If you just look on the offline games been released in the past, Bethesda has transformed Fallout from a tactical spectacle with its’ a post-apocalypse world into one of the role-playing blockbusters par excellence. After the surprisingly announcement of Fallout 76 with the huge online future, the developers get to hear a lot bad things from the community like The Elder Scrolls Online in the past, too. But is it so bad? Let’s find out.
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Fallout 76 begins quite classically. As always, you learn why you wake up in the bunker, in this case number 76, before you create your virtual alter ego in the potent editor and are finally released after the great war as a “reconstruction helper” in the area of West Virginia. This area is about four times bigger than the wasteland of Fallout 4. At the beginning you go through the corridors of the bunker and make you familiar with the 
essential changes of the mechanics, which are based on the offline caseouts. And then: You stand in front of the exit, which opens majestically. The journey begins.
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Immediately it feels like you would be in a real fallout offline adventure. You take a look into the distance and and think that it looks quite nice. More colorful than Fallout 4 and much friendlier impression than Fallout 3. From now on we want to discover the world as fast as possible like we did it in the previous Fallout games. We can see a symbol that has appeared on the compass we want to follow. After that, another one. And another one. Fallout players know, by this the world get constantly expanded. A look at the map, which is completely unlocked from the very beginning of the game, shows also strange grey dots.
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We forgot, Fallout 76 is an online game. You share the world with other bunker survivors who are supposed to drive reconstruction after the Great War like you. As known from other online role-playing games, there 
are no differents points players start in the world of Fallout 76. All start in Vault 76: if you’re not on a server with a high-level player, there are certain narrative connections that are mostly related to the main mission line which is about the warden of the bunker. That also means that you will meet other human players at specific points. But at sometimes, or at the latest when you end up on another server after logging in again, you will see zhe players spread across the map. And that means that you feel very alone from the beginning. The loneliness that has always been inherent in this wasteland has never been as great as here. However, we wondered why there has been no other survivors. Even those, which are part of the story are already dead. You can only get to know something about them by collecting the Holotapes and their text journals. Most of them are hidden in computers, which can be a triggers for missions, too. Unfortunately, the wasteland seems to be very unnaturally lifeless, because you mostly meet just robots and other opponents like mutations. And this is something we do not understand: 
Fallout 76 play 170 up to 180 years after the events that happened Fallout 3 and 4. But there is not explained what happened with the whole human population. Strange.
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It is a fact: Fallout 76 is not a MMO (massive multiplayer online-game). We think, that West Virginia with its’ huge number of servers, with not more than 30 players at once on one of them, who can have different levels of playing characters, seems more like a strange symbiosis of off- and online elements. Both, the social as well as the mechanical or mission-related interaction with other players can theoretically be ignored. Some tasks or dungeons and especially the events, that take place at regular intervals, are easier to master if you are on the road with others. Unfortunately, the game gives us not much excessive incentives to join a team, especially in the first hours of playing. Of course, we accepted an invitation from time to time. But after the event has been completed or a mission has been done, the group splitted quickly and everybody gone his way. That also means, that Fallout 76 is more like an offline than an full online game, in which from time to time other players plays just a small guest role. We think, this is a try from Bethesda to separate Fallout 76 from other online games.
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Away from the missing population, the world of Fallout 76 feels very authentic. The foundation is the same like in the offline parts Fallout 3, New Vegas and Fallout 4. We have to say, that there are not so much buildings to explore like in the previous games. You crack locks like in Fallout, you hack computers like you 
know, open safes and collect everything that isn’t nailed. You’ll fight with a huge number of different melee and ranged weapons. Most of them can can be upgraded and adjusted against the regular spawning enemies. You collect experience after completing them and raise your level to use better weapons or armor. You can either follow the given main and side missions or simply go the way you like, which inevitably leads players to new tasks and locations at some point. The audio messages of the holotapes, the radio stations and the letters that can be found, which have been left behind or entries in computer databases, still provide an interesting picture of the post-apocalyptic world. Fact is that 76 comes as close to a true fallout experience as it can. Surprises, puzzles and a bunch of collectable stuff have made sure that the motivation goes up again and again. However, the “shooter” Fallout is even less convincing than with the 
offline brothers. Theoretically, they use the same real-time system, so that all those who have abandoned the tactical V.A.T.S. system with its slowdown in the past should have the same fun.
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We have catched ourselves having fun in the game world – especially when we feel like we are playing an new Fallout offline adventure. Like the moment we have saved an airport from mutants and have found a power armor in the last hangar that made upcoming tasks a lot easier. Especially from then now we felt similar to the last Bethesda Apocalypse Adventure when we have attacked the enemy with this massive armor for the first time. 
A little bit later in the game it is also possible to build our own camp which became very important. Not only because you can use your own home as a free teleport point. And if we are talking about teleporting, we think that the fact you can teleport to events that are located in an area that you have not reached or explored yet on foot, is for us completely against the fallout rules. The camp is also important because you have then all crafting stations at the same spot. Here you can dismantle your items, upgrade your weapons and armor or take care of your physical being. Eating and drinking is more important than ever in this Fallout. But the survival aspect, which seems threatening at first, loses its terror quickly after you have added a water pump to your camp, so that you can boil the water. And do not matter about the food, because you’ll find it everywhere.
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We have also tested the “Wanted”-System. It is a great concept to punish attacks by players on others or their loot, but the implementation of the system has a few problems. While we walked through the wasteland we came across another players’ camp. After a shot at the fence of the player’s house ten crown corks were placed on my head. Strange. We wished we would get a warning about repeatedly attacking the enemy structures 
and that this kind of attacks lead to a Wanted status. Unfortunately, there is only one opportunity to get this status of: By being killed by another player. Even if you get killed for example by a death claw you will still be wanted.
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The fact that the personal box, which can also be accessed from some other stations in the world, has just a limit of 400 pounds, is one thing and very annoying, because it transforms the game into logistics manager simulation. This goes so far, that we even had to move ammunition, stimpaks and food back and even throw them away. Until this point we had a lot of fun even despite all the shortcomings.
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Unfortunately, we have to say, that we lost the connection to a franchise, which we loved from the day it was released in 2009. We have spent hundreds hours in the offline games and had a great connection to the world and the characters we met. It was a nice try of Bethesda to put an offline game into the online world, but it crashed totally, because of the weak technology with its inadequate network code it is not even able to represent a game world with 24 players without any problems. But we also have to say, that we do not care about it. The fundamentals of this game are fantastic. You can certainly blame Bethesdas’ role-playing games 
for a lot of things. But both, Skyrim and Fallout 3 or 4, have caught the shortcomings with their content quality. In Fallout 76, however, this something that stays in stark disproportion.
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The experiment “Online-Fallout” failed. To put the essence of the post-apocalyptic role-playing adventure into a new guise did not work out. It is technically ailing and even after the first patch still laggy. There are more than enough inconsistencies, which disturb the game feeling lastingly and to which among other things the unnecessarily limited place of the storage box belongs or the forced renouncement of NPCs, which lets the atmosphere tilt. The fact that nasty bugs appear in different areas is more than just annoying. But the game is still charming, because the essence of the offline game shines again and again through at crucial moments and keeped us playing. Unfortunately, even the existing and really good mission lines are permanently disturbed by mechanical or technical faults. Sorry Bethesda.
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