Fallout 76 has been in a tailspin ever since it launched back in 2018. The promise was grand West Virginia landscapes in a post-apocalyptic setting, where you could interact with so many characters and have epic adventures. Unfortunately, Bethesda failed to deliver on these promises and the community was pretty upset.
Since then, they’ve tried making the necessary adjustments. The Wastelanders update is a huge installment coming to the game that’s set to introduce human NPCs. That’s an incredible start and is exactly what fans of this beloved series want to hear. It was recently pushed back as Bethesda wants to iron out some more details on a project that requires more work than originally thought.
Now, the company has decided to include private servers. They will not be free, however. Instead, Bethesda is opting to charge gamers $100 for a yearly subscription. So what exactly is this package and is it truly worth that amount of money? Let’s take a look.
Called Fallout 1st, this premium subscription plan gives members access to private servers for yourself and friends. It’s including additional and exclusive content, as well as a bevvy of other bonuses. If you don’t want to purchase a full year subscription, you can always pay monthly. That will cost you $12.99 a month.
The appeal here — according to Bethesda — is to go on grand adventures in the wasteland with parties that are exclusive to you. It should make your experiences more personal and user-friendly. For example, in Fallout 76 right now, you could be playing and then have your experiences interrupted by those trying to game the system with mods. This often leads to a lot of frustration, and players have had about enough of these shenanigans.
Still, is a paywall the right way of introducing these private servers? It appears the community are none too pleased. These servers have been a requested feature from players since launch, but not at the expense of their wallets. The community feels like spending money on the base game alone should net them access to these private servers. After everything Bethesda has done with Fallout 76, they have a point.
It will be interesting to see how many users actually opt to pay for the premium package. On paper, it doesn’t seem like the best idea from Bethesda. They’ve already hurt their brand a lot by pumping out a Fallout game before it was really ready. For now, we’ll just have to see what they decide to do based on the fans’ reactions.
