The Fallout 76 beta begins on Xbox One on Oct. It starts Oct. 30 for PlayStation 4 and Windows PC. Bethesda did not give a specific end date for the beta. In fact, the beta will not be running around the clock. “On any given day the game might be up for anywhere between four to eight hours,” Bethesda said.

Fallout 76 has come a long way from its rocky debut and the various changes and updates to accompany its evolution. Whether you like a game or hate it, it’s important to understand that no game remains the same as it was on Day One in the modern age of gaming.A year after it’s release, does Fallout 76 hold up going into 2020 with all the changes made to it over the last year? To answer this, let’s explore what Fallout 76 is and has become up to now.About Fallout 76As has been synonymous with the series (with the exception of Fallout: New Vegas), you play a Vault Dweller, a resident of a specialized bunker created by the Vault-Tec Corporation. What gives it a fresh spin is its place in the timeline. While most of the games in the series take place a century or more after the destruction of America, Fallout 76 starts on the 25th anniversary, known as Reclamation Day.Released on November 14th, 2028 by Bethesda Softworks, the game was met with a critical reception from its fanbase.

It was heavily criticized for a lack of human NPC’s to interact with, seeing as everyone human is very much dead by the time you come across them. The only NPC’s that you could interact with that weren’t enemy mobs trying to kill you where robots, often acting as quest givers or vendors for equipment and supplies.The reason behind the lack of human NPCs in the game might be placed on the desire by the developers to create a world solely populated by the players, making interacting with your fellow players necessary if not mandatory.The games focus on voice chat for communication meant there was no in-game text chat function outside of a third-party mod.

Once again we can point the finger at the developers wanting to create a certain vibe.When you can chat across a zone, you are never alone. When you are relegated to purely voice chat, you are very much alone in the wilderness unless you happen upon someone and engage them verbally.

It creates a very isolated sense of being when you’re out on your own and makes those encounters with other players almost reassuring. Unless you’re paranoid, but there’s nothing to worry about.More on that later.However, it should be noted that the game has seen substantial updates over its first year, in terms of content and balancing. The final tally mark on the current developer roadmap known as the Wastelanders update promises to bring NPCs back to the main game, however at the time of this review, the scope of Wastelander's impact on the game is an unknown.A low-key but prominent feature is the games Screenshot function. Screenshots taken in the games Photo Mode or with the in-game camera item are stored in the games photo folder on your computer.

It offers a nice selection of filters, and frames that can be unlocked by visiting certain locations or completing certain quests. Additionally, screenshots you have taken will appear as loading screen art.At current Fallout 76 enjoys around 25,062+ players daily. Fallout 76’s StoryLet's leave 76, they said. It'll be fun, they said.Fallout 76 doesn’t have much of a narrative.

You are directed to leave the Vault and.you’re on your own pretty much. The lack of NPCs in the game world makes it hard to drive a story on the same scope as Fallout 4 and so on.Players have criticized the diminutive story focus, however, I have chosen to look at it like other Survival Games, like Conan Exiles or Ark: Survival Evolved, where you are tasked with making it in a harsh environment with little guidance or plot.The Holotapes left behind by your Overseer near major locations begin to paint a larger picture pertaining to the game's primary antagonists, the Scorched and her desire to see them wiped from existence. The fate of the Overseer is yet unknown, however many in the fandom rumor mill believe she will appear in the upcoming Wastelanders update.The Scorched are humans and animals that have been subjected to a virus emitted by mutated bats called Scorchbeasts. The Scorched is rampant, and the Scorchbeasts are bursting out of the ground and breathing their zombifying nonsense all over the place.

If you take to heart the Overseers recordings, they must be stopped, and the only way to do that is to somehow get access to nuclear arsenals hidden deep in Appalachia and strike them at the source.Ultimately the story didn’t set the world on fire when you’re just following audio recordings. Every voice you hear over a PA or from a Holotape was left by someone already dead (you may even stumble upon their corpse at some point). You are free to craft your own narrative, as the point of the game is not its story by any means.Fallout 76 is about the journey and your ability to stay alive in the wasteland, and exploring dangerous and usually pretty intriguing locations. That makes Fallout 76 less of an RPG and more of a playground with RPG elements.There is no destination or a real ending to reach. There are no slides at the end detailing what you’ve accomplished or ramifications of your actions. For many, this can prove unsatisfying for a Fallout game, but if were to dare to call Fallout 76 an MMO, it would be prudent to point out that no MMO has a definitive ending.

The only ending to an online game is when the game shuts down for good. End of story, roll credits. Fallout 76 Gameplay.

Firstly, we enter into character creation, where we handcraft our Vault Resident. Despite being the supposed best minds and intellects Vault Tech could shove into a Vault, there is nothing stopping you from creating someone who looks like an absolute psychopath.

If you’ve played any Bethesda Fallout game in the past you should be immediately comfortable with how combat works in Fallout 76. Gunplay follows that near-universal style of free aiming or using the series infamous VATs system to auto-target enemies. Your damage output depends on the weapon you’re using at the time and the perk cards you’ve attained from leveling up.Taking a keynote from Fallout 4, VATs does not stop time, allowing you to pick and choose your perfect shot.

It’s an online game after all. Instead, enemies tagged in VATs move in real-time with the degree of your success in hitting changing depending on environmental factors.

It adds a slightly more tactical approach to the system.Firearm combat gets the job done, however, I am willing to voice a lack of satisfaction with the punch and impact of weapons, at least from a visual standpoint. Guns don’t quite sound as they should, and grenade explosions are not nearly as impressive as watching derelict cars go up in a small mushroom cloud.Gun goes off, the enemy takes damage, the enemy dies (hopefully). It just works.Melee combat has been a sore point for me personally for many years in the Bethesda take on the series. Going into Melee feels like it was added as an afterthought, with you simply swinging your weapon with not much-varied animation.That is not to say melee character builds are not viable, in fact with the right build, being a sword-swinging, or power fist punching character can be extremely powerful. Some of the most powerful builds are melee-based.

It could just stand to be a little deeper. It takes the fun out of taking perks that insinuate yourself as some sort of martial arts master when you still just flail around like a drunken bar brawler.The current max level is 50, which is also the max level in the quality of armors and weapons you will find.

After level 50 leveling changes. Allow me to explain. As you level up from your adventures from levels 1 to 50, you are granted a perk card, and a point to allocate into one of seven attribute points (referred to as your SPECIAL). These points affect various things like carrying weight, movement speed, your maximum health and so on, but also affect how many perk cards you can equip associated with that attribute.For example, if you have a 3 in Strength, and upgrade a perk to level 3 using duplicate cards you’ve acquired, that is all you will able to equip to Strength unless you put more points into Strength. It’s good to know you can switch out Perk Cards whenever you want, allowing you to come up with combinations best suited for certain situations.unless it’s an emergency like a Yao Guai is breathing down your neck, then you might not be able to take the time to re-equip since the game doesn’t pause when you pull up your Pipboy menu.After level 50 it becomes a matter of picking and choosing. You no longer gain an ability point to allocate into your SPECIAL stats, but you can re-locate a point to another attribute. Alternatively, you can select a perk card.

Either or, never both at the same time.A year later, there still is no talk about raising the current level cap.Teaming up with players, which is almost essential in the later parts of the game, you will be able to form groups of up to four players. Perks exist in the game that synergizes with teaming up. Some Legendary weapon effects like the Medics Shotgun offer boosts to team gameplay.If PVP is your thing, you have two options in Fallout 76.

The first one is simply logging into Nuclear Winter, which you can partake in a Battle Royale style team-based contest of the last team standing.If you want to PVP while in Adventure Mode it gets a bit sticky. First, you have to attack your intended target. This will not register as a full hit. More like a love tap, and an invitation that you want to throw down. Then if the person is receiving your invitation for fisticuffs they will attack in return, and only then will full PVP become initiated.While some have scoffed at this as a dumbing down of the brutal nature of the dog-eat-dog wasteland, it has allowed the community in the game to be more welcoming of their fellow man.

It’s easier to be polite and civil when you can’t blow away anyone you come across just for the sheer thrill of the kill. Fallout 76 Quest/Mission systemYou start the game with the basic breadcrumb trail the Overseer left you, but it’s up to you whether or not you want to follow it. Quests will present themselves as you stumble across them. You find a holotape with information, or you pick up a strange radio signal, or you simply wander into an area and you will receive a quest to go have a look around.As stated before, most quests are you picking up where others left off. It has a strangely organic feel if stumbling upon something, or following a signal or distress call. You find a terminal entry or a holotape or note, and tell yourself “Hey this feels worth my time investigating.”Daily Quests are available that are repeatable for rewards, and events will spawn across the map featuring special objectives to fulfill, some of which are tied to the in-game factions for faction related loot.Some quests play out like detective mysteries, in which you have to piece together a situation that unfolded before the bombs dropped. One chilling quest involved you looking into the disappearance of two young girls, the trail of clues leading you to discover a dark outcome of a case of childhood rivalry.Another more obscure quest has you venturing deep into a mining company headquarters to aid a damaged and distressed mining drone from its expedition deep down below.

It ended on an oddly chilling note with a near Lovecraftian sense of foreboding as to just what the drone saw deep beneath the earth.Some are more light-hearted but no less unsettling, like escorting a Mr. Handy on its way to deliver a way a late invitation to a Halloween party to a long-deceased recipient. (If you’re playing the game and wondering what’s up with all the Halloween decorations, it’s because the bombs dropped during the Halloween season, a little bit of lore for you)Other missions are more involved, sending you from one side of the map to the other, and across anything and everything that can and will get in your way, leading you down a rabbit hole of intrigue and danger and pre-recorded messages. Or Rose threatening to use a Buzzsaw on your face because she feels like it.Finally, we have factions. I say factions but again it’s like joining a club where everyone’s already cashed out. An exception is the Enclave and its robotic staff.You have the Brotherhood of Steel, the Order of Mysteries, the Responders, the Enclave, the Raiders, and the Free States. There are also Cultists dedicated to the worship of the Mothman but there are no quests really associated with them.However it should be noted, the Cultists have some of the best unmarked, un-trackable material in the game, leading to the possibility of otherworldly doom that Bethesda has peppered into their take on the series since Fallout 3.You weasel your way into factions, usually by finishing off what they failed to do, or via some automated recruitment system.

Rory mcilroy pga tour game ps4. Golf without limits in EA SPORTS Rory McIlroy PGA TOUR! Usher in the next generation of golf with the power of the Frostbite engine and play the most beautiful sports game to date with no load times, enabling you to explore authentic tournament courses or unique fantasy environments.

There’s no one to tell you otherwise that you are not who you say you are so long as you hold the widget that proves your membership. Again the Enclave is the exception.

The players become the faction at the end of the day. For roleplayers, this is a good thing. Fallout 76 Graphics. If you were to put Fallout 4 and 76 next to each other and ask me which I thought looked better, I would have to go with 76 and it’s persistent eternal Autumn versus the devastated wasteland of Fallout 4.For a setting in a Nuclear Apocalypse, Appalachia did pretty well for itself, and the setting invokes more of a zombie apocalypse vibe rather than nuclear.Unless you travel north to Toxic Valley where the effects are a little more evident.

Maybe that was closer to where a nuke went off.Other games in the series have captured the feel of the setting better, but 76 pulls off both a disarming calm and an unsettling uncertainty depending where you tread. Colors are vibrant and eye-catching, the lighting from day to night creates a good atmosphere.A year later and still the prettiest dang Wasteland in video games.Apples to oranges, it is still Fallout 4’s graphics engine at play, albeit with a couple of new models and a more impressive lighting system in place.

The lighting makes all the difference when it comes to presenting the world, ask anyone who’s downloaded a really good ENB mod for Skyrim or Fallout 4.Character models offer nothing new from Fallout 4. With the exception of the new enemies in the game, all the monsters and player models appear to be direct imports from Fallout 4. Ecobee login. Combat animations for shooting are done well, however, I have spoken with other players who have indicated that at some times, the reloading animations on some weapons are done wrong.I’ve already spoken about my feelings about the animations for melee combat.

It’s sloppy, and at times you can find yourself in trouble when you get a little overzealous spamming the attack button and need to heal because if you are still in the attack animation, the Use Stimpack hotkey won’t register until after the animation has been completed. Those players who utilize slow, heavier melee weapons will know the pain I’m talking about.Fallout 76 DeveloperThe game was made by Bethesda Softworks, the masterminds behind the Elder Scrolls series.

For many gamers out there, this means bugs. Bethesda is near legendary for it’s hilarious and frustrating graphical glitches and hiccups.Many of these are addressed, some remain after years in development. Fallout 76 is not immune to the so-called Bethesda Curse, however, the devs do openly address bug fixes in their regular From the Vault newsletter.One of the more prominent bugs involved an event that involved putting a quest item into a chute, in which it would also consume a certain type of ammo from the player's inventory. Another was glitch while exiting Power Armor, in which the player exiting would become invisible to their teammates, but the endoskeleton of the Power Armor would remain frozen in place.An example of what is collectively known as the Slenderman GlitchOftentimes these glitches can be hilarious, like the infamous Slenderman Power Armor Glitch, in which upon entering Power Armor, everyone around you sees your character model stretch to exaggerated proportions.

Fallout 76 had its first beta yesterday and it actually ran relatively smoothly despite Bethesda's warnings to the contrary. There was a lot to do and tons to explore -- far too much to cover in only a four-hour testing window.

There will be future tests though, including one this weekend, and I look forward to them.

So how does this newly post-apocalyptic wasteland compare to previous Fallout entries? It's still beta, but I am fairly impressed so far.

Fallout 76 Gameplay

Let's get this out of the way first: Fallout 76 is like a survival-lite online version of Fallout.

Aside from mutants, mirelurks, and mercenaries, you also have to worry about hunger and thirst. Although that's mostly the extent to any real survival, it's an interesting new wrinkle to the typical 'Where am I getting Rads from?' formula, which, by the way, is still present.

If anything, the world of Fallout is even more dangerous now.

What are Fallout 76 Events?

Fallout 76 events are optional quests that pop up all around the world. They only last for a limited amount of time and every player in the area can contribute to the cause, getting credit for them upon completion.

Events already seem like a great way to keep the game feeling fresh -- and making it so that players always have something to do. This ties into the MMO-lite qualities we already knew were present in Fallout 76.

Fallout 76 Leveling and Perks

S.P.E.C.I.A.L and Perks are back this time around, but they work differently than they did in Fallout 4 and Fallout New Vegas. You still get a point to put into your stats whenever you level up, but Perks are now equipped via Perk cards.

The way you unlock them is also different. Some Perks come from leveling up, but you can also get Perk Card packs that give you random perk cards.

Each card is worth 1-3 points. On top of that, you can only equip cards that are the same level or lower than your current stat in that category.

For example, if you have two points in Intelligence, you can equip two Level 1 Intelligence perk cards or one Level 2 card, but no Level 3 cards.

Interestingly (and it's not entirely clear yet if other Perks have qualities like this), if you level Charisma up enough, you can actually share some perks with teammates. This is an interesting wrinkle that will make co-op play more dynamic and depending on team composition, easier.

Fallout 76 Multiplayer and the World

One thing that separates this entry in the Fallout franchise from all the others is the ability to play with, or against, other players. This is something I have always wanted in a Fallout game. Although I did not play with anyone during the first beta session, I saw plenty of others and know there's going to be lots of opportunity in the upcoming session on October 27.

Having other players in the world changes the game completely, especially in regards to how you build your character.

For example, if you have a dedicated group of people to play with, you can plan out who's going to level certain stats and traits. Some will have higher Intelligence while other will have higher Strength values. One would be better at Hacking while another is best at Combat.

The dynamism here is effectively off the charts if you're a Fallout fan.

There are many different ways you can go about it, but the point is you don't have to worry about missing out on anything if you can't personally get a certain skill. I think that's a really cool way to socialize and plan with other players -- and a cool way to shake up the traditional RPG formula.

Not knowing who you will run into, or who may be an enemy, adds another level of tension in an already intense game. Luckily, Bethesda eases you into that danger by disabling PvP until Level 5.

One thing that did feel odd, though, is that during this time, I didn't interact with any other human NPCs. Based on the story so far, I hope that we eventually meet other humans besides players. Perhaps it was part and parcel for this particular beta phase ..

Building in Fallout 76

Fallout 4's building is back, but now you can build almost anywhere on the map via your C.A.M.P. You can even combine multiple build objects into a blueprint for easy building later.

I think this is a great way to make you feel like you have your own home, but can also move it if you feel like it. That was one of the shortcomings of building in Fallout 4: you always felt anchored in place, constantly building the same things over and over again.

It seems Fallout 76 has learned a lesson or two.

Mutations in Fallout 76

This is another new feature that stands to be a great new addition. Whenever you take radiation damage, you have a chance to get a Mutation.

This will give you a positive or negative effect that is semi-permanent. You might receive, for example, +50% disease resistance or get a debuff from eating a certain type of food.

Whenever you remove radiation, there is a chance the Mutation will go away.

All of this opens up new avenues of play, especially when coupled with the Perk system.

Issues with Fallout 76 (So Far)

There wasn't much that went wrong during the first session aside from a main story quest that froze, keeping me from progressing.

There was also the occasional disconnect, freeze, or glitch, but nothing unexpected or overly frustrating. There's no telling how things will be when the game launches and there are many more people playing, but overall, the beta seems to be chugging along just fine.

And although I had a perk that allowed me to target different limbs during V.A.T.S., I couldn't do it when I tried.

Overall View (So Far)

Fallout 76 feels like a Fallout game, though sort of empty without NPCs. For me, the ability to play with other players makes up for that and there's still a story I'm interested in seeing.

There's new mechanics and a mobile building system, so I'd say Bethesda is on the right track.

Only time will tell how this game pulls it off, but for now, I'm very excited to get back to playing. I can't wait to start playing with friends and seeing how the game is at a much higher level.

Want to know more about Fallout 76? Be sure to check out our everything we know rundown.