Fallout 76 Review: 4 Ups & 7 Downs

1. The Lack Of NPCs

Probably the most inexplicable issue with Fallout 76 is the near-total lack of NPCs. There are no human AI characters in the game whatsoever, with the only humans you'll encounter being other players.

As a result, the game's story is delivered entirely through robots and holotapes, but even if you attempt to interact with the robots, you'll generally just receive a single, canned line of dialogue, far from the more involved chit-chats from previous Fallout games.

Fallout 76 consequently lacks a lot of the charm of its predecessors: human characters obviously aren't much of a substitute, especially as many of them won't even bother speaking to you at all.

Given how much human NPCs comprise the world and the lore of Fallout games, removing them completely here was a massive mistake, and probably the strongest evidence that the game was just rushed to market.

So, Fallout 76 is a bad, disappointing game. It isn't completely terrible, though, and there are intermittently fun moments to be had, even if the game absolutely isn't recommended in its current state. Here's what Bethesda got kinda-right...