Fallout 76 test and review

Fallout 76 box version

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Fallout 76 – PS4 – Amazon (59.99$)
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Fallout 76 download (digital version)
Fallout 76 – PC – G2A (from 38€)

After the credits, we find the character creation process as it was already the case in previous episodes. The prefabricated characters are frankly very ugly and are not at the level that a game should offer today. The Fallout series has never been a graphic reference and it is not with the creation of the character that it will change.

Once your character is finished, you wake up in a teenager’s room with a hangover on Reclamation Day, the day the doors open automatically. The decor of the room is that of a child or a teenager but the character you have just created is not a teenager, the gap is a little strange. The room is bathed in soft colours and we are not far from the atmosphere of the previous shelters. Objects are scattered all over the place but it is not possible to interact with them. The old reflex of going through all the drawers and picking up all the items will not work.

After leaving your room, you will find that you are alone in the shelter. Everyone seems to have left the shelter in a hurry because the traces of the previous day’s celebration are still clearly visible. There are all kinds of decorations, balloons, cups,… Everyone’s gone and no one warned you, that’s it, it’s off to a good start! So your first objective will be to leave the shelter and to make sure you get there, the game will really guide you to the exit and you won’t be able to explore the shelter too much or collect too many objects, you are literally told what to do. Okay, we have to go with those who have never played Fallout before, but still, we’re not dumb.

What went wrong? From the 2050s onwards, a lack of resources began to be felt and wars broke out in several parts of the world, but Fallout’s universe focused mainly on the United States.

Fallout started as a role playing game and a turn based combat system. The first episodes were crude and violent, you had a complete freedom over your acts and if you screwed with the story, you would end up being screwed yourself. After Fallout 3, Fallout became a first person shooter with some role playing background but it’s clear that Bethesda wanted to reach a bigger audience without hurting anyone’s feeling. By doing this, they lost a bit the spirit of the game but the gloomy atmosphere was still there.

Here is a timeline of events that led the world to Fallout’s universe:
2050: first construction of shelters in a climate of tension and international paranoia.
2060: dissolution of Europe after a war with the Middle East, we return to individual countries
2066: China seizes Alaska for its natural resources
2076: the United States annex Canada and take over Alaska
October 23, 2077: that’s the key date in Fallout, that’s the day the button was pressed, we don’t know who or how, but the whole nuclear arsenal went through and put a brutal end to civilization. Everything happened very quickly, in two hours everything was destroyed. Those who had been selected for the shelters could not all join them, it is in the general panic that the gigantic doors of the shelters were closed.

Fallout 1 (1997):

Fallout 1 was really innovative in many ways because even though the game has a purpose, we have a form of free will where the choices we make influence what happens in the game. The game had several possible ends and censorship was not very present. The whole was pretty gory, the dialogues were excellent, the story was very well written, it was clearly not a teen game.

Fallout 2 (1998):

Fallout tactics: (released in 2001) while keeping the basics of the first two episodes, Fallout Tactics is as its name suggests a strategy game where we embody a team to evolve through several missions. The universe follows directly from the first two episodes.

Fallout 3 (2008):

Fallout New Vegas: (2010):

Fallout 4 (2015):

Fallout 76: (November 2018)

The Fallout series has never been a graphical reference, other games have always done better in that area. It’s the universe and the story that sets Fallout apart from most other FPS. I hope that this essential element will be present again in Fallout 76. The story announced by Bethesday seems closer to a survival mode like the first episodes. I hope that this inspiration will not stop there and that we will also find the free will and the absence of censorship of the first episodes.

Crafting will be back, I think it’s pretty cool because it allows you to enjoy the universe without having to follow a very particular plot. With Fallout 4, many players have embarked on pharonic constructions and what was badly missing was the multiplayer mode to share this experience, Fallout 76 will be the first Fallout multiplayer episode. I just hope it doesn’t get polluted by morons who ruin other people’s experience like in many other games. Bethesda seems to have thought about it, I’m curious to see how they’re going to handle this problem.

What are you waiting for? Share your expectations in the comments section below!