Please convince me to like Fallout 76, I beg you

FishFingus
2024-07-05T23:30:43Z

I picked this thing up in a Steam sale at 75% off after having avoided it like contagious illness since launch, reasoning to myself that for a cost of about £7.99 it'd still pay for itself through sheer amount of content.

And content is what I got, all right. Nebulous, homogenous, thoroughly unexceptional content. My experience has been, more or less:

Find the three unmarked items in this room and craft them into a parcel, then deliver that to another settlement.

Pick up and listen to countless audio tapes made by people long-dead and never particularly captivating when they were still alive.

Boil some water.

Read through reams of discarded notes about the daily minutiae of life in Shitsville.

Grill some steak to go with that water.

Slowly feel your initial interest fade as it dawns on you that this isn't a story, this is what somebody thought constituted lore.

Realise that some people paid up to £59.99 to do this on launch day, while the fanfiction on AO3 is free.

Struggle to see the landscape, and enemies, through the film of clown vomit that is the Gamebryo engine's gasping attempts to render lighting effects and shadows that aren't pixellated.

Shoot at enemies who move in fits and starts, or not at all, in response to your presence.

Shoot at them again because the lag means you can't be sure if the first shot connected.

Question what you're doing with your life.

Christ, shoot him again, he's still dancing. - Re-level your wobbly desk leg.

Stare in wonderment at a game which is somehow uglier, and runs worse, than Fallout 4.

Appreciate a passing three-headed opossum.

Check out the pop-up for the overpriced store, which is the first thing you see every time you log in.

I thought I'd at least enjoy exploring the wilderness of a new location full of fresh landmarks, enemies and particularly cryptids (none of them yet), but I think I might've already checked out in a matter of days. I just...don't care. This is the least compelling Fallout game I think I've ever played. I can't imagine how bad this must have been on launch.

And the Camp UI is an absolutely headache-inducing abomination.

Anyway, do you think I can still get my money's worth? Can this be saved?

Are there...mods???

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