We’ve stopped laughing long enough to bring you news that Bethesda is now offering a monthly (or yearly) subscription plan for Fallout 76.
For either $12.99 a month (Hahahahaha) or $99.99 a year (Bwhahahahaha) you can access a premium Fallout 76 subscription plan known as Fallout 1st. What do you get for that tidy sum? Well, the big hook of this subscription plan seems to be the ability to create private in-game servers. You and up to seven friends will be able to access this private world, and only the server’s host will be required to have a Fallout 1st subscription.
That’s nice and all, but most of the other features you get with this pass feels like things that should have been in the game in the first place. For instance, Fallout 1st will give subscribers access to a portable fast travel point that doubles as a camp equipped with facilities designed to meet basic needs. You’ll also be granted a scrap box that allows for unlimited scrap storage, a monthly stipend of 1,650 Atoms, a ranger armor outfit, and special icons and emotes.
To be honest, it’s actually pretty difficult to cover this one with a straight face. Given the many, many, many missteps Fallout 76 has endured until this point (which includes everything from exaggerated collector’s edition swag to an array of glitches and missing features), the idea that Bethesda feels that now is the time to charge the relatively few people who are still actively playing this game a monthly subscription fee in order to access some of those fans’ most requested features is simply shocking. Bethesda is basically saying that Fallout 76 is worth more than Game Pass, PlayStation Plus, or is roughly equivalent to a subscription to World of Warcraft or Netflix. That just doesn’t feel accurate. Oh, and it’s also worth reminding everyone that Fallout 76 isn’t a free-to-play game.
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What makes this all the more embarrassing is that The Outer Worlds is set to release soon, and that game is not only arguably a better successor to Fallout: New Vegas than Fallout 4 was but is closer to the game that most fans wanted Bethesda to make when they instead revealed Fallout 76.
Here’s hoping that some of Fallout 76‘s upcoming content makes it easier for the game’s clearly loyal remaining players to justify this…thing.
Matthew Byrd is a staff writer for Den of Geek. He spends most of his days trying to pitch deep-dive analytical pieces about Killer Klowns From Outer Space to an increasingly perturbed series of editors. You can read more of his work here or find him on Twitter at @SilverTuna014.
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