Fallout 76: Appalachia has a lot to prove

In this ever-changing Videogame industry with new studios emerging every year, it's hard to build a connection and trust with all of them.

A lot has changed in this last two generations.

Studios we once loved dearly are now just money sucking corporate Industries(I'm looking at you EA) or the Batman of the Videogame Industry-Rockstar games which says nothing, talks nothing and drops a masterpiece every five years or so makes us hard to actually trust them because of their translucent nature.

Now when everybody is probably busy melting their eyes off in front of their TV screens playing Red Dead Redemption 2, here I'm listening to Fallout76's main theme song

"Country Roads" on a loop and wondering whether Bethesda game studios could actually pull this off.

You see "Fallout" is a big name in the Videogame universe and even bigger is the name "Bethesda game studios" which you guys probably know.

But ever since the latest instalment in the long-running role-playing shooter now actually a spinoff "an always online survival RPG" was announced it has been under a lot of controversies.

From a bold shift in the direction of the game-Making, it an always online "games as a service" model, to a number of PR marketing issues such as the early access of BETA and now the Beta stress test controversy to its consistent game-breaking bugs and graphical issues shown in the early build of the game, the series has actually lost a number of its die-hard fans as Fallout 76's release date of 14th November approaches.

I'm actually surprised at how little the hype has been generated for a game of such massive scale (Four times bigger than the universe of Fallout 4 which Bethesda has been stressing on a lot). But enough of the negativity and negative thoughts, Let's dive into why Fallout 76's Appalachia could actually be that groundbreaking benchmark setter in the history of Videogames( According to Bethesda's vision) and a much needed positive step in the

"Games as a service model".

The world

Bethesda games are known for its world.

A world where people could lose themselves easily and forget the real universe for good.

And it has been true in the past with me, spending about 1000-1500 hours in the world of Skyrim and around 800 hours in Fallout 4's Commonwealth.

To be honest Fallout76's West Virginia called Appalachia looks no different.

I was awestruck the moment I laid my eyes on it.

Since the previous Bethesda games lacked a wide variety of colour palettes (due to the lack of graphical advancements of course) seeing a world filled orange and greenish sort of flavour makes it very alluring, to me at least.

Sure the beta version of the game looks a little rough here and there and by no means compares itself to titles like God of War and Red dead redemption 2 in terms of visuals but Bethesda games have always had this hand-drawn artistic sort of looks that really draws me in, not to mention the draw distances in their games look near perfect and Appalachia is no slouch.

Not to mention the game's soothing soundtrack seems to borrow more from Skyrim than Fallout4 and sounds as peaceful and beautiful as ever.

Story & Characters

Todd Howard-Game director and executive producer describe Fallout76 as a softcore survival RPG game which actually has the main storyline in addition to side missions and various online random events.

Now what's interesting about Fallout76's world is that it has no NPC's in the game.

It means that the only characters you meet in the game are the real world people just like you since its multiplayer game.

To be honest I was actually kind of disappointed at first when they announced it but after hearing and seeing a lot of gameplay videos I realised its actually a step in the right direction.

You see Bethesda games are not famous for its well-known characters or branching narrative consequences, its actually about freedom, exploration and environment storytelling which seems to be Fallout 76's main aim as well.

Finding new creepy and interesting locations, dark humour, piles of lost notes and holotapes left to discover and read on your own pace, your own pace towards its unique approach towards storytelling including actual West Virginia Folklore will be an interesting treat and I can't wait to find out how Bethesda pulls this off.

The Gameplay

Alright, fellas so Fallout 4 had good shooting mechanics compared to Fallout 3 which basically sucked and I'm glad to see Fallout76 borrows the same from Fallout 4 and polishes it to more extent if the recent gameplay footages are any indication.

I loved Fallout 4 and its wide variety of weapons and crafting features.

Everything returns in Fallout76 and more. Since the game has been redefined to feel like a good quality first-person shooter, it could actually attract a lot of FPS fans to the series adding some huge amount of numbers to its sale when it releases.

Multiplayer and the game's service model

This is actually the most polarising aspect of Fallout76 and could make all the difference.

As I already mentioned the initial reaction of the game being an online Survival RPG received lukewarm reception even from its die-hard fans.

But then Bethesda has a very big and broad vision planned up for this game and "Games as a service" scheme overall.

Pete Hines-Bethesda's VP of Global marketing recently revealed in an interview that Bethesda is planning to support Fallout76 till "FOREVER".

Shocked right? Well, I was too when I saw that interview.

Bethesda also mentioned very clearly during their E3 presentation that Fallout76 won't contain any kind of microtransactions except for the cosmetics or any paid DLCs or things such as premium passes.

Also to make it "Single player friendly" there are lots of features included in the game related to issues such as griefing which are very common in an online game.

The bigger picture? Bethesda is trying their best to make the game as much as comfortable for the existing fans but also attracting newcomers from different genres leading to a build up of one new genre in The Video game industry.

Imagine your favourite single player Video game developer making a game where you could play with a friend, explore a whole new universe with other people without your typical multiplayer game issues.

Sounds perfect right?

Who would want to play Call of duty and Battlefield then?

The Ground Reality

Whatever I have pointed out above are things I want and expect Fallout76 to do.

As of now, the private beta reviews have been very mixed to disappointing.

People are complaining about framerate drops, game breaking bugs, Visual glitches and more.

Bethesda is obviously galloping around with the fixes and has confirmed to fix most of the issues by launch but to be honest they are scared too.

The step Bethesda game studios have taken for this game is nothing sort of surprising and clumsy and beautiful and terrible.

But they are an honest transparent studio which is trying its best to give us the Fallout experience we deserve.

The recent tweet from them proves that very well.

If it works out well we might be looking at a future Counterstrike or Dota but with the magic and immersion of Bethesda games.

Edited by Mayank Vora