Fallout 76 B.E.T.A. Impressions

When rumors about Fallout 76 started to surface fans were first livid then doubtful about the new multiplayer focus to the single-player franchise. With the B.E.T.A. we finally were given the chance to play Bethesda's multiplayer Fallout title for ourselves and it's alright.

The B.E.T.A. opens strong with you as one of the several people chosen to be part of Vault 76, the first vault to open its doors to the outside world following the end of it. What follows is a series of bland fetch and kill quests as you attempt to find your Vault Overseer and stop anyone from accessing missile silos housing nuclear missiles. One major issue is that key items and objects needed to interact with can only be accessed by one person at a time, it was common to see players just waiting their turn to access the item.

It's likely that these missions were intentional to give new players a chance to understand the basic mechanics and survival system. Like Fallout: New Vegas' hardcore mode players will need to eat and drink to survive, with more emphasis put on cooking, crafting, and harvesting resources. Stimpacks and other chemicals are available but items have been reduced to encourage players to harvest materials for either selling or crafting. You can still buy items but cheating the system to horde bottle caps have been reduced, at least from what we've seen. You can still sell loads of junk but the small about of caps provided makes this tedious.

Players were given access to the C.A.M.P., a mobile base of operations setup but during the B.E.T.A. there was very little reason to use it. In fact, it felt like more of a handicap to be in one location especially without help or some sort of defense plan.

Fallout 76 does install that sense of wonder and excitement of locating a new area or strange place. While the B.E.T.A. did funnel you into specific locations heading out to the open world did offer new locations waiting to be overturned. And inviting players to take part in that adventure was easy, with one input you can invite another player to join in. If you lack a microphone emotes are available to convey your intentions.

PvP is another element players will have to contend with. During our playthrough, we rarely encountered another player attacking us but this is likely due to the 2 hours length of the B.E.T.A. Most players were pre-occupied with trying to see and do as much as possible. However, players can attack one another at level 5.

VATS and leveling have been altered dramatically from other Fallout games. You still gain levels and now bonus items for completing quests but now are granted card packs that provide a random assortment of perks to complement your character. Investing into a particular skill means you can access that skill and build its potency to level 3 if you wish. This does add a level of randomness to the game but it also encourages the use of other skills that players would otherwise ignore.

VATS no longer slows down the action but instead is actively part of the combat. Everything moves in real-time but players can hit their target with ease if their targeting reticle is within range of the enemy's model. It's quicker but still a useful skill.

The B.E.T.A. did suffer from technical issues but nothing game breaking. Slowdowns, graphical issues, and enemies leaping across the field were all present during the B.E.T.A. but that's the point of this test. Surprisingly the joining the game was easy and connecting issues were nonexistent during our playthrough. With triple-a games becoming more notorious for having net code issues its relieving to see the multiplayer work so well.

From what we played of Fallout 76's B.E.T.A. it's looking alright. There are still stability issues such as slowdowns and enemies leaping across the map to address but it's more Fallout. By the end we were neither hopeful or disappointed with the B.E.T.A., it gave us a look into the game's progression and what we can expect from the final product. Hopefully, the final game will have more mission variety and gives players more reason to keep exploring the large environment.

Fallout 76 launches on November 14th for Xbox One, PS4, and PC.

Adam Siddiqui, NoobFeed
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