10 Scandals That DESTROYED Fallout 76

Fallout 76 came out last year with one of the worst releases on record, destroyed by a perfect storm of scandals that may well have damaged the Fallout brand for future releases - and almost all of them were entirely self inflicted.

The game appears to have been made with the attitude of a free mobile title; wanting to gouge customers as much and as quickly as possible before they inevitably move on. With triple A expectations and a price tag to boot though, that attitude simply wasn’t going to fly.

From their treatment of customers, low quality collectibles, going back on their promises and general issues with the game itself, Bethesda has had an absolute nightmare with 76. Any one of these scandals would be enough to tar a game for many players, but all of them? It’s surprising they have any left.

Those who’ve remained must only play in dungeons with electrodes strapped to their private parts; you’d have to enjoy punishment to stick around this long. Fallout as a brand could survive, as lots of people saw this as a spin off cash grab from the off. Fallout 76 on its own though? That might not be as lucky...

A terrible Metacritic rating on its own isn’t an awful scandal; it’s perfectly possible to love a game that others hate, and many cult classics came out with poor critical receptions. However, it’s definitely an indication that even before anything else went wrong for Fallout 76, the game was never that great to begin with.

It wasn’t a title that anyone really seemed to want. However, if it had hit it out of the park on arrival, it might have found a home in the overcrowded marketplace. Unfortunately, it was a dud right from the start.

With the rest of the stuff still to come on this list, there weren’t many players willing to take a risk on the game anyway; the fact most people found it terrible hardly helped matters.

There were even reports of some stores giving both physical and digital copies of Fallout 76 away with new consoles, just to try and shift some more units. The PR was a disaster, but it’s important not to forget that the base game was pretty bad in any case.