(Note: At the time of this review I have not spent a single dime on Fallout 1st or Extra Atoms)

Is it different? Yes. Is it fun? Yes. Is it still a Fallout Game? Yes.

Fallout 76 is a the MMO RPG prequel game of the famous Fallout series started by Interplay Entertainment, and continued by Bethesda. Taking place in the vast map of Appalachia, you're a vault dweller from Vault 76 exiting the vault after 25 years since the Great War and it's up to you to help restore Appalachia and fight again a horrendous plague known as the Scorched.... OR you can do what every Fallout game lets you do and get completely distracted by literally everything else the game has to offer. Coming from someone who started playing in May 2023 thanks to both getting into the Fallout series in January 2023 with New Vegas, and having someone give me a free key for the game before then. I can confidently say that Fallout 76 is well worth trying out if you liked the gameplay introduced in Fallout 4 and furthermore confirm that it's my second favorite game of the series I've played up to this point.

Gameplay of Fallout 76 is built off of Fallout 4, as a lot of the same mechanics and weapon assets are reused. As such I'll just point out the differences. The first major difference is that the Food and Drink bars, along with ammo having weight are permanently set in place. Which I enjoy as it enforces some resource management without it being optional like in Fallout 4. Next are the perks which now are limited to a new system using Perk Cards, therefore kinda like the older games with level caps, you're required to make a build of perks using a limited amount of SPECIAL points. But you're given the choice of multiple loadouts on a single character if you need a specific Perk set for something. Furthermore sometime after Level 50 you can get Legendary Perks that can either further add to your SPECIALs or give you a significant perk effect, like special resistances or even skipping the picklock and hacking minigames. Lastly, Plans are a system that simply unlocks new crafting recipes for both food, armor, and everything in between. Now for the gameplay outside of yourself, along with the returning Quest and Side Quest system, Daily Quests are also added, which as the name suggests, repeat themselves daily. Furthermore, 76 also introduces Events which are like global quests that anyone can join in once they start, usually rewarding special loot. Lastly for these questlike systems, Daily Ops provide a random dungeon in that fighting against a choose enemy faction, mutations, and mission. With a chance to earn loot only available in that mode. Finally there's Expeditions that are basically short quest lines that take place in locations other than Appalachia, such as The PItt from Fallout 3 or Atlantic City.

Now for probably one of the biggest new parts of gameplay, C.A.M.Ps, Shelters, and by extension the return of Workshops. C.A.M.Ps serve as the player's homebase, being able to be placed practically anywhere on the main map. If you enjoyed the building aspects of Fallout 4, then you'll be happy to hear that 76 pretty much brings it back but with improvements to make building stuff a lot more fun. While not everything made the jump back to Appalachian you're still give a hefty amount of walls, floors, and decor objects to populate your C.A.M.P, especially if you seek out plans or buy them elsewhere. You're also able to place crafting tables, resource generators, or even ally NPCs to make your base even more efficient! Have too much stuff? You also have accent to your own vendor, allowing you to sell almost any item you have for whatever price you feel like! It also motivates the player to visit other C.A.M.Ps to seek out a good deal and see what potentially cool stuff the community has done with this system.
Within C.A.M.Ps, you can have Shelters! Shelters basically act as doors that lead to separate rooms that you're free to build in without worrying about the dangers that can happen outside of them. With the exception of resource generators. On the complete flipside, Workshops from Fallout 4 return but with a completely different purpose. Instead of making settlements that you manage or immediately forgot about. You mainly take over Workshops for their resources, ranging from crafting materials to other more lucrative supplies like food or Fusion Cores. However other than, that it's basically what they're good for. Since while you can PVP other players to try to take over a Workshop for yourself, it's usually not worth it since Workshops don't save once you leave the world. But they do tend to start Enemy Wave events that could be potentially useful if it decides to send uncommon enemies your way. Basically, really only capture workshops if you really need/want to or to complete a challenge.

Despite Fallout 76 being a 40$ game at the time of this review, it not only has a in-game currency with Atoms but also a premium service with Fallout 1st. Disregarding the fact that these are featured in a game that already costs money, I'm indifferent. Without paying anything I have managed to horde a decent amount of atoms for use in the Atomic Shop, which is the premium store with tons of cosmetic times for yourself or C.A.M.P, Emotes, Temporary Stat Boosters/Shortcut Items, etcs. So it's just a matter of picking my items humbly, seeing what stuff I would actually use at my C.A.M.P or on my person. Plus they are nice enough to provide free items, weekly and daily. However I am a bit against the whole Fallout 1st subcription service for two reasons, One, this is already a 40$ game. Two, all it basically does is block out random cosmetic items in the Atomic Shop AND S.C.O.R.E Board, which is like a reward chart during a season of a few months, while providing easy way out cards for hording materials and ammo. The ONLY thing I see as worth it is getting a decent chunk of Atoms every month but unless you really want what they're trying to offer, it's not worth the 12$ per month.

Fallout 76 style wise uses the same extreme retro-futurism style that Fallout 4 introduced but now in Appalachia instead of The Commonwealth. However I think here there's a lot more visual variety that makes Fallout 76's map design stand out a bit more than 4's such as with the 5 main areas having stark identity compared to each other, from The Forest's lush colors, to the Cranberry Bog's use of red. Each area manages to stand out and long with some very good location design makes revisiting these areas still a lot fun usually when completing dailies. Even all the new stuff the game introduces with C.A.M.P or even just the weapons and armor still follow that artstyle and look the part. As someone could easily backport these items into Fallout 4 and have them fit right it. Though yes that does mean this game has that ugly assault rifle from 4 as well.

While I have been singing praises towards this game for mainly how it pulled itself out of the gutter from a bad launch. I still have some issues. I think the combat at least when going alone, can range from being pretty easy to stupidly unfair. I think it has to do with mixture of Perk Loadouts and Armor + Weapon loadouts not being able to completely protect yourself early game. So you could have great ballistic damage resistance but could get completely wiped out energy damage. Thankfully these usually can be bypassed with Power Armor, or the right loadout but can be annoying whenever it happens. Otherwise it's absolutely possible to play this game's story content solo, minus Expeditions somewhat.

Overall, I think Fallout 76 is a fine game. It takes Fallout 4 as a basis and basically improves on it while also making it a massive multiplayer online game. It's certainly NOT for everyone, more of a different spin of Fallout 4 than a sequel in the same vein as Fallout 3 to Fallout New Vegas. But despite it's flaws, I still like it. (Ran out of space lol)

(Note: At the time of this review I have not spent a single dime on Fallout 1st or Extra Atoms) Is it different? Yes. Is it fun? Yes. Is it still a Fallout Game? Yes. Fallout 76 is a the MMO RPG prequel game of the famous Fallout series started by Interplay Entertainment, and continued by Bethesda. Taking place in the vast map of Appalachia, you're a vault dweller from Vault 76 exiting the vault after 25 years since the Great War and it's up to you to help restore Appalachia and fight again a horrendous plague known as the Scorched.... OR you can do what every Fallout game lets you do and get completely distracted by literally everything else the game has to offer. Coming from someone who started playing in May 2023 thanks to both getting into the Fallout series in January 2023 with New Vegas, and having someone give me a free key for the game before then. I can confidently say that Fallout 76 is well worth trying out if you liked the gameplay introduced in Fallout 4 and furthermore confirm that it's my second favorite game of the series I've played up to this point. Gameplay of Fallout 76 is built off of Fallout 4, as a lot of the same mechanics and weapon assets are reused. As such I'll just point out the differences. The first major difference is that the Food and Drink bars, along with ammo having weight are permanently set in place. Which I enjoy as it enforces some resource management without it being optional like in Fallout 4. Next are the perks which now are limited to a new system using Perk Cards, therefore kinda like the older games with level caps, you're required to make a build of perks using a limited amount of SPECIAL points. But you're given the choice of multiple loadouts on a single character if you need a specific Perk set for something. Furthermore sometime after Level 50 you can get Legendary Perks that can either further add to your SPECIALs or give you a significant perk effect, like special resistances or even skipping the picklock and hacking minigames. Lastly, Plans are a system that simply unlocks new crafting recipes for both food, armor, and everything in between. Now for the gameplay outside of yourself, along with the returning Quest and Side Quest system, Daily Quests are also added, which as the name suggests, repeat themselves daily. Furthermore, 76 also introduces Events which are like global quests that anyone can join in once they start, usually rewarding special loot. Lastly for these questlike systems, Daily Ops provide a random dungeon in that fighting against a choose enemy faction, mutations, and mission. With a chance to earn loot only available in that mode. Finally there's Expeditions that are basically short quest lines that take place in locations other than Appalachia, such as The PItt from Fallout 3 or Atlantic City. Now for probably one of the biggest new parts of gameplay, C.A.M.Ps, Shelters, and by extension the return of Workshops. C.A.M.Ps serve as the player's homebase, being able to be placed practically anywhere on the main map. If you enjoyed the building aspects of Fallout 4, then you'll be happy to hear that 76 pretty much brings it back but with improvements to make building stuff a lot more fun. While not everything made the jump back to Appalachian you're still give a hefty amount of walls, floors, and decor objects to populate your C.A.M.P, especially if you seek out plans or buy them elsewhere. You're also able to place crafting tables, resource generators, or even ally NPCs to make your base even more efficient! Have too much stuff? You also have accent to your own vendor, allowing you to sell almost any item you have for whatever price you feel like! It also motivates the player to visit other C.A.M.Ps to seek out a good deal and see what potentially cool stuff the community has done with this system. Within C.A.M.Ps, you can have Shelters! Shelters basically act as doors that lead to separate rooms that you're free to build in without worrying about the dangers that can happen outside of them. With the exception of resource generators. On the complete flipside, Workshops from Fallout 4 return but with a completely different purpose. Instead of making settlements that you manage or immediately forgot about. You mainly take over Workshops for their resources, ranging from crafting materials to other more lucrative supplies like food or Fusion Cores. However other than, that it's basically what they're good for. Since while you can PVP other players to try to take over a Workshop for yourself, it's usually not worth it since Workshops don't save once you leave the world. But they do tend to start Enemy Wave events that could be potentially useful if it decides to send uncommon enemies your way. Basically, really only capture workshops if you really need/want to or to complete a challenge. Despite Fallout 76 being a 40$ game at the time of this review, it not only has a in-game currency with Atoms but also a premium service with Fallout 1st. Disregarding the fact that these are featured in a game that already costs money, I'm indifferent. Without paying anything I have managed to horde a decent amount of atoms for use in the Atomic Shop, which is the premium store with tons of cosmetic times for yourself or C.A.M.P, Emotes, Temporary Stat Boosters/Shortcut Items, etcs. So it's just a matter of picking my items humbly, seeing what stuff I would actually use at my C.A.M.P or on my person. Plus they are nice enough to provide free items, weekly and daily. However I am a bit against the whole Fallout 1st subcription service for two reasons, One, this is already a 40$ game. Two, all it basically does is block out random cosmetic items in the Atomic Shop AND S.C.O.R.E Board, which is like a reward chart during a season of a few months, while providing easy way out cards for hording materials and ammo. The ONLY thing I see as worth it is getting a decent chunk of Atoms every month but unless you really want what they're trying to offer, it's not worth the 12$ per month. Fallout 76 style wise uses the same extreme retro-futurism style that Fallout 4 introduced but now in Appalachia instead of The Commonwealth. However I think here there's a lot more visual variety that makes Fallout 76's map design stand out a bit more than 4's such as with the 5 main areas having stark identity compared to each other, from The Forest's lush colors, to the Cranberry Bog's use of red. Each area manages to stand out and long with some very good location design makes revisiting these areas still a lot fun usually when completing dailies. Even all the new stuff the game introduces with C.A.M.P or even just the weapons and armor still follow that artstyle and look the part. As someone could easily backport these items into Fallout 4 and have them fit right it. Though yes that does mean this game has that ugly assault rifle from 4 as well. While I have been singing praises towards this game for mainly how it pulled itself out of the gutter from a bad launch. I still have some issues. I think the combat at least when going alone, can range from being pretty easy to stupidly unfair. I think it has to do with mixture of Perk Loadouts and Armor + Weapon loadouts not being able to completely protect yourself early game. So you could have great ballistic damage resistance but could get completely wiped out energy damage. Thankfully these usually can be bypassed with Power Armor, or the right loadout but can be annoying whenever it happens. Otherwise it's absolutely possible to play this game's story content solo, minus Expeditions somewhat. Overall, I think Fallout 76 is a fine game. It takes Fallout 4 as a basis and basically improves on it while also making it a massive multiplayer online game. It's certainly NOT for everyone, more of a different spin of Fallout 4 than a sequel in the same vein as Fallout 3 to Fallout New Vegas. But despite it's flaws, I still like it. (Ran out of space lol)