"War, war never changes": how many times have we heard this quote within the titles of the Fallout saga? Faced with an unconvincing launch, this time Bethesda had to change and try to give new life to Fallout 76, the first MMORPG title in the saga. After trying it for several hours, we're here to tell you about Watelanders, the free super DLC for Fallout 76.
In order to be able to offer you as complete a review as possible, we have started the game again from the beginning, in order to check every improvement made by hand. As we all know in Fallout 76 Bethesda tried to focus the focus on the survival component, forcing us to eat and drink to maintain our optimal status, all accompanied by an even deeper crafting than in previous titles. However, this formula has not been well digested by users, also thanks to the total absence of NPCs in the game world, which catapulted us into an extremely vast but equally bare game world. We can perceive Fallout 76: Wastelanders like Bethesda's attempt to satisfy the feedback received from users, in order to give us an optimal game without making it fall into oblivion too soon.
Once we have created our character and come out of Vaoult 76, we will find ourselves in front of an Appalachia, equal and evocative but alive, where there will not only be Ardenti to kill, but also NPCs to interact with and - why not - to take out. to steal the loot. We will immediately find ourselves accepting missions as NPCs that, during the course of the adventure, will be able to offer us excellent help, so we will no longer be forced to listen to the endless holotapes to understand what is happening around us. In the course of the adventure we can also recruit Allies, or the secondary characters, with one of their own this-line that once completed, will become part of our circle allowing us to establish strong s of friendship which can turn into romance. These NPCs will also be able to fill roles within ours CAMP, or the safe haven that we can build during the adventure, and that will give us daily quests to accomplish.
In Fallout 76: Wastelanders the traits return, or points to be assigned to decisive categories such as strength, intellect, luck and charisma, which will give us considerable help during the game, such as unlocking new dialogues with the NPCs to facilitate the carrying out of the mission or force new doors and access succulent loot.
In Fallout 76: Wastelanders, as we could understand, the narration returns, very strong and similar to that seen in the past. From level 20 onwards, we will find ourselves forced to take sides within one of the many factions featured in the game, in order to shape the fate of Appalachia and West Virginia. However, the missions already seen during the first year of life of Fallout 76 remain, which translates into a large number of quests to be faced, especially if you start a new run, creating considerable confusion especially for new players.
The new narrative thread introduced on Fallout 76: Wastelanders from Bethesda lasts about twenty hours if played all in one breath, but we already know that it will not be so, given the immensity of the game map and the countless quests. The end game does not differ much from what has been seen in the other chapters of the series: thanks to the introduction of a new currency, gold bars, which will allow us to buy elite equipment, and the addition of quests from the development team, we will have things to do at the end of the adventure.
Fallout 76: Wastelanders tries to please everyone, both new players by offering them a plot with typical tones of the saga, and veterans who nevertheless have not abandoned the title during these 18 months of waiting.
With this DLC we find improvements not only to the game world and to the narration, but also to the fluidity and optimization of the title. We were able to test Fallout 76: Wastelanders on a PC equipped with AMD Ryzen 9 3950X and nvidia geforce RTX 2080 Ti, playing in 4K resolution. When the title came out 18 months ago, the optimization especially of its PC counterpart was not the best, with a high number of bugs right from the start of the game, which often proved frustrating. With the introduction of this DLC the title presents a much more stable framerate and almost always nailed to 60 FPS, even if, very rarely, it presents some small uncertainty especially in environments full of enemies. As we now know, the framerate of Fallout 76, even with the addition of the Wastelanders DLC, turns out to be blocked at 60 frames per second this because, at a higher number of FPS, the animations could speed up and therefore be exploited as an advantage, exactly as it happened. with Fallout 4. Of course this is an easily circumvented “problem”: we tried to unlock the frames per second and were able to play with FPS of around 80, significantly improving our gaming experience. Numerous bugs have also been solved even if some persist: to interact with some characters or to perform some action, we will be forced to restart the game because the command option will not appear. Fortunately this is a bug that occurs rarely and that will not affect the enjoyment of the title, which with Fallout 76: Wastelanders, turns out to be excellent.
The Creaation Engine, or the game engine capable of giving life to the world of Fallout 76: Wastelanders, begins to feel the weight of its years, despite the Appalachia able to give us unique atmospheres, with breathtaking views. The gameplay and gunplay turn out to be very cumbersome and slow, as well as the animations and the fluidity of the characters. We were also a little disappointed by the artificial intelligence of the enemies that, at times, will hardly attack us if we do not pass under their noses. During the fights they will almost always attack us from the front, without even trying to go around us to take us from behind: this can also be positive, especially if we have to face a horde of enemies and we are completely alone. The game interface has remained almost unchanged: the inventory is still quite confusing and will take some time to understand how it works. As for the PC version, the commands to move around the interface are atypical and difficult to digest, but with a little patience they can be modified to suit our style of play.
Fallout 76: Wastelanders is the DLC that all fans of the saga have been waiting for: a great opportunity to bring new players together and bring veterans together. West Virginia is finally alive, with many characters to interact with and above all many, too many activities to do. Although the title is now much more fluid, with a very solid framerate on 60 FPS, there are certainly flaws, often attributable to an outdated Engine, such as slow gameplay and not very fluid animations. Numerous bugs have been fixed, but there are still several that thankfully do not compromise the gaming experience. Despite this, Fallout 76: Wastelanders as a whole turns out to be a very enjoyable title, capable of giving us a considerable number of hours, thanks to the huge map and countless quests. This DLC could be an opportunity to go back to singing "Take Me Home, Country Roads" with our friends and discover new mysteries related to Appalachia.
