I skipped Fallout 76 at launch — here's why I finally gave it a shot in 2025 (and you should too)

Tom's Guide

5 hours ago

I love Fallout. Exploring a vast, post-apocalyptic wasteland filled with horrible enemies has always brought a smile to my face.
I'm also prone to getting addicted to online looter shooter games like Destiny 2 and I even got sucked into The First Descendent.
So when Fallout 76 came out, it should have been the game for me. But based on the negativity from Fallout fans when it launched, I passed.
Now, it's 2025, and the game has been chugging along since 2018. It's had hours and hours of content added to it, and it's become closer to the Fallout experience I always hoped it could be. It doesn't have as much personality as the numbered Fallout games (and New Vegas), but it has one key factor that keeps me coming back: it's incredibly fun.
Is 2025 finally the perfect time to lose yourself in the Appalachian wasteland? I think it just might be, and here's why.
For me, one of the biggest reasons to jump back into Fallout 76 is the value. Because the game is a few years old, you can get it for cheap most of the time. Even at full price, the game is $39 on Steam, PlayStation and Xbox. It's on Game Pass and can often be picked up on sale, either from the first-party platform store or from retailers like Amazon.
I've been primarily playing through Game Pass, as I have an active subscription. The ridiculous number of quests and vast wilderness available to explore make it feel like a game that should cost a lot more. I've played more than 40 hours of the game in a few weeks, and it feels like there are a million more quests for me to do and powerful items to find.
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And then there's the building mechanics...
Fallout 76 offers a lot of content for the price. You can spend hundreds of hours exploring the wastelands if you like the game, so you'll certainly get your money's worth.Also available on: Xbox and PlayStation
I was a little worried that Fallout 76 might not be fun without a group of friends to play with. My normal group of looter shooter friends has dispersed between various games, with a few still hanging onto Destiny 2. Getting them to try Fallout 76 was a no-go, so it was just me rolling solo (and playing with randoms).
Fortunately, after grinding my way past level 50, I can say that I'm having a blast without friends. Friends or not, the core loop of shooting enemies, looting their corpses and leveling up your character is fun and addictive, which is what you want to see from a game like Fallout 76.
Whether you play a V.A.T.S. character or one who sprays all over the place, there's a lot of fun to be had in Bethesda's semi-MMO version of Fallout.
While the Bethesda game may not have the official Steam Deck badge, in my experience, the game works just fine. And best of all, you don't need to do anything crazy with the settings to get it working.
All I did was install the game and launch it. No startup tweaks and no crazy settings to change. Just run it and go.
It's not perfect — the frame rate is lower than a traditional gaming PC or console, but the fact that I can play my current looter-shooter addiction while my family does other stuff with the TV is amazing.
Now, if only there were a way to transfer characters between platforms (there isn't and probably never will be).
Bethesda offers a quality of life (QOL) subscription for Fallout 76 that provides things like scrap and ammo storage, preventing you from having to deal with the headache of encumbrance as much. It costs $99.99 per year or $12.99 per month.
I signed up for a month, and it's great to have if you're playing a ton of the game. However, I played all the way to level 50 without it, and it was fine. Will I keep my subscription after the first month?
Probably, because I'm incredibly addicted to the game and I like the QOL changes. But I could also live without it, and I think you can, too.
I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm late to the Fallout 76 party. Players around the world have already known how good the game was for some time, and I'm just walking in like a beginner trying to tell people the game is good.
Are there bugs? Sure. Does it crash occasionally? Of course, it's a Bethesda game. Do any of those things stop me from loving the game and wanting to finish this article to play more of it? Not even close.