimpaks won’t overheal you to negate the benefits.
You might think that your survivability would take a huge hit, but there are several perk cards that give you the ability to significantly mitigate or even completely avoid damage at low health or high rads. Combine all this together, and bloodied builds are a force to be reckoned with.
Bethesda has released balance patches over the years—including some specifically meant to even the playing field with bloodied builds—but the high-rad lifestyle always seems to stay near the top.
If it’s for you, it’s for you
If you give the game a shot and don’t like it, that’s OK. But there’s never been a better time to try, and if you do like it—awesome! I’ll see you in Appalachia. Have yourself a most joyous Fastnacht, and all hail the beneficent Mothman. (All that will make sense after a while, I promise.)
