Whether you're new to the wasteland or a Fallout veteran, you're about to find out the apocalypse is a lot more fun with friends. Fallout 76 brings the super mutants and shotguns of the series together with a brand new feature - real human beings. When you drop into the wild and irradiated lands of Appalachia, you'll be sharing it with 23 other people, and you can join up with three of them to create your own squad for exploring, battling ghouls and building bases.
Introverts shouldn't panic though, socialising is entirely optional. Even if you do join a gang, you're not chained together at the virtual ankles. You can wander to the other side of the map to do your own thing and still enjoy voice chat with your chosen wasteland family. Then if they need help or stumble on a particularly interesting location, you can just fast travel to them, cost free.
- Can you play Fallout 76 single player? And more importantly, should you?
Nuclear family
Spend just a few hours playing though and it becomes clear that playing with other people has massive advantages - and not just that you can flirt indiscriminately using heart emote. (Don't be upset if the throw the vomit emote back at you, Appalachia is a tough place.) Working together you can take on tougher enemies, share your skills and even launch your very own nuclear missile.
Yes, with a little help from your friends, you really can can wield the devastating power of radiation in Fallout 76. You'll need to find different parts of the launch code, and come together to figure out. You'll need to fight your way into a nuclear launch facility too, not a task for the faint-hearted, but it'll be worth it. Just choose a spot on the map, launch the missile, and take out anyone who refused to swap heart emotes with you. Who's the loser now Scott?
Vengeance and vaults
Having your gang around has less nuclear upsides too. Being able to go off exploring separately, while staying in touch, mean you can cover more ground and unearth all the strange and wonderful mysteries Fallout 76 has to offer more quickly. With a friend by your side you always have someone to trade with - your habit of collecting mole rat meat might be useful to someone out there - and the game's levelling up system means that with the right charisma choices, you can share the perk cards that give you special skills out in the world. The world is littered with workshops you can claim as your own too, but you'll need to clear out any resident creatures and defend them from other human players who have their eye on your shiny resource extractor. Oh, and should you get murdered by another real person, or by a random ghoul, doing any of the above there'll always be someone to avenge you. And that's really what real friendship is all about.
