UPDATE: After E3, the reception has remained slightly lukewarm due to the focus on settlement building and multiplayer rather than traditional RPG ideals like story, character progression and personal agency in the world but Fallout 76 does look to be a fun non-standard entry to the Fallout series. It remains an offshoot title and with the release date being this November, fans are now looking forward to trying it and are less worried that it will get in the way of development of more single player focused titles. This is backed up by the announcement/confirmation of two major single player focused RPG's: Starfield, Bethesda Game Studio's first new IP in 25 years, and the Elder Scrolls VI.
So the next big Bethesda Game Studios project has been announced as Fallout 76, which will be an online survival RPG by all accounts. We'll see what E3 this year brings us but so far, I have my reservations. Bethesda Game Studios (the developers as opposed to the publisher, Bethesda Softworks) are responsible for my current all time favourite game; Skyrim. As such, I'm always excited to see a new game from them but if you read on, I'll discuss why this isn't exactly the news I and many other RPG fans wanted to hear.
First of all, it's worth discussing the previous Bethesda Game Studios (BGS) game, which is Fallout 4. I imagine half of my readers that know what I'm talking about have just perked up at the mention of one of their favourite titles and the other half have just let out an exasperated sigh. Both of these describe my own thoughts at once. Fallout 4 was an excellent game in a vacuum, but as an RPG and especially when cast in the light of its predecessor Skyrim it becomes a distinctly mediocre offering at best.
I may go into more detail about that one day but suffice to say that BGS's most successful and lucrative offering to date did not endear many RPG fans looking to replicate the experience of Skyrim or Fallout: New Vegas, the Obsidian developed entry in the Fallout series. As such, they have been eagerly awaiting hints of the next BGS game to come along with the hopes of getting the next 'traditional BGS RPG experience' that Fallout 4 turned out not to be. Having been 7 full years since the release of Skyrim, you can understand the anticipation for the next Elder Scrolls game, which would also fit their pattern to date. Since the first title they created (Morrowind), BGS's major flagship releases have followed a pattern; Elder Scrolls (Morrowind), Fallout (3), Elder Scrolls (Skyrim), Fallout (4), blank.
This may be a coincidence of course and it has been broken with more side-project titles such as the special and VR edition of Skyrim after Fallout 4 and Fallout: Shelter for mobile after Skyrim. Also slightly inexplicably is IHRA Professional Drag Racing 2005 for Playstation 2 following Morrowind, which so far is the studio's only foray away from either Fallout or Elder Scrolls. Gotta change stuff up at times I suppose. Just...why drag racing? Anyway, moving on.
The pattern has held and been successful for years. Fallout and Elder Scrolls are two enormously different IPs that share what is almost its own iconic little mini-genre; the fabled Bethesda RPG. I mention this as a mini-genre purely because it's so difficult to put into words just how the studio put together these experiences and why it's such a beloved style of game that hasn't really been replicated by other games (this playlist by the excellent Gopher on YouTube does a superb job of articulating this idea of the Bethesda RPG). Other RPGs have come out of course and are by no means less good; at present, my award for best RPG ever developed is held by The Witcher 3 and for good reason. But even though I think it's the best, it's not my favourite.
This is the crux of the matter. The Fallout 4 people wanted, and some might argue were promised, was a different prospect from the one they played. It was a blockbuster game for sure and I enjoyed my time with it, but it did not scratch the itch that has been leftover from Skyrim. The fans that have played these games back since Morrowind, those that jumped in at Oblivion or Fallout 3 and those that have spent hundreds of hours exploring Skyrim did not quite get the depth they were looking for.
To bring us back around to Fallout 76, I think that the announcement of 76 is certainly not a bad thing. I actually quite like the idea of an online survival RPG in the Fallout universe. Multiplayer in that world would be good fun and seeing the state of Earth so soon after the bombs fell in that timeline certainly holds an appeal. However, to move so far away from the experience myself and a highly passionate fanbase have been patiently waiting on for multiple years now feels like a bit of a kick in the teeth. It feels like the success of Fallout 4 which made the studio so much money has shifted their focus away from those deep, complex, slightly intimidating RPG experiences they once were lauded for to a scope that will surely look a lot more inviting to many gamers but might run a risk of alienating the loyal enthusiasts that so love the older works.
As a quick summary of my thoughts, I don't think this is a bad decision objectively. It will be good for their business and might even be a hell of a lot of fun, we'll have to see. But the trend of heavy marketing and playing to wide audiences is threatening to remove the very thing people initially adored about BGS games and if they aren't careful, the goodwill they are running on from that subsection of their fans might just run dry.