What’s that, kiddos?
That’s right, war never changes. The iconic line was missing from the teaser trailer reveal of Fallout 76, but we’ve all heard it enough times to know that war, war never changes.
Fallout, however, does. Its a far cry from its roots of a tactical, turn-based RPG, but is that such a bad thing? Each new foray into the wastelands was always a treat – there was always fun to be had, even after the world was far past civilized. Fallout adapted to the changing times of video games, and typically adapted well, even if it wasn’t always sure of its own feet.
Enough of a history lesson, let’s get to it! What in the world is going on? What do we know, what don’t we know, what do we think we know?
Vault 76, as far as the current lore is established, is one of thirteen control vaults. Unlike the other games, which take place up to 200 years after the war, Vault 76 is set to open twenty years after the war – and if 200 years was still a nightmare hellscape where only small communities were able to survive amidst the horrors, ghouls, bandits and super mutants, what will twenty years be like? Probably painful. Really painful. And that’s exciting.
Being a control group, it was not subjected to the various experiments of Vault-Tech – some of which were benign, while others were terrible. The vault with one guy and a bunch of puppets. The vault with the clones. The vault with the addicts. The list goes on. There were 500 people in Vault 76, ready to re-colonize the world. And, as some have pointed out, we know the day the vault opens, thanks to the :30 second mark in the trailer:
October 27th, 2102
If the song is to give us a hint, which the entire trailer seems very finely crafted, then we also know the where:
West Virginia
Neat! What else do we know?
Well, uh. We know that Bethesda’s E3 showcase is Sunday, June 10th at 6:30 PM PT.
There are also some rumors circling. Some nefarious rumors, thanks to unnamed sources that reported into Kotaku. Stay with me, because we’re diving into the rabbit hole on this one.
Fallout 76 is, possibly (based on unnamed sources, so the jury is still out) an online survival RPG akin to the likes of DayZ and Rust. Woah. Hold on.
An online survival RPG? Bethesda? Fallout?
The rumor mill goes deeper still: it was originally a prototype of a multiplayer version of Fallout 4 that was designed to see what a multiplayer version would be like, that quickly grew into much more, as most online survival games do. Base building is back, along with other typical survival tropes, and it most likely is still evolving as we speak, if the rumors are to be believed.
Now, personally, I like my multiplayer, survival games.. kind of. I am in constant search of the magnum opus of multiplayer survival games, and have been ever since I had my first taste of Rust, years ago. It was thrilling, fun, and yet so barbaric and tragic that, eventually, you just have to walk away.
I’m abuzz with curiosity of what it could be, of whether the rumors are true, or just a red herring. I like my Fallout games as beautiful, open world stories that work best as a singleplayer experience – and there are plenty of survival games out now, plus more on the way, that will scratch that itch, but nothing like Fallout.
But, hey, even if it is a form of multiplayer experience, even if it is a survival game, let us all rejoice:
Its not a battle royale game.
Silver Soul Gaming 