The game has changed a lot in the past 5 years, for the better or worse.

For starter, the game is not in a state of broken mess, while there's still some bugs here and there **ahem* stuck when entering Power Armor, for the most part its pretty stable from the get go.
There's lot to do at the beginning so its very easy to get overwhelmed since there's like 3 main quest line available the moment you get out from the vault. Gameplay loop wise is pretty similiar to Fallout 4. You go to location, you loot things, you go back to Camp, scrap them, craft new shiny things, and repeat. As for the endgame. its mostly grinding for currency to get access to better weapon / armor recipe. Believe me, it does gets old after a while.

The game has some sort of battle pass thing as you would expect from a live service game like this. While I prefer the old linear Scoreboard style, this new iteration can get pretty confusing. You don't need to spend a dime for it, unless you found something you like but locked behind a subscription which I will talk about them now.

So yes, there is a subscription in this game. They grant you some benefit like, get access to exclusive item in the battle pass, a seperate unlimited capacity stash box for Ammo and Junk items (Standard stash box are limited to 1200 weight), 1600 atoms to spend at the shop monthly, and a Survival tent you can plop down anywhere that can act as your emergency access to Stash / Crafting bench on open area without going back to your Camp. Is it required to enjoy the game? Personally, no. They're not necessary. From time to time they also give you 3 or 4 days access of Free Trial of FO1st so you can take advantage of those to store all your junk and ammo into the 1st exclusive ammo and junk stash box.

How about the MTX a.k.a the Atomic Shop? I find its not that predatory compared to what I seen in other live service game. Atomic Shop only sells Camp decoration item, skins and other miscellaneous junk that makes your camp prettier. While you can earn Atoms from gameplay like completing challenges or doing the battle pass, its best to save it until you see items that might catch your attention and use the free atoms to buy it. Oh and NEVER. BUY. REPAIR KIT OR LUNCHBOXES FROM THE SHOP. Its a scam and you can buy those with ingame currency.

In summary, its basically Fallout 4 MMO-lite. I did have fun with the gameplay loop. The bugs are not that game breaking but there are still there. Don't expect any single player Fallout questing experience here. Story quest is pretty much bare bones, as expected from these MMO kind game. FO1st is optional and its just there for convenience but I played this game without ever subbing to it, only took the free trial they offer from time to time. I would say, its pretty good game.

The game has changed a lot in the past 5 years, for the better or worse. For starter, the game is not in a state of broken mess, while there's still some bugs here and there **ahem* stuck when entering Power Armor, for the most part its pretty stable from the get go. There's lot to do at the beginning so its very easy to get overwhelmed since there's like 3 main quest line available the moment you get out from the vault. Gameplay loop wise is pretty similiar to Fallout 4. You go to location, you loot things, you go back to Camp, scrap them, craft new shiny things, and repeat. As for the endgame. its mostly grinding for currency to get access to better weapon / armor recipe. Believe me, it does gets old after a while. The game has some sort of battle pass thing as you would expect from a live service game like this. While I prefer the old linear Scoreboard style, this new iteration can get pretty confusing. You don't need to spend a dime for it, unless you found something you like but locked behind a subscription which I will talk about them now. So yes, there is a subscription in this game. They grant you some benefit like, get access to exclusive item in the battle pass, a seperate unlimited capacity stash box for Ammo and Junk items (Standard stash box are limited to 1200 weight), 1600 atoms to spend at the shop monthly, and a Survival tent you can plop down anywhere that can act as your emergency access to Stash / Crafting bench on open area without going back to your Camp. Is it required to enjoy the game? Personally, no. They're not necessary. From time to time they also give you 3 or 4 days access of Free Trial of FO1st so you can take advantage of those to store all your junk and ammo into the 1st exclusive ammo and junk stash box. How about the MTX a.k.a the Atomic Shop? I find its not that predatory compared to what I seen in other live service game. Atomic Shop only sells Camp decoration item, skins and other miscellaneous junk that makes your camp prettier. While you can earn Atoms from gameplay like completing challenges or doing the battle pass, its best to save it until you see items that might catch your attention and use the free atoms to buy it. Oh and NEVER. BUY. REPAIR KIT OR LUNCHBOXES FROM THE SHOP. Its a scam and you can buy those with ingame currency. In summary, its basically Fallout 4 MMO-lite. I did have fun with the gameplay loop. The bugs are not that game breaking but there are still there. Don't expect any single player Fallout questing experience here. Story quest is pretty much bare bones, as expected from these MMO kind game. FO1st is optional and its just there for convenience but I played this game without ever subbing to it, only took the free trial they offer from time to time. I would say, its pretty good game.