It’s been over a year and a half sinceFallout 76launched, and excitement for the game is beginning to climb as the upcomingWastelandersupdate offers to give players new reasons togive the game a second chance. However, according to a few recent quotes from Bethesda’s Senior Vice President of Global Marketing & Communications Pete Hines, the development team has been surprised by how fans have responded to one ofFallout 76’s primary features.
Players who have been watching the progress ofFallout 76from the beginning may have some of the issues that have plagued the title in mind, but the somewhat controversial feature, in this case, was actually planned. According to Hines, players weren’t as keen to engage in PvP as Bethesda had initially expected, leading to the community’s current agitation towards open servers andgriefers ruining the experiencefor some players.
RELATED:Fallout 76 Steam Release Date Confirmed
It appears most players wanted to treatFallout 76as a fun adventure to experience cooperatively with friends. While some were certainly interested in going toe to toe in a PvP setting, the vast majority of players simply wanted a collaborative PvE experience. For that reason, it seems that the future of the title andtheWastelandersupdateis expected to be geared more towards players collectively engaging in an ongoing story as opposed to competing for space and resources.
Well, I mean at the end of the day, our intention was always, we’re going to put this out there, see what folks think, and then cater the stuff that we do later to their reaction. So, for example, I think we were a little surprised how few people wanted to take part in PvP and how many more they were interested in PvE together. As opposed to, ‘I want to test my mettle against you and let’s get into a duel.’ There’s some folks who do, don’t get me wrong, but I think it’s a smaller percentage of our player base than we thought.
Looking at some of the biggest complaints from the early months, and even over a year after the game’s launch,Fallout 76players have clearly been concerned about PvP for some time. In fact, Private Worlds was one of the most enticing incentives for the1st Membership programthat Bethesda rolled out last year, along with unlimited storage and other long-requested features. However, considering how the highest performing games in the industry lean on PvP and competitive multiplayer, it does make sense that Bethesda would initially expect players to want player combat to be a key feature in their latest attempt at takingFalloutonline.
Wherever any one player may stand on the issue of PvP, it would seem that the fan base that surrounded theFalloutseries' intricate storytelling and vast open worlds simply weren’t looking to fight each other. To a degree, this should be uplifting news that when given the choice to be a raider or a settler, most players chose to be settlers and were more interested in working together than fighting each other. With any luck,Fallout 76’sWastelanderupdatewill reinvigorate players and continue to push the PvE and cooperative nature of players forward.
Fallout 76is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
