Fallout 76 – Test/Review (PC)

Fallout 76 – Test/Review (PC).

Fallout 76 takes place around the year 2102. After the entire outside world was contaminated by nuclear impacts, many people took refuge in the so-called vaults. These are large, radiation-protected bunkers in which living beings can survive for many decades. It took about 20 years before people could be sent out into the wasteland again. That time has now come for the people of Vault 76 and you are one of the survivors. You can read in our review what awaits you on the journey to the now unknown wasteland!

Big, wide world

At the beginning, the player has many different choices in character creation. There you can completely customize your character as you please and by that we really mean COMPLETE. The cheekbones, the tilt of the eyes, the hairdo…there are no limits for the player. The color of the hair can also be dyed in natural and unnatural ways. After we’re done building, we can explore the Vault 76 a little more and pick up various tools and a CAMP kit before heading into the open world!

Bethesda has made every effort to make the Wasteland feel as “natural” as possible in terms of virtual life and nature. Of course, this means there are small animals like frogs, foxes, fireflies or the like, but also dangerous opponents, which is only logical after a nuclear catastrophe. But it shouldn’t surprise you that you won’t find any NPCs. The other survivors in Fallout are other players who are with you on the current server. Only 24 players can be active per server at any one time, so the world of Fallout can occasionally feel a bit empty. But don’t let that irritate you. Basically, the world in Fallout 76 is more than 4 times the size of Fallout 4.

What am I doing here?

Yes, you can ask yourself that question at the beginning. However, it quickly becomes clear that there is at least a rough main story that you can follow. However, it is not recommended to just follow the story, since there is a level system in Fallout 76, which we will discuss later. In any case, the maximum level in Fallout 76 is 100, so as a softcap you can of course see level 50. In the course of the main quest you will often encounter mutations on a higher level or even in a stronger form (elite) or legend, which you alone or on a lower level cannot do anything about.

In order to level up, you can do many different side quests in addition to the main quests, which will provide you with interesting stories and rewards, which can make everyday life much easier for you. So don’t despair just because you can’t do a quest once… just find another one that you can still complete or complete the many events that appear regularly in the Wasteland and in which other players can also participate or at least do it. There are also daily quests that grant you some items such as food and water, weapons or other small items.

Food and water are the be-all and end-all in Fallout 76. You should always make sure that the two bars are full so that you don’t get a stamina penalty. However, it is important that you boil water before drinking and process raw meat for food, otherwise you run the risk of contracting diseases or even getting nuclear contamination, which you can only counteract with RadAway.

Large but confusing skill system

The skill system can be a bit confusing at first, especially in the beginning. Up to level 10 you get a so-called booster pack practically every 2 levels, after that only every 5 levels. Furthermore, up to level 50 you get a skill point with every level up, which you can invest in one of 7 skill trees. These are also called SPECIAL and are divided into the following categories:

• S = Strength
• P = Perception
• E = Endurance
• C = Charisma
• I = intelligence
• A = Agility
• L = luck

The special thing about the skill system from Fallout 76 is that you invest the points in the respective skill area, but they are not activated directly. Instead, the invested skill points denote the overall rank of the respective skill area.

The booster packs or cards that you get in between have a certain rank and apply to a special skill area. Some skills have a max level of 1, a few 2 and a few 3 or even 4. These can be increased by combining cards of the same type. For example, if you combine 2 “Iron Stomach” cards from the Endurance category, both of which have rank 1, they become a 2-rank card, and if you add another rank 1 Iron Stomach card here, it becomes a rank 3 card. The rank of the card shows how many points it consumes. This is where the used skill points in the tree become interesting. In order to be able to use the cards, you must have enough skill points available. It’s important to think about how to skill because there are many useful skills to take with you.

It was problematic at first because you couldn’t reskill. However, an update was implemented into the game a few days ago and it is now possible for players to reskill the character!

Scrap…I see scrap!

If there’s one thing in abundance in the world of Fallout 76, it’s junk. You can’t get enough of this in Fallout 76. However, it must be noted that you can only carry a certain amount of inventory space (weight). And scrap or even resources take up a lot of space. Therefore, you should collect everything at the beginning and regularly process it into resources at workbenches, but over time you should only collect what you really need. You can create a search information for this. Then only the scrap items you need will be displayed with a magnifying glass in the information window. There is a wide range of resources in Fallout 76 that are needed for a wide variety of things.

Of course, repairing your melee and ranged weapons and your armor starts here. Of course, you should always pay attention to this so that you don’t have to go into battle defenseless and without weapons.

You can only repair armor and weapons at the two correct workbenches. It is also possible for you there to equip the armor and weapons with mods, which you can produce using blueprints and dismantling items with mods. Of course it is also possible to produce many things for you:

• armor
• weapons
• mods
• chemicals
• ammunition

We have now summarized only a few crafting options. Of course, you can also store your items in a chest, which can also have a weight limit. If you are overloaded, you can no longer really sprint and fast travel is no longer possible. But you have the option to sell the objects to some vendors that represent robots, sell/give them away to other players, or throw them away. Eventually, you’ll be able to access or even craft the well-known power armor to be stronger in battle and carry more. However, be aware that this power armor requires a fusion core as an engine and this will drain over time. Therefore, you have to keep getting new fusion cores.

Create, create, build a house!

The CAMP is an important aspect of Fallout 76. You can build a camp once for free and then for a certain crown amount (in-game currency). This is done using a kind of small generator, which also acts as a storage box. You cannot place this everywhere, but only in non-populated areas and not near other CAMPS.

The generator is the heart of the camp. There you can start building your own base using resources such as wood or concrete and other things. Here the player can decide whether he wants a normal house, a base or some makeshift construction. However, the player only has a certain budget available, which increases by a certain amount with each placed or built object (the bar fills up).

There are many options available to the player here. Foundations, walls, door frames, window frames…all of these are part of the basic equipment of the base. But of course there are many different variations of it. But you also have to learn these with the help of blueprints. But in addition to the normal objects, you can of course also build a water supply, a power supply, lamps, floodlights, decorative items, beds, workstations and other things. It also includes defensive traps and automatic turrets.

However, so far we have only been attacked once by another player at the base and otherwise only by NPC enemies who wanted to get at us. We treated the other players we met politely, traded, played together and then went our separate ways. No one was really looking for a riot here.

Interaction and additional tasks

Of course you can also play with friends. That’s what the social system is for, where you can add your friends. From there you can invite them to a group, enter their world (server) and so on. Normally you take over the quests of the group leader or are mainly shown them. Therefore, one person should always decide where to go, otherwise you quickly get into trouble with several people because you lose track of things. Along with friends and other players, you can also take on high-level enemies or even elite Scorchbeasts that follow a nuke hit.

You can fight them with melee and ranged weapons and of course with the VATS system, which targets you opponents. However, this system permanently consumes stamina and should not be used continuously, otherwise there will be no more energy to run or attack and block. But always work together with the other players in your group so that you don’t all get killed. This also applies to fighting other players, since you get a bounty with every killed player, which another player can grab by killing the person you are looking for.

In addition, there are many different tasks to solve daily and weekly, with which you get atomic points. You can also purchase these for real money. With the points you can buy skins/costumes, emotes or other cosmetic items. Of course, this doesn’t give you any gaming advantages.

Technically ok

Graphically, we definitely couldn’t complain about Fallout 76. It is shown in great detail, there are many setting options for the individual appearance, different biomes and also weather or natural effects, depending on the area. However, we’ve also noticed a few graphical glitches, mainly related to the shadows in the swamp area, which still need to be worked on. The sound and sound effects also go very well with the backdrop of the game!

There were only occasional stutters or FPS drops, which we were able to counteract with a few settings in the menu until the first update was installed. After that there were no more problems!

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