Wait, Fallout 76 is redeemed?

 No one told me

With the coming of Phantom Liberty I think the general consensus of the game consuming world is exactly the same as the simple catchphrase coined by Idris Elba at the end of the live action trailer: "The game is fixed." Because yes, the cyberpunkian crime RPG finally has a working crime system, the perk's finally feel good to play around with, the levelling scaling has finally been tossed out the window- essentially everything that made Cyberpunk a disappointment, save for the lack of significant narrative consequence outside the final mission, was resolved. Such to the point that Cyberpunk is finally at a point where it's developers can be proud of it, provided they don't slip into another unhinged gaslighting spree of insisting that the game was always good and it's everyone else being dicks about it. But is there another recent redemption story that we're brushing over in our rampant adulation for the CDPR team? An understated RPG with a softer heart, trampled under the wave of dismissiveness that our industry is so quick to adopt? It's Fallout, I'm talking about Fallout...

Recently there was an article by Gamerant which claimed, rather vehemently, that the 'Cyberpunk success story' has nothing on the much more harrowing journey of redemption that Fallout 76 went on in order to be playable for it's public. Now whilst the very act of 'comparing redemptions' is itself rather ghoulish and in terrible taste, what do you expect from games journalists? We're all ghouls here! Besides when you really break it down this ethical conundrum matches the likes of the great parables that have stumped man since sentience and philosophy. Take, if you will, the ponderance of one of the greatest intellectual minds in our time: "What is better, to be born good or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?" I'm actually a subscriber to the later belief a lot of the time and that influences the kind of storyteller that I've unconsciously become. Thanks Paarthurnax, Dragon voiced by Mario.

So let's think back, where did these games start? With technological meltdown. Cyberpunk could not function on the lower gen consoles it released on to such an extent that Sony refused to sell it on their game front making it an unwitting Xbox console exclusive for a few months. Those who could get it working were impressed by the lot, but underwhelmed with the promise of what the team had claimed the game would be. (Anyone who remembers that very heated Twitter fight over car-combat will know just how rough things were for CDPR back then.) Fallout 76 also launched increadibly rough with bad servers, rampant stuttering, non-functional combat encounters and regular crashing- although nothing so bad as to be kicked off any storefront. The kicker? Those that stuck with the game found nothing to be impressed about. By and large Fallout 76 was, to it's core, mediocre.

It's world building was fine, and that is about the best thing anyone has ever said about vanilla 76. The storyline was lacklustre and presented in the worst possible way it could have been (without NPCs) the world spaces felt utterly empty squandering all the faction creation the writers had worked diligently on-  the end game was one single raid and a mega world boss which people figured out how to farm within a couple days. Weapon balancing was pathetic, the economy barely functioned, people were unhappy with the cash shop offerings, grouping didn't seem to work at all. (or no one ever used it because they were told it was non-functioning.) I think it's fair to say that Fallout 76 certainly started it's journey beaten much more into the ground than Cyberpunk 2077 ever was. People saw the potential in 2077, everyone just wanted the team to abandon 76 and move on to greener pastures. And Bethesda mostly did, those they left behind however- those brave souls got to work.

The article in question put greater stock in the journey of Fallout 76 to get to the point where they won over those who had given up on the game with the Wasteland update. An update designed to fix perhaps the biggest omission of the main game- the lack of NPCs in the world. Quite the ambitious undertaking, but of course that was just the crowning jewel of a long journey of updates and questionable development decisions. To only look at what was added on that journey and not take into account the several steps backwards would be, quite honestly, entirely backwards. I expect that like many articles this is an piece written by a journalist, rather than a player. So allow me, an actual Fallout player, to colour in some of the blank spaces.

Indeed there was a Nuclear Winter which added in a surprisingly well designed Battle Royale minigame into Fallout 76 with a whole array of gimmicks and gadgets and unlockable reward paths- a bright spot on the game's legacy. But what the author failed to mention was that Nuclear Winter is no more. The mode failed to maintain enough interest to survive on it's own and with resources being sunk into expanding the base game it was only a matter of time before the Battle Royale was, sadly, put out to pasture. (They should have made it a seasonal game mode!) The author totally skipped by, however, the new Vault Raids which were added into the game to provide some high level end game content- and which were also scrapped for less clear reasons after a time. Daily Ops are the in-thing for today, but who knows how long they'll stick around? Come Atlantic City we might just see that mode being pushed into the backyard and shot.

You see, Fallout 76 isn't the same as Cyberpunk in the journey to redemption because as I prefaced- Bethesda did very much abandon the game. Unlike CDPR, Bethesda saw the hit to their reputation and decided to make it up with their next project, leaving behind a small team for the basic running and updating of the game. Fallout 76's journey has been more turbulent and less consistently upward because it's team don't have the manpower nor the resources to dedicate a 'Cyberpunk 2.0' degree reimaging that would reinvigorate the game, and so they just have to work with the best they can manage at the time. Which means, yes, we have annoying cosmetic themes in the marketplace and the frustrating 'Fallout 1st' update which hides basic quality of life balances behind a subscription. Fallout 76 just isn't where Cyberpunk is at.

Which is why I wouldn't call the Fallout 76 'redemption' story superior to Cyberpunk's in any fashion, because I don't believe that Fallout 76 is redeemed as of yet. Sure it hit some headlines with Wastelanders, but those that already wrote the game off didn't come flocking back to it or anything. The Brotherhood of Steel update seemed to just pass by without any fanfare, the Pit update turned out to be much smaller than people had hoped- Atlantic City might be the next big rally moment for 76 but it won't be to the extent that Phantom Liberty was for Cyberpunk. Nothing will manage that level of sudden changing goodwill. The best that Fallout 76 can hope for, and I do think this might just happen, is for the Fallout TV show to land with rave reviews and 76 to go on steep discount at the same time to siphon off that success the same way CDPR siphoned the Edgerunners success. Let that redemeption arc bend onwards, I say.