Fallout 76’s Wastelanders Update Makes The Game What It Should Have Been At Release
But can the improvement last?
I’ve played about 3 hours of Fallout 76’s new Wastelanders update, which most noticeably adds NPCs and new areas to a game that, at launch, felt so incredibly empty. After these opening hours, I’m surprised to say that I’m actually enjoying Fallout 76.
That’s a sentence that I never thought I would write.
After spending half an hour doing inventory management with my character who hasn’t seen any action for a few months, a friend and I found the Wastelanders starting mission, The New Arrivals, and began our trek.
Is this the excitement of seeing another “human” in a post-apocalyptic world? Did Bethesda nail this feeling?
The walk wasn’t pleasant. The graphical errors of dropped frames and jumpy menuing came rushing back and I began to worry that I was wasting my afternoon with a wreck of a game. But then we came upon our first NPC, a random settler walking down a dirt road. I’ve never heard someone be so excited to see an NPC than the friend who I was traveling with. While watching him jump and shriek in excitement while walking towards the NPC to interact with him, I began to wonder: “is this the excitement of seeing another ‘human’ in a post-apocalyptic world? Did Bethesda nail this feeling?”
Of course, this was a special occurrence for us and most of the Fallout 76 players who returned to the game in hopes to get a more classic Fallout experience. We had missed NPCs in the Fallout world for so long that finally seeing one again brought joy to our hearts. Maybe it wasn’t the fact that there was a human in the Wasteland, maybe it was the feeling that this game could be fun and exciting with the inclusion with NPCs.
After talking with this settler, we continued on our way to the mission start. We arrived to meet two settlers outside of Vault 76, the starting point for every vault dweller. A brand new level 5 player was there, still dressed in his 76 jumper and a birthday hat, and was talking to these NPCs. I started up a conversation with the leader of these two women, who went on about some treasure. As dialogue options popped up on the screen to respond to her question about treasure within the vault, I felt the old Fallout vibe coming back. I had the option to ask who she was, ask about this treasure, or be a complete ass and lie. I also had dialogue options like “Where am I?” and “Can you tell me more about this area?” This made it apparent that this is meant to be the tutorial quest for all new players, which is to be expected for such a huge overhaul that is the Wastelanders update.
After a quick discussion, this settler decided there was no treasure in the vault and told me that she had been lead on by some jerk at the bar down the street.
A bar? Down the street? I remember the awfully boring starting missions of 76, and it didn’t include any bars. My team and I barreled down the hill that Vault 76 stands on to reach this bar. Once again, I’m met with a beautiful 30-FPS view of Appalachia’s yellow and brown trees. It looks nicer than normal, maybe the result of a graphical tweak during the months that I haven’t played, but the smoothness still pays the cost.
I’m getting that old Fallout vibe. I’m actually having fun.
We arrive at the “Starting city,” aka a shabby building that has the title “The Wayward.” It looks like an ordinary building that you could explore in any Fallout game, so that’s not what catches my eye. What does is a player-built settlement across the stream, a small building overlooking the water with a friendly Deathclaw patrolling the front.
My partner and I go to check it out. I’m worried about resistance from the player, who must be a high level to build this, but I’m greeted with a big “COME ON IN” sign at the bottom of the stairs that lead up to the main level (yes, this place is boujee). On the main level, there’s every workbench and storage container any player could need.
Now it makes sense. This is a starting point refuge created by a player to help out new and returning players alike. This was a welcome sight, as I desperately needed to switch out some inventory in my Stash.
This was my first glimpse into what Fallout 76 is supposed to be. Players following a fun, intriguing mission and coming upon a player-made settlement that adds the multiplayer touch to what often time feels like a solo world. This is the beauty of mashing a well-established single-player IP with an MMO. While it was hard to see, sometimes non-existent, in vanilla Fallout 76, it’s becoming more apparent in the Wastelanders update.
As we left the settlement to continue on the mission, I said to my partner-in-post-apocalyptic-crime, “I don’t know man, I’m getting that old Fallout vibe. I’m actually having fun.”
We continue the mission by entering the bar, and this is where the first issue pops up in Wastelanders. Every area you enter that is part of a story beat, like a building or mine, puts you and your team in a specific instance so that there’s not a million players jumping around shooting NPCs while you’re trying to talk to them. This is great idea, since you often have to decide “do I shoot this NPC or try and work with him?” (this decision was given many, many times in the first few hours of the campaign.)
Sadly, this doesn’t work well when you’re playing in a group. The group leader is who the NPCs in this instance focus on, which leaves other members of the group to hang around and just listen to a conversation while the leader makes all of the decisions. The other members also have a quest description of “Help the Leader,” in lieu of the actual quests. This means that the group leader is the only one who’s completing these missions. The only way that other members can complete the mission is by starting a solo instance to get the quest to pop, or by the group leader relinquishing the leader position to the other player. This really slows down gameplay in the story and takes away the feeling of working as a team that’s trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world.
This issue is where it's evident that Bethesda couldn’t decide how much they wanted to make Fallout 76 a single-player experience. Why not take a page from Star Wars: The Old Republic’s book and let a team progress together. Make NPCs talk to everyone in the group, like it’s a group conversation. The rest of the multiplayer concepts are already in the game, so why not implement new mechanics to strengthen those concepts?
Look, Fallout 76 was bad before this, but I never wanted it to tuck tail and update itself into a single-player game. Bethesda shouldn’t try to make this a single-player experience while still marketing it as a multiplayer game.
That being said, this is the first few days of the new update. I hope that they’ll add in an option for progressing through missions as a team instead of being forced to “help the leader” on every mission.
For the first time since the launch of 76, I’m looking forward to diving back in for more. I’m excited to see where this story leads me, the cast of characters I’ll meet, and the crazy monsters I’ll encounter. Once I’m finished with the story (by actually completing the story missions or getting to a point where it’s too exhausting to do so), I’ll write a more in-depth article about the effect of the Wastelanders update on Fallout 76.
If you want to see some actual gameplay, I plan on streaming every bit that I play over on Twitch.
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