Editor’s Note: This review takes a fresh look at Fallout 76, replacing our previous review from 2018. You can read more about our review policies and philosophy here.
As someone who hadn’t returned to Fallout 76’s post-apocalyptic West Virginia since its troubled debut back in 2018, six years really has made quite the difference. Appalachia looks pretty dang gorgeous on modern systems, its reworked leveling and perks make for an extremely engaging grind, and in stark contrast to the lonely and depressing slog I endured last time, the world is actually filled with interesting NPCs to chat up – you know, like a Fallout game. Throw in all the new quests and activities that have been added, and you’ve got yourself a pretty robust multiplayer adventure filled with gore and silliness. That said, there’s still plenty Fallout 76 misses the mark on in 2024, whether it’s an endgame that’s fairly light on content, underwhelming jaunts into other areas of the Fallout setting, or an encumbrance and storage system that’s so irritating it’s practically a requirement to pay for a monthly subscription that eases the pain. I’ve still overwhelmingly enjoyed my time blasting ghouls into pink, irradiated meat chunks, though, and can easily recommend it to anyone who similarly felt a deep yearning for more Fallout after watching the recent TV show.
Like the other 3D Fallout games, Fallout 76 is a goofy first-person shooter RPG where you explore a radioactive wasteland stuffed with disgusting monsters, complete harebrained quests that usually involve shooting and/or dismembering said monsters, and claim loot to fuel your badass survivor’s legend. Fallout 76 mixes up that playful and gory formula by letting your friends join your quest online, which comes with most of the advantages and drawbacks you might expect. A compelling story and the ability to make major decisions that impact it certainly take a backseat, but on the other hand, you get to fight giant, flying gargoyles with your buds while you all sing along to classic bops straight out of 1934.
As a vault dweller, you emerge from the titular Vault 76 only 25 years after atomic warfare has left the world in tatters, at which point you are vaguely told to go and rebuild it or something. Instead, you’ll spend most of your time blowing it up even further with grenades, missiles, and even the odd atomic bomb while you run around completing errands foisted upon you by survivors, computer terminals, and constant pop-ups that recommend you do things like “kill the protestors” – typical heroic Fallout stuff. There are definitely some funny gags, wacky characters, and even the occasionally interesting bit of lore along the way, but Fallout 76 largely ditches the focus on story found in its single-player siblings in favor of letting you, your friends, and strangers tell your own stories in a big sandbox filled with ridiculous nonsense. That can be a lot of fun, though, and at least now there are non-robotic NPCs to talk to out in the world to make it feel more alive. (It’s still pretty wild to me that this wasn’t always the case!)
Running around shooting things and making use of the still excellent V.A.T.S. auto-targeting mechanic as you loot everything in sight is as entertaining as ever, especially when you’ve got your favorite radio station providing the perfect backdrop for horribly mangling all manner of hideous beast and smack-talking marauder. You can go around slinging a revolver like one of them western outlaw types, or put on a massive suit of power armor and spin up a laser gatling gun to hilariously mow down everything in sight. Combine that with perks that can do wild things like make you brawnier as you’re exposed to more radiation, as well as mutations that could give you scaly skin that serves as a natural layer of armor, and you’re in for some pretty great buildcrafting that adds to the insanity. There’s really nothing quite like it, and Fallout 76 manages to retain most of the beloved moment-to-moment combat and exploration the series is known for despite pivoting to online multiplayer.
Although you can absolutely play alone, teaming up with others is unquestionably the better experience. You’re given additional XP for bringing along a friend, not to mention you are able to take on tougher activities with less difficulty since you’ll be firing twice the bullets. It’s also especially nice to have company since many of the quests are so light on dialogue, and interactions with NPCs are more focused on action while passive story developments come in over your Pip-Boy radio.
It’s especially cool that other players can join your crew and help out on missions and activities regardless of their level thanks to a scaling system that makes almost every activity playable for everyone. Way too many online games create barriers between players, where you’ll have to wait for a friend to catch up to a certain part of the story or force them to rush through a bunch of old content before they can join you – but Fallout 76 opts to let everyone join in on the action almost immediately. Not only are you given an option to skip some of the initial busywork by auto-leveling to 20 right after you leave the vault, there are only a few endgame activities that really require some playtime under your belt before they can be accessed. I even made one of my friends go and fight an uber-powerful enemy in a high-level area minutes after he finished making his character, which was both really convenient and hilarious to watch.
One major miss, however, is that many of the main story missions won’t progress for all players when they are completed in a group. You’ll either have to break your team apart and tackle them solo, or replay them multiple times together as you cycle each player in as the party leader until everyone gets credit for it. It’s just a bizarre limitation, and resulted in a few instances where I was playing the same mission as my friends, but in separate instances so we could all move past it at the same time.
One of the main things that’s been added in recent years are Expeditions, which pull you out of Appalachia and send you on brief tours of new and returning regions of Fallout’s post-apocalyptic America. In Atlantic City, you run around swamps and casinos shooting living plants who annoyingly regenerate their health, while in Pittsburg, you fight against psychotic raiders and disgusting mutants to help out the former steelworkers there. Unfortunately, each of these regions amount to just three short side quests that can be completed in a couple hours total and don’t have their own open-world maps to explore. Instead you just pop in, shoot new enemies in some admittedly cool regions, and are then quickly sent back to West Virginia with zero fanfare. I get that these areas were added as free DLC over a number of years, but they were disappointingly thin nonetheless, and I would have much rather just paid for a full expansion if it meant it had more meat on the bones.
The main world map, though, is still impressively large and filled with a lot more things to discover than when I last explored it. There’s a creepy and highly radioactive swamp in the northeast, a barren and deadly stretch of land filled with the toughest enemies to the southeast, and even a water park to shoot up if you’re in need of a vacation to the far north. Not only are these massive expanses beautiful in a disturbing kind of way and enjoyable to trek through with friends, they’re perfect for setting up camp and building a base on, which is a major part of Fallout 76. Every time you join a server filled with others, you’ll see their customized settlements out in the world and on your map – you can drop by to check out their creative abodes, buy some overpriced gear from them, or even steal or break their stuff if you want to get blasted apart by good samaritans hoping to claim the resulting server-wide bounty placed on your head.
More importantly, you can set up your own camps and fill them with useful workbenches, vending machines, resources, and storage containers that will make your life easier while out exploring the world. Unlocking building schematics, crafting furniture and defensive units, and making your bases bigger, better, and more impressive can be a really compelling part of the endgame, though you’ll need to collect and scrap a whole lot of junk to fuel those habits. This is a process that’s made way easier for those willing to pay real money for new schematics, some of which are are only available in an online store, but you can also just haphazardly toss a few pieces of equipment around a bonfire like a wild animal and call it a day – you do you. Either way, there’s a lot of interesting things to build and experiment with, and I spent quite a few hours just goofing around.
However, a lot of Fallout 76 (especially base-building) is limited by some very irritating storage capacities, both in what your character is able to carry and the maximum amount of loot you’re able to store in the global inventory of your unique stash chest. It didn’t take very long at all for me to realize my hoarding instincts were not sustainable, as I filled up all the storage available to me in just ten hours without even trying. As it turns out, the best way to combat this issue is by paying real money to subscribe to “Fallout 1st,” which gives you access to separate storage chests for your ammo and raw materials (among other things), greatly reducing the annoying capacity limits. It’s pretty silly that stocking up on valuables you need to keep your guns filled with bullets and your camps supplied isn’t feasible unless you pay what is essentially a monthly “loot toll” in addition to Fallout 76’s upfront price – especially in a game that incorporates survival mechanics where you regularly need a whole lot of junk to keep the action moving along.
Like plenty of ongoing multiplayer games, you’ll likely spend most of your time working through the endgame once you’ve completed all the main story content and reached the soft-capped max level of 50, which took me about 40 hours total. While Fallout 76 tempts you with infinitely repeatable public activities, limited time events, seasonal unlocks, and more, there isn’t a ton of content to actually chew on. Daily missions and public events, like one where the whole server is called to push back an alien invasion, provide some hilariously chaotic action, and the ability to launch nuclear bombs onto the map and then march into the mushroom cloud to take on powerful enemies and claim amazing loot is dope as heck. It’s just that there aren’t really any activities that require that loot to be beaten, and so you’d only be doing so to flex on your friends or prepare for theoretical future content that is more demanding of you.
A lot of the endgame seems to mostly be about repeating the same handful of activities indefinitely with no real purpose. I do really enjoy the ability to level up and unlock new perks endlessly, though, especially the legendary perks that only unlock once you’ve overleveled past the soft cap. Even if you’re not provided any scenarios where you’d need these perks to prevail against your foes, some legendary options have some truly awesome effects – like one that makes you generate combat-enhancing consumables out of thin air for every 40 minutes you spend playing. That makes trying to unlock them all entertaining, just not particularly compelling.