On being the protagonist, or the NPC
Any fan of Fallout: New Vegas or Fallout 4 will tell you that the story is the heart of those games. Great storytelling has earned the Fallout series a lot of fans over the years, but their latest game has been loudly criticized for falling short in that department. In some regards, those criticism have merit; it’s true that Fallout 76 doesn’t have as rich of a story as Fallout 4, but there’s something else going on there. The first play-through of a game is often captivating because the story compels us to move forward and explore, but after the main plot is completed is often when many gamers enjoy a title the most. I have spent far more hours in Fallout 4 exploring, building and generally just existing in the post apocalyptic Boston than I ever did on the main quest line. Fallout 76 is a game that seems to occupy only that post-plot space, it’s all the exploration of the fantasy world without the story that compelled us to explore it in the first place. And here’s the odd thing about that: it actually makes it better. Existing in the Fallout 4 world after the plot is done feels a bit like they forgot to roll the credits and instead just left the world open to play around in. It’s still the world that was designed and built for the main story. The world of Fallout 76 feels more like a sandbox. There are events and occurrences that are transient in time, if you miss them, then they’re gone. The world itself doesn’t care about you, doesn’t work on your schedule, and will go on without you, and that’s exactly what makes the Fallout 76 world so much more immersive. It’s a game where you play, not as the protagonist, but just as someone who lives in that world.
I’ll admit that at first I expected Fallout 76 to be Fallout 4 but better, and it disappointed on that end. Now that I’ve played it a bit more, I have come to understand it with less baggage of the legacy of the Fallout series and I think it’s actually a fantastic and fun game to play. If you play 76 expecting to be the hero of the story, you’ll be lost and disappointed. Much like our real world, the world of 76 isn’t there to tell you a story; the world is just there because it’s there.