Look, I’ll be honest with you: I’m not going to waste any time with ambling words because I’m so goddamn excited about Fallout 76. Yes, it’s an MMO, and yes, that means there are going to be other people in it - but this one could be the MMO for you even if you've never touched one before.
Here are the facts. First off, the map is four times the size of Fallout 4, set in the hills of West Virginia, and you’re playing one of the vault dwellers who’s the first to emerge into the Wasteland on Reclamation Day, just a few decades after the bombs fell. That means it’s a prequel to all the other Fallout games, meaning new monsters, new environments, and a whole lot of naivety about how easy it will be to reclaim the wasteland.
You might have already known all of that, but here’s where all the new details come in. Get ready. It’s a MMO, but there aren't hundreds of players on the same server as you, running around and generally breaking your immersion (a concern for all us MMO newbies). Instead there are a handful of players in the same server, meaning you can either form your own tight-knit community as you buddy up with them, make a bunch of new enemies, or just play on your own. Because yes, that’s completely something you can do. Halle-f*cking-lujah.
There’s all new rendering, lighting, and landscape technology, plus you can see weather systems as they thrive in the distance - perfect for when you’re scouting out areas for your settlement. Yup, you’ll be building your own pockets of civilisation in the nuclear apocalypse, and you can build them anywhere. Plus they’re completely movable, but you should be careful of getting too attached to them as they can be destroyed by all manner of beasties (and other players, of course). Or nuclear weapons.
Head to the nuclear missile sites across the map, and if you manage to get into the bunkers you’ll find those ever so deadly missiles. But it won’t be a simple case of killing hordes of ghouls and striding in those doors - instead you’ve got to track down the codes for the bunker which can be scattered all across the map. Sometimes fellow players might have their hands on them, giving you a new chance to either make some new friends or pluck those codes off their dead body. Bombing a site in one of those 6 different regions with those nuclear weapons then means that you can go in and grab the new valuable resources that are irradiated with all that neon green goodness.
Death never means you lose your progression, or your character, so even if you end up on the wrong side of a nuke you always have the opportunity to pay off that big, juicy grudge you’ll be holding and visit the same firepower on your adversary. You can give Fallout 76 a go when the beta launches - no idea when that will be at the moment - but we do know that the Fallout 76 collector’s edition features a giant, wearable power armour helmet with a working voice modulator and headlamp. Y’know, just in case you want to take your cosplay to the next level. And when is all of this Fallout 76 goodness coming your way? November 14. Get ready, folks - we have a wasteland to save.
Be sure to check out the E3 2018 schedule to see when the other major players will announce their news, and keep an eye on our list of E3 2018 games to see all the titles coming your way.
