Fallout 76

Fallout 76 is a 2018 action role-playing video game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is an installment in the Fallout series and a prequel to previous entries. Set in the year 2102, players control a resident of Vault 76 who must venture out into the dilapidated open world known as "Appalachia" in order to re-colonize the region, and uncover a mysterious plague that has killed off its inhabitants. Fallout 76 is Bethesda Game Studios's first multiplayer game; Bethesda developed the game using a modified version of its Creation Engine, which allowed the accommodation of multiplayer gameplay and a more detailed game world than in previous games. Fallout 76 was released to generally mixed reviews, with criticism for the game's numerous technical issues, overall design, lack of gameplay purpose, and initial absence of human non-playable characters. The game was the subject of several controversies, chiefly with regard to the quality of physical content. A number of Bethesda's responses and attempts to provide ongoing support for Fallout 76 in the months following its launch were met with criticism. The game sold 1.4 million copies by the end of 2018. On October 2019, a premium subscription service called Fallout 1st was added to the game. The first major update to the game, Wastelanders, which reintroduces non-playable characters, was released in April 2020. Gameplay Fallout 76 is Bethesda Game Studios' first online multiplayer game. Players may play individually or with a party of up to three others. The servers for the game are public dedicated servers, with the player automatically allocated to one of them. While the game was expected to launch with public servers only, executive producer Todd Howard revealed plans for private servers to be introduced some time after the game's launch. These private servers allow players to invite friends and to prevent undesirable aspects of player versus player gameplay such as griefing from affecting an individual player's experience of the game. Howard described the delay as being necessary to allow Bethesda time to assure the stability of public servers. Elements of previous Fallout games are present and are modified to work with the real-time game. The V.A.T.S. system—a mechanic in the series that allows players to target specific locations on an enemy's body to attack, which previously paused the game temporarily—is used in Fallout 76 as a real-time system.