Aside from a brief trailer setting the stage for today’s Fallout 76 announcement, very little is actually known about the game. The vibe of the world seems sufficiently Fallout in nature, but new reports suggest Fallout 76 won’t be the traditional single-player RPG we’re thinking it will be.
According to Kotaku’s Jason Schreier–who has a track record for being right about a lot of unannounced information–Fallout 76 will be an online game of some sort, and not that traditional Fallout experience we’ve come to know. Along with today’s announcement, Schreier has tweeted multiple times adamantly that those “expecting Fallout 76 to be a new traditional single-player RPG will be VERY disappointed.” It’s a bold claim to make, but Schreier is a seasoned enough games journalist with a clear history of knowing his stuff, so we’re including to think there’s some truth to his statements.
I’m seeing some skepticism on Reddit and Twitch about my reporting that Fallout: 76 is an online game — because they don’t want to believe it — but again, if you spend weeks getting hyped for a single-player RPG, you will be disappointed. Just looking out for you guys!
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) May 30, 2018
Note that in his original tweet, Schreier simply says “From what I’ve heard, Fallout 76 is an online game of some sort.” The game is apparently being “Developed by BGS [Bethesda Game Studios] in both Maryland and Austin (formerly Battlecry).” Battlecry Studios had previously been working on an online hero-shooter called Battlecry that was canceled.
Shortly after these tweets, Schreier released a full report detailing what he knows about Fallout 76. Apparently the game is an online survival RPG in the same vein as games like DayZ and Rust. Shcreier claims to have three sources that have corroborated this information
“Originally prototyped as a multiplayer version of Fallout 4 with the goal of envisioning what an online Fallout game might look like, Fallout 76 has evolved quite a bit over the past few years, those sources said. It will have quests and a story, like any other game from Bethesda Game Studios, a developer known for meaty RPGs like Skyrim. It will also feature base-building—just like 2015’s Fallout 4—and other survival-based and multiplayer mechanics, according to those sources. One source cautioned that the gameplay is rapidly changing, like it does in many online “service” games, but that’s the core outline.”
The setting of Vault 76 actually makes sense for a game of this type, which would be more of a prequel than other Fallout games were. Vault 76 was originally designed to open only 20 years after the nukes wiped out the world (as opposed to the 200 years later that Fallout 3 and 4 took place in), which would make the world far less civilized and hostile, enabling Bethesda’s ability to tie online survival elements into the game.
If there’s any truth to this rumor, it would make sense that this game isn’t called Fallout 5. Bethesda is likely reserving that main numbered title for a proper single-player RPG Fallout. For the next week and a half, we’ll just have to wonder what Fallout 76 could be while waiting for more information at Bethesda’s E3 Showcase.
The Bethesda E3 Showcase will be live streaming on Sunday, June 10 at 6:30 pm PT. We’ll have the stream embedded right here on PlayStation LifeStyle for you to watch live.
[Source: Kotaku]
