The arrival of Fallout 76: Wastelanders has apparently been quite well-received by its community. Bethesda’s newest expansion to Fallout 76 was worked on for some time (and even suffered a delay or two). Now that it’s here, it’s looking like the community is loving it.
“I just played Fallout 76 for 10 hours straight,” read one Reddit submission. “I can’t even believe how good this update is[.]”
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This one particular marathon gaming session doesn’t appear to be an outlier, either. Many other players are reporting that they’ve been eagerly gobbling up the new content. It’s gotten so intense that some have shared tips on how to stave off hunger so that they can keep playing. (Protip: plant corn, gather water, and make corn soup.)
Fallout 76: Wastelanders might be better than Fallout 4
The playerbase seems almost universally pleased with the new content. Everything from the quest design to the new enemies have earned praise; some have even said that Fallout 76: Wastelanders has better writing than its predecessor Fallout 4.
From what we can tell, Fallout 76’s reception is a kind of “love it or hate it” prospect. While the game currently has a “Mixed” rating on its Steam Store page, another Reddit submission notes that the rating changes to “Very Positive” once you only count people who have played it for at least 3 hours.
Before and after with wastelanders this update has changed the game in so many great way and no bugs so far #Fallout76 #Wastelanders #Fallout pic.twitter.com/iXIQamoPGE
— Creammaster (@Thomas14787120) April 14, 2020
First few hours of gameplay with the #fallout76 dlc #Wastelanders : I have cried, laughed, and LOVED ❤ it's a whole new wonderfull world bursting with surprises.. and then, there is Bessie. A robot cow. We just absolutely love her. Moo!
The positive reception isn’t restricted to Reddit, either. Many people on Twitter seem to be loving the game, too. One question remains, though — does this mark a permanent change in the fortunes of Fallout 76?
But what about the Fallout 76 player count?
One thing we can’t really be sure about is just how many people are actually playing the new Wastelanders update. Bethesda has never really published any useful, exact numbers. Monthly Active Users (or MAU) is one of the most critical stats in any game or service, but we have no idea what it is.
The move of the game to Steam — a stunning reversal of Bethesda’s previous stance — has shown that it’s doing okay on that platform. It hit 16,867 peak players today, although that’s still well below Fallout 4’s daily peak of 20,195.
Can Fallout 76: Wastelanders succeed? It’s doing well for now, but Bethesda will need to keep up the pace of releasing content if they want continued success for their multiplayer experiment.
