78 PCWorld JUNE 2020REVIEWS FALLOUT 76: WASTELANDERS
SKELETONS IN THE BATHTUB
There are still myriad issues with Fallout 76,
don’t get me wrong. As far as I’m concerned,
it gains very little from being an always-online
multiplayer experience, but it certainly loses a
lot.
Moment-to-moment combat (and there’s
a lot of it in Fallout 76) is particularly
underwhelming. The real-time conceit means
VATS is essentially useless—which would be
disappointing but not the end of the world,
except that playing Fallout 76 as a standard
shooter isn’t fun either. I can’t tell you how
many times I’ve fired a shot at an unsuspecting
ghoul’s head only for the game to tell me I
“missed.” I’m no Fortnite pro but I’m not a
complete scrub either, and it happens often
enough in Fallout 76 that I think it’s netcode-
related. I never had such trouble with Fallout
4 or, say, Doom Eternal (go.pcworld.com/
dmet).
The list of problems continues. The menusare cumbersome,
especially on mouse and
keyboard where
repairing a weapon at a
workbench requires no
less than four different
button presses. The food
and water systems are an
annoyance at best.
Bethesda doubled your
stash size, but it’s still
comically small
considering how much junk you’re expected
to collect for crafting.
And performance is still wildly
inconsistent, with shadows seemingly the
leading cause of frame rate issues. My
colleague Adam Patrick Murray even had the
game crash on him during our stream the
other day. (We’ve embedded the whole thing
at the end of the review if you want to watch.)
I don’t even want to talk about the
in-game store and the “Fallout 1st”
subscription, which is its own can of worms
(go.pcworld.com/wrms). Your feelings about
paying over-and-above the $40 base price for
cosmetics and an unlimited stash probably
hinge on whether you feel this is first-and-
foremost a Fallout game or an MMO.
I’m torn, personally. I think the monthly
subscription price is pretty decent for what
you get compared to Final Fantasy XIV or
World of Warcraft or whatever—but I’m also
never going to pay it, and I think putting