Can the game be played with just 3 people?

[General Kael]

Can I play the game with just two of my friends? or will we have to play an official server with other people?

[saice]

yes all but some of the end game stuff.

If one of you have FO Frist you can do it all on a private world

The issue will be the grind to 50 might be a little rough and world events will be harder but it mostly should be doable

[AbsynthMinded]

Griding to 50 is the easiest thing. Solo or group.. If you are focused and not casual you can hit 50 in under 2 weeks solo.

[BizarreMan]

All play is on an official Bethesda server. There is no server software you can run on a local machine.

If you purchase a FO1st subscription, you can spin up a private server that will not have any other players on it but people you invite. They do not require a subscription, but they do need to have purchased the game.

If they did not purchase a subscription, then you must be in the game in the private world for it to be spun up and enable them to play. If they do not have a subscription, and you log off the game, they are kicked off the server after 15 minutes or so.

When creating an initial character you are required to do the initial setup on an adventure (public)world. Character creation is not enabled on a private world.

[saice]

Originally posted by BizarreMan:

If you purchase a FO1st subscription, you can spin up a private server that will not have any other players on it but people you invite.

There is one other thing about private servers. World Spawn power armor is heavy nerfed as well as other collectables.

This is not a direct nerf but a side effect of how these spawn in. When a player gets in the spawn area of these items there is a chance they spawn in.

Since on a private world its just you and your buddies that means far less players are triggering these spawns. And with an already low chance for some of these it means your chance to find one is going to be really low.

On a public server a spawn might get triggered a few times before you visit an area making the chance PA spawned much higher. And while sure someone else might collect it they don't always do. Meaning you have much better chances to get collectable spawns on public then on private worlds.

The upside though is you can farm the workshops without fear of other players and can effectively handle multiple of them while doing other stuff just dipping back to them for their defense event and cleaning out they resource collectors.