Fallout 76 Hands-On: 8 Reasons You Should Be Worried

5. Hunger & Thirst "Survival Elements"

Like the "You are over-encumbered" message we all despise across both Fallout and Elder Scrolls, it appears Bethesda like putting caps on certain parts of the experience under the guise of "realism", where the majority of the experience is utter wish fulfilment.

In 76, yes you're free to hunt mutated sloths and score headshots from across the map... but you'll have to eat and drink at regular intervals, to keep some Hunger and Thirst meters topped up.

To some degree, yes, any survival game needs such meters to fulfil its contractual need to the genre, but just who is this for? From where I'm looking, is it really good gameplay to put a group quest on hold while you fry up some bloatfly meat?

At their very best, meter-based survival mechanics are a mild annoyance. At their worst, they get in the way of literally everything else.