With its inclusion in Xbox Game Pass, Fallout 76 has found a new player base unaware of its troubled upbringing. The new main missions are a step above the rinse and repeat robot-generated formula, but with updates across the board, the overall package is much more compelling. If a robot intervened at a crucial junction, it was original, but even those have been given a new lease on life with the injection of more spirited characters to freshen them up. Essentially, if it was triggered by a person, it was from the expansion. In my recent playthrough, I was never really sure if I was embarking upon an original or a newer quest.

It reintroduces NPCs - actual people - to replace the original cast of middling robots. The Wastelanders expansion is what the game should have been in the first place. That makes it actually playable this time around, but it is the entirely new approach to content where Fallout 76 has really turned the tides. The bugs and glitches have been plastered over they bobble to the surface fairly regularly, but it’s more comedic than destructive now, and technical foibles no longer dominate the conversation. It reminds me of the second coming of No Man’s Sky in how it has been able to reinvent itself by evolving to better match the original pitch to players.Īfter several years of patches, Fallout 76 is now much closer to how I originally envisioned a multiplayer adaptation. I returned to my abandoned wasteland wanderer – dressed as a paramedic/cop hybrid for some reason – to discover Fallout 76 has been completely overhauled. More than two years on, it resurfaced on my Xbox Series X recently through the rotating line-up of Game Pass promotions and I delved back in to find the answer. I wondered whether Bethesda would commit to the significant restructure required to salvage the foundations of a successful concept, or if it would let it fade away and chalk it up to a learning experience.

The content was bland, the bugs were game-breaking and the microtransactions were atrocious. Appalachia has changed a lot since you last visited, but is it worth returning to Fallout 76?įallout 76 was an absolute disaster when it launched back in 2018.

How long is fallout 2