The Fallout fusion event, which will be available for a short period only, has been turned on in the civilian and Warzone games Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 as per the announcement of the popular news account CharlieINTEL on Twitter. The crossover will take three weeks to complete and during that time, players will be allowed to bring themed content from the RPG series to Activision’s shooters. Sadly, the players’ initial feedback has mostly been negative, stating very high prices, shortage of content, and technical problems as the reasons for their discontent.
So, the long-awaited Fallout crossover has finally come! It was thought that it would be nothing but a huge success. Mixing the Vault-Tec brand with killstreaks would definitely produce chaos that is characteristically fun. However, when you look at the replies to the announcement post, you cannot help but think…wow. This is a complaints department, not a party. People are angry right from the outset. And I am not talking about a little anger; I mean, REALLY angry.
Let’s analyze the problem. The event includes an “Event Pass” that costs 1,100 COD Points. Roughly, how much is that? About ten dollars? Moreover, there’s also a bundle for the Lucy character from the Fallout TV series that costs 2,800 Points. Tanner has the right to say, “1,100 for the fallout pass, 2,800 for Lucy bundle…just go buy fallout it’s cheaper 😂”. And he is right! You might as well buy a real Fallout game that is on sale instead of getting that digital bundle. There is simply no value for money.
What has caught the most attention and speculation is that the Lucy bundle is still not available for purchase. The event has started, but the main character of the event has not been revealed yet. Players like ‘4DFrags’ and ‘lipanomula’ have been posting in the comments asking where it is. One of the guesses by FerTiger7 is that it is a psychological tactic: “if they released both at the same time some people would buy the bundle and not the pass and the other way around. My guess is that they think if they wait a little bit you’d feel less guilty because you didn’t spend 40 bucks in 1 day on cod”. This is a pretty clever mind trick, and the gamers are not going to fall for it. Alex called it a “really stupid decision,” saying that people will come to the game, see that Lucy is not there, and thus quickly leave the game.
The complaints, however, are not confined to the store only. Marco Schmidt condemned the whole issue very rigorously by stating: “Excuse me but it’s no wonder that the number of players in Call of Duty is constantly decreasing. It’s always the same: poor rewards, old maps, just the same things.” He is reminiscing about the time of Black Ops 4 with its “cool animated skins.” Jamie has conceded that the event is “very underwhelming so far,” complaining that only the new multiplayer maps have any worth. The technical aspect was also addressed. Mike in New Zealand shared a very frustrating case regarding the connection where he had to wait 5-10 minutes to get into a lobby just to be placed on a Japanese server with 190 ping. Robert_Boofer is very annoyed because it seems that an update had caused his whole game to disappear and then reappear. Bomas is still mad that the voice chat on Xbox is not functioning.
There are some positive comments, like the one from Corey’s Gaming Hub who says it looks “incredible,” but these are not sufficient to balance the negativity. Even the length of the event—three weeks—got a sarcastic “Olala how generous” from renz88x. Dakota45790 wrote, “Damn looks like I ain’t playing cod for 3 weeks after the fallout event is over,” which resonates with a common feeling among the players.
So the question is, what is really happening? This is a typical case where a brilliant idea was poorly executed, leading to the very players’ frustration that were meant to be happy. The crossover was an excellent idea but became unpopular as it required purchasing in multiple installments and at the same time, players were facing technical difficulties. It has created a divide between what players expect in live-service events, which is easy access, rewarding, and fun activities, and what they usually get: being charged for, buggy, and fragmented. Ironically, this Fallout event might be the radioactive straw that breaks the brahmin’s back for a community that is already quite vocal about the “greedy” practices. The next three weeks will show whether the bad first impression can be counterbalanced by the gameplay, but for now, the Wasteland. Many players enjoy these games on PlayStation as well.
