32 hours. That's how long I have been playing Bethesda's newest addition to the hit Fallout franchise since Fallout 76’s full release on November 14. Was it worth it? After a bit of deliberation I would have to say no for myself, but that doesn't mean that you are going to have the same experience as I did.

Well, 32 hours was not enough time to complete every quest in the game but it was enough time to do a few side quests and complete all the quests that were not bugged, as well as experiencing what the game had to offer to myself and other players. Let me start by saying that I did encounter my fair share of bugs and problems, but, I did not “trudge” through 30 hours of the game up to the point of this review. I did enjoy the game and had some genuine fun.

Fallout 76’s new online multiplayer playstyle was a different experience from the previous solo fallout games and I can say that I did enjoy the new environment, but that is also the downfall of this game for me. Because of this new playstyle Bethesda had decided to remove all human NPCs to give the player the experience of having to communicate with other real world players. That was all good and fun for the people who bought this game solely for the online aspect but the NPC component in the previous games is what made the games unique and fun to experience.

When I play these open world RPG games I play them for the immersive feeling of being in another world. But Fallout 76’s lack of NPC’s really takes that connection away from me.

With all the human NPCs gone it also made the various holotapes you can find in the game feel pointless. You never actually meet any of the people you can hear talking when you listen to them because they are all dead. It made me feel like I was their puppet. Finishing the task that they had failed to complete before they died. The only time you get the “feeling,” of having a personal experience is when you get various holotapes that align with a progressive questline. This also made it hard to differentiate between the main quests and the side quests because I felt no need of urgency to change anything, because everyone had already died so it wouldn’t make a difference.

Yes, the bugs and glitches were a bit unhandly at some times but they were by no means game breaking. Having missing water textures at times is really not a huge deal.The game creators are having a new experience with this multiplayer world same as we are.

Fallout 76 has one of the best open worlds I have explored next to the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. The gameplay was also genuinely fun but the whole experience was ruined for my due to the lack of any memorable characters and a shortage of good storytelling. So, was it worth buying Fallout 76? If you are someone who really loves the open word genre of games and the NPC components are not of much of a concern, and you can go without a solo-play option, I would definitely give it a go.