Metacritic Reviews Rip Fallout 76 To Shreds For Its Bugs And Similarities To Fallout 4
A common complaint among the reviews is that the game looks and feels too much like Fallout 4, and that's something I agree with. I had a chance to try out the BETA version of Fallout 76 for PC, and gaming with max settings on a 4K screen I couldn't see any visual difference between Fallout 76 and Fallout 4. There were a number of graphical glitches that stood out in Fallout 76 though. The gameplay I experienced was also remarkably similar to Fallout 4. To be fair, Fallout 76 has a few notable differences from Fallout 4. There's a notable shortage of NPCs, and you can see other players running around fighting mutated monsters and completing quests. Except for these differences, however, the game play is virtually identical to Fallout 4.
A number of the negative reviews published on Metacritic complained about these similarities, with some users complaining that they felt they had been "charged twice for the same game." Others said they felt they were charged $60 to add multiplayer to a game they already had. There were also a large number of complaints about the lack of NPCs, with users describing the game as lifeless, soulless, bland, and boring.
Probably the biggest complaint levied against the game is that it is horribly broken and full of bugs, but these comments need to be taken with a pinch of salt. As the game was just released today, it's quite possible that many of these comments come from people that tried the beta and waited until today to submit a reviews. The beta was notably full of bugs, some of which I experienced personally. During my time roaming the Fallout 76 wasteland, I never saw water. However, this was not because the game doesn't incorporate water, but because none of the rivers, lakes, or streams materialized on screen. Bethesda released a massive 54GB patch that's actually larger than the base game itself to address these issues. This doesn't necessarily mean that the game is bug free, but it probably addressed some of the more serious bugs people were experiencing. Regardless, there still may some serious problems that likely need to be addressed.
It's probably too soon to tell what will become of Fallout 76, but the current reviews clearly show that gamers are finding problems in the game that Bethesda needs to address. If you are playing Fallout 76, how do you feel about the new game? Let us know in the comments below.