Fallout 76 Review: 4 Ups & 7 Downs

2. Its Intense, Unsettling Atmosphere

For all of the mistakes the game makes, it still manages to evoke a decent sense of mood through its environmental storytelling, even if the core story is actually thoroughly uninteresting.

The game's pervasively unsettling mood is especially apparent if you decide to play the game solo: venturing into a dark basement to find yourself facing off against a fleet of scorchers can be legitimately unnerving, and in moments such as this the janky combat almost adds another layer of tension to proceedings.

It's decidedly less intense when played in a squad, of course, but even then, there are intermittent moments where the game dares to be more than a post-apocalyptic shooting gallery and actually loads your actions with real meaning.