If you are more of a single player gamer like me, don’t let the online nature of Fallout 76 put you off… it’s eminently playable as a single player experience. If you are put off by the issues mentioned at the start then maybe steer clear (or at least wait to see if patches address your concerns), otherwise I’d say grab the Deathclaw by the horns and jump in (but maybe wait till you have powerarmour to do that.).

Regardless of how Fallout 76 transforms and mutates in the months to come, the present version is a brave, imaginative, and rewarding exploration, but its true glory is revealed among friends.

I don't think I've ever had a game in the test that was so difficult to judge. It doesn't grip properly, but Fallout 76 makes me feel very contradictory. On the one hand, I really enjoy the game world, the exploration and all the stories told here. But I'm also someone who can get involved with this indirect way of telling stories. I can understand that for many this doesn't work without NPCs and dialogues. But I enjoy reading the different diary entries and listening to the holobands. On the other hand, the poor technical condition of the game really annoys me a lot. The poor performance despite average graphics quality is hard to understand. You can and must expect more from a modern game in 2018.

In an effort to do everything, Fallout 76 fails to do any of it well enough to form an identity. Its multiplayer mindset robs its quests of all the moral decisionmaking that makes the series great, and all that’s left is a buggy mess of systemic designs that never seems to work together and regularly contradicts itself.

Fallout 76 meant to change the very concept of the series, but turned out to be a complete disaster. The game is not only boring and empty, but sometimes simply unplayable.

Fallout 76 could have been appealing. With its massive open-world, rewarding exploration and some interesting quests, it fails to be a good game because of too many game-design mistakes and technical issues.

I dreaded every hour I had to keep playing Fallout 76 for review. As soon as the game was beginning to teeter on fun or interesting, a bug or a frustrating gameplay design element would quickly remind me that the game was otherwise.