A reader is disappointed by his initial hours with Bethesdas Fallout spin-off and fears the company may not live to regret the game.
Fallout 76 is not very good. There are no credible reviews out at the moment, but I think thats already been well established by just about every critic on the Internet – including GCs write-up on Thursday. Not that you really needed even that, since the games quality has been obvious almost since the first annoucement, where they kept trying to hide game footage and then started pretending that a lot had changed since the beta.
Virtually nothing has changed since the beta, except maybe its a bit more stable in terms of frame rate and crashing. Or at least it is for me, I hear experiences can vary so maybe Im just getting lucky. Although to be honest, if random chance took away my ability to play the game Id probably think that was a good a thing.
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Theres no way I can list all the things that are wrong with Fallout 76 without breaking GCs world count limit but it seems theyre pretty self-evident to everyone. So instead Id like to focus on why, if everyone can clearly see the problem, Bethesda seem to be blind to it. For me, the two biggest issues are the terrible graphics and the awful combat. Both are so far behind the curve they wouldve been embarrassing in the Xbox 360 era, let alone now.
The problem with the graphics, of course, is that they are stuck in the 360 era. Almost literally. Bethesda Game Studios (the developer bit of the company, rather than just the publisher) have been using the Creation Engine they made for Skyrim since 2011, and it wasnt even very good back then. Many commented how it wasnt much of an improvement on Oblivion and Fallout 3 and despite promises its barely gotten any better since then.
Fallout 4 was a horrible disappointment on a technical level but it was saved by its game world being interesting and complex and all the different characters and situations you can get yourself into. None of which is in Fallout 76. All you get is endless audiologs, empty wastelands, and janky graphics that look like some broken mod that everyone gave up on after a few months but for some reason decided to release anyway.
The texture work, the pop-in, the pathetic attempts at moody lighting, it is easily the worst looking game Ive ever seen someone try to charge £60 (£60!) for. Bethesda mustve known this would be a problem though. They knew everyone was disappointed by Fallout 4, Ive seen GC bring up the issue with their graphics multiple times in interviews (maybe getting rid of non-player characters was their plan for solving the issue with their bad facial animation?), and they knew this would be coming out a couple of weeks after Red Dead Redemption II. What did they expect?!
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And then theres the combat, which is just ridiculously awful. And because all the characters and story have been stripped out of the game its pretty much all you do other than just wander around. And remember Bethesda also own id Software, who made Doom, and MachineGames, who made Wolfenstein, both of who couldve presumably been drafted into help. But no, instead we get brain dead enemies running at super speed straight towards you, as you fumble with the horrible controls and terrible gunplay.
Fallout was always like that but what compensated for it was the V.A.T.S. system which paused the action while you figured out where to aim and fire. Thats been reduced to just a targeting system in Fallout 76 and yet the enemies and weapon handling behave exactly the same. Its such a boneheaded, lazy design decision I wouldnt have believed it if I hadnt seen it with my own eyes.
I just dont know who Bethesda think theyre fooling. I mean, I havent even touched on the awful interface, the boring camp construction, and the fact that the multiplayer – which was supposed to be the whole point – barely seems to matter to the game anyway. No one Ive met has hung around for more than a few minutes and none of my mates bought the game. Good work, Bethesda.
Ive already seen Bethesdas situation compared to Telltale Games, with arrogant management that refuses to update their technology for no good reason. And we all know what happened to them (and if you dont, they went bust). I honestly think Bethesda are headed for the same fate if they dont wake up and start making an effort, realise their limitations, and start spending some money on new graphics.
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Fallout 76 is a disgrace and if somethings not done about it soon its going to end up being Bethesdas epitaph.
By reader Rushton
The readers feature does not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.
You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. As always, email [email protected] and follow us on Twitter.
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