For the first time since Fallout 76's rocky launch in November last year, Bethesda Game Studios Director Todd Howard has spoken candidly and at length about the negative reception to the developer's first online RPG, admitting that he "knew we were gonna have a lot of bumps" from day one.
In an interview with IGN, Howard revealed Bethesda approached the release of Fallout 76 knowing that it "is not the type of game that people are used to from us, and we're going to get some criticism on it, and lot of that [is] very well-deserved criticism.” , which suffered a "difficult development [where] a lot of those difficulties ended up on screen."
Fallout 76 currently sits at a 52 rating on Metacritic, with many criticising the game for its anaemic world, non-existent story, and myriad of bugs. The game still has a small but active community of players, however, who have set up their own police forces, conducted Brahmin experiments, and trapped players in terrifying Deathclaw mazes, and this is something Howard states he is proud of cultivating.
"The main takeaway we had [with Fallout 76's release] was you've got to let it bake with a large live audience for longer than we did", he continued. "There are just certain things you can never see until it's running 24/7 for a number of months. We felt strongly this is a game we want to play, this is something we really want to do, and all of the games like this...there's a [difficult] period when you launch. It's not how you launch, it's what it becomes, and I couldn't be prouder of the team that's worked on it."
I'm sure many who paid full price for Fallout 76 on day one will have... differing opinions, but it's at least reassuring to know that Bethesda is committed to supporting its new MMO for the foreseeable future, as evidenced by latest Fallout 76 patch notes, which have added an entirely new zone to the game's Appalachian map.
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