Fallout 76 had a pretty rough start – and the boss knows it, he even expected it. In an interview, Game Director Todd Howard talks about how Fallout 76 has been so far, what could have been better, and what will happen to Fallout 76 now.
This is what the boss says about Fallout 76: Todd Howard spoke in an interview with IGN about the difficulties of Fallout 76 and the impact the launch of the game had and how it should now develop:
Whenever you do something new like this [Fallout 76], you know there will be difficulties. Many people will say, “This isn’t the game we want from you,” but we still want to be someone who tries new things.
Despite the rough start, Howard is proud of his team and everything they have already achieved with Fallout 76. He looks positively to the future because the only way to save Fallout is to work hard on it and improve it.
The first part of the interview with Todd Howard can be watched in English on IGN. The full interview is set to be released on June 4.
What was bad about Fallout 76?
The launch was rough: Fallout 76 had only a short beta phase just before its launch in November 2018, where players could test for a limited time. Shortly after, the game was released and received partly devastating fan reviews on Metacritic.
People criticized that Fallout 76 was not finished, had too many bugs, that the NPCs were missing, and that the game was simply not good. Todd Howard himself even says that much of this criticism is “well-deserved.”
A little later after the launch, even the still active players often complained about gameplay mechanics – for example, about the bad loot of the game’s end bosses or that some models were simply borrowed from Fallout 4 or Skyrim.
These are the consequences: Todd Howard addresses the rather rough start of Fallout 76, which may have caused lasting damage to the Fallout brand and Bethesda:
I am sure that it [has caused lasting damage]. It would be naive to believe that it hasn’t. But I think if people come to the game now, they would be surprised. I am very proud of everything we have achieved in the game.
This is good now
What has changed? Since the release of Fallout 76, the game has changed quite a bit. Many, perhaps even most of the latest changes have been received extremely positively by active players. These include:
- A new PvP mode with its own rules
- Player-run shops, which fans have been waiting for a long time and which were received very well
- a legendary vendor for trading unwanted gear
Howard himself now sees Fallout 76 as “a fabulous game with a wonderful community,” created through the hard work of the team.
What Bethesda learns from Fallout 76
How could the launch have gone better? Howard also admits that the launch of Fallout 76 was bumpy. One of the biggest mistakes he sees is that the game was not thoroughly tested.
The beta of Fallout 76 lasted only a few weeks, during which players could only play for a few hours each day. According to Howard, it would have been wiser to give more players early access to Fallout 76 to test the beta “24/7.”
This is how Bethesda must deal with the community: Fallout 76 also showed the developers how they need to interact with players. Fallout 76 is not a game that gets thrown on the market and then left to the players.
With Fallout 76, Bethesda had to learn how updates should work and how best to communicate with players who play a constantly evolving game.
What comes next
For the future, Todd Howard has promised even more improvements and new content, of which he has not revealed any details yet. It’s “not about how you start, but about what you make of it.”
We already know that the roadmap for Fallout 76 in 2019 will at least include the Nuclear Winter updates with raids and a new game mode, as well as the Wastelanders update.
More info about Fallout 76 and its upcoming development was promised by Howard for E3 2019, which starts on June 9. Bethesda’s press conference will take place on the night of Sunday, June 9, to Monday, June 10, at 2:30 AM.
What do you wish for Fallout 76?
Bethesda even recently released some numbers showing how popular Fallout 76 is:
