Fallout 76 has been revealed and it is a purely online game. However, it is not an MMO, and that was exactly the right decision, according to our author Andreas Bertits.
There was a lot of speculation about Fallout 76 in advance. If it becomes an online game, will it be an MMORPG like The Elder Scrolls Online or more in the style of Rust or Conan Exiles? Now we know.
Fallout 76 will not be an MMORPG
What is Fallout 76? The online game combines quests with exploration as well as combat and a base building. You will encounter other players in the online world and never know whether they will be friendly or hostile.
All human characters are players, there are no NPCs and also no solo or offline mode in Fallout 76. However, only a few dozen players are on the servers at any time. Survival elements also play a role, but Bethesda themselves refer to it as “softcore survival.” This means: If your hero dies, he does not lose his previous progress.
Fallout 76 is not an MMORPG. Only a few dozen players per server is far from an MMORPG – but that’s a good thing for several reasons:
- Bethesda does not want to compete with The Elder Scrolls Online. It is always difficult for a game studio to operate multiple online games simultaneously. If they are in the same genre, they might end up undermining their own player base.
- Fallout has always been a game that thrived on the atmosphere of being alone in a hostile, post-apocalyptic world. An MMORPG where hundreds or thousands of players jump around would ruin this atmosphere and strip Fallout of its identity.
- As Todd Howard mentioned during the E3 presentation, the post-apocalypse is not an amusement park. You have to fight for your survival, you are (more or less) alone and must try to survive in this deadly environment. That wouldn’t work in a classic MMORPG.
The feeling of being a hero
One among few. The limitation to a few dozen players in a game world brings further advantages:
- You feel much more like you’re playing a special character.
- In a classic MMORPG, among thousands of players, you become nothing special.
- In a world populated by heroes, being a hero is no longer extraordinary.
- And that’s exactly what makes Fallout 76 different due to the strong limitation on player numbers. Even when encountering one of the few players, you still feel like you’re playing a unique character.
Even with other players, you feel “alone.” The world of Fallout 76 is said to be about four times larger than that of Fallout 4 and is divided into six regions. If only a few dozen players operate here, you will not constantly meet someone else. Therefore, the feeling of “feeling lost” that is so important for the Fallout series will remain. You will surely spend a certain amount of time alone.
Meeting a player will be an exciting event. In comparison to an MMORPG, it will be something special when you encounter another player. It’s an event to meet another player because you never know how they will react. Will they open fire? Do they want to talk and trade with me or perhaps help me with a quest? In a classic MMORPG, you ignore many fellow players simply due to the high number of players. In Fallout 76, every encounter is interesting and exciting.
The right decision: While the number of players in MMORPGs has continued to rise, and developers want to outdo each other with thousands of players at once, Bethesda takes a different path. As is common in survival RPGs like Conan Exiles, the world will be sparsely populated. I think: a right decision.
On November 14, we will learn how Fallout 76 plays at release.
