Fallout 76 B.E.T.A. testing is well underway and new information continues to roll in!
Image Via: BGR
First and foremost, I do not have B.E.T.A. access.
That was reserved for the early access pre-order owners who were willing to shell out $150 for the privilege of testing the newest addition to the franchise and exclusive fan content. In terms of physical goodies, pre-order recipients would receive a T-51 power armor helmet that you can actually wear and a glow in the dark map of the wasteland surrounding Vault 76. They will also only be able to play the game for a certain amount of hours each day (4-8 if sources are to be believed).
Let’s get into the background of the games.
Fallout is a post-nuclear role-playing game that was started in 1997 by Interplay Studios and based on their own tabletop RPG. In each game (7, soon to be 8 over all), you play as one of the survivors in this nuclear apocalypse who are trying to achieve an overarching plot goal while being inserted into the political and social strife that dominates the Wasteland. These issues can range from preventing genocide, to destroying corrupt scientific operations, to finding your father or missing son, or simply tracking down the man who tried to kill you. In the process, your character is often sucked into legendary conflicts between morally gray factions and you have to decide who you stand with.
The game has stretched across both coasts of the United States, with a couple of proposed and released games in the Midwest regions, but nothing that is considered canon. The games have taken place in Southern California, Northern California, Washington DC, Southern Nevada, Boston, Massachusetts, and now, West Virginia. You play as the Vault Dweller in Fallout, the Chosen One in Fallout 2, the Lone Wanderer in Fallout 3, Courier Six in Fallout: New Vegas, and the Sole Survivor in Fallout 4. Because of the multiplayer mechanic, there will be no official title for the character, as far as we know.
The latest game (Fallout 4) was released in 2015 with DLC published over the course of the next year. Fallout 76 will be released to the general public on November 14th of this year. It was first announced through an exceptionally long live stream run by the Bethesda team and filled with references. The live stream accumulated over 2 million views over the whole run and was sprinkled with different developers and familiar faces doing all kinds of crazy hijinks.
From a dabbing hand puppet:
To tucking Vault Boy into bed for the night and leaving a mysterious watch:
To this moment right before the trailer release:
All Three Screenshots By Author
Polygon released an article highlighting some of the best moments from the stream, which I suggest you look at here. The Bethesda team really came together to make the stream a constant joy for the viewers (excluding the night hours). This stream was a complete mystery for most fans and there was wild speculation all through the night. This reporter watched the stream for over ten hours total, keeping an eye out for clues. The largest one was the watch, pictured above, where it was set to 9:47 AM.
For those of you who are not familiar with the universe, 9:47 AM is when the Great War began and when atomic fire rained down. It is an important time for the games, as can be expected, and a lot of trailers and other content have been released around that time. The teaser trailer dropped at 9:57 AM with a small introduction by Todd Howard himself, one of the chief developers and executive producers at Bethesda. The stream ended shortly after with promises of more answers at E3.
Image Via: Bethesda Entertainment (Screenshot Taken by Author)
The conference on June 10th did not reassure long time fans as Todd Howard himself announced that Fallout 76 would be the first multiplayer version of the games. Fallout has always been a single player RPG, even as the format changed to create a first person shooter mechanic. Another alarming detail was that there would be no NPCs (Non-Player Characters) and every character you encounter would be another person.
In my opinion, the most alarming new feature was the inclusion of usable nuclear weapons that player characters could use to target specific locations in game. For a series based on Cold War paranoia that is meant to be a direct criticism of nuclear armament and propaganda, this is a hypocritical and confusing move. Am I supposed to be enthused about using the very weapons that destroyed the world around my character? In Fallout: New Vegas, there is an entire DLC devoted to showing the utter destruction nuclear weapons can do when mishandled and unknowingly used. All in all, a questionable decision.
Concerns were also immediately raised about how to prevent griefing (killing other players to take their loot and run), to allow players to have a successful single player mode, and how to prevent the voice chat from being toxic. There is not going to be a single player mode, as of now, and they worked in a ‘known murderer’ mechanic. This alerts other players to your location, prevents you from seeing other players, and putting essentially a bounty on your head if you kill an unresponsive player who does not return fire. The voice chat can be disabled and is mostly location based unless you use a private server for you and other players.
Image Via: Fallout Wiki
Another great concern was that the game was entirely online and what that meant for modders.
One of the greatest parts of the games has been the flourishing and dynamic modding community. Because of the individual downloading of the games before, players could go into the games and modify their code to create unique effects, like adding unique weapons, characters, quests, and generally creating original content. Bethesda even released official modding software and tutorials called the G.E.C.K. (Based on an in-game device), which allowed players to use official game graphics to make their mods.
Bethesda earned controversy when they, like a few other game developers, decided to capitalize on modded content by opening their Creation Club. In there, you can pay for mods and supposedly, pay the modders as well. Many modders already have flourishing fundraising efforts, most notably Fallout 4: New Vegas, which seeks to put the New Vegas plot and game on the Fallout 4 game engine. This huge project has actually worked with negotiations and communication with Bethesda and Obsidian Entertainment to ensure they work within a legal area of the law, including rerecording countless hours of voice acting. However, it has been almost entirely funded by the fans.
With the game online, Todd Howard has promised that mods will be available and they want to continue helping the modding community. However, it will likely be through the Creation Club, which as I said, requires you to pay for the mods you want to include.
In any case, it is a little too early to tell what the game is going to fully include. They have released the intro sequence, which features the return of Ron Perlman for the opening monologue and a demonstration of the graphics and a better look at the world of Vault 76. Hopefully, Bethesda is able to pull off a game that pleases old and new fans alike while also making the worth it for die hard solo players.
I’m one of them. And I don’t intend to buy the game until I am sure that there is a solid and definitive plot line for those of us who want to play alone. Until then, I’ll watch and wait and listen to my friends as they explore the West Virginian wasteland and let those country roads take them home.
Image Via: Polygon