I gave this game a full six-week run before making my thoughts known. So here they are.

It's way more solid than a free-to-play game should feel.

The game itself is a little wild. it's equal parts Pal World and Control, making it a survival crafting game with an extranatural horror vibe that I really enjoy. Visually, it's impressive, landscapes are vast and open, and aside from the basic low-level zombie types, the monsters are all unique and fit into the aesthetic of the game very well. And the amount of varied content that has been packed into this is nothing short of amazing.

The reason the playable map is so big is because your base stays when you log off. You heard me right Fallout 76 players: the landscape will always be dotted with constructions varying from the beginner 'platform with a bed on it' to some truly impressive feats of architecture. This includes wiring up your own electricity and water pump system, building defenses, and decorating it however you like. The actual construction part has a small learning curve, especially if you come from Fallout 4 or 76. Once you break that bias, however, it's fairly intuitive. to prevent over saturation, each server is broken into ten 'worlds'. You can freely hop between worlds, and even yank your house into a new world if you want to neighbor up with a friend. (though getting on to the same server as a friend is a bit of a hassle at this time)

The game itself is a story-based progression familiar to anyone who has played similar survival games. You can go anywhere, but death comes much more swiftly if you don't spend time in each zone to upgrade your equipment. There's a surprisingly solid narrative on the PvE side of things, with repeatable dungeon-type silos, big boss arenas, and public events similar to any MMO. You also can start a home defense-type event at your home, which is how you earn the in-game premium currency. There is no pay-to-win; you have to work to get the good stuff. End game comes down to repeating these on harder difficulties, as well as running the much harder Prime War events.

I'll pause to give some serious props to the Prime War system. The map is scattered with these zones for the wars. When activated, those zones become merged with every world on the server, so any player from any world can hop in without issue. It does have some lag issues, most notably if players leave their personal vehicles in the way of the boss and suddenly the server has to calculate physics for a car being kicked across the map and send them to every single players' client. but when running it with a good group, it's a lot of fun.

Because the game was built for a chinese audience, progression is always swift. It was made with the Chinese gaming law in mind, so timers longer than one hour are extremely rare. (typically those are for crafting end-game resources, and since they run when when you're offline, it's rarely an issue). not to mention that story progress and leveling comes without much grinding.

There has been a lot of pro/con discussion regarding the seasonal reset system. After going through one now, I am much more comfortable with both the how and why of it. First off: it's optional, but the developers do say that the older servers will be taken down at some point in the future. Not to mention that continuing the games narrative requires a server swap. Progress that matters (weapon blueprints, mods, player skills, etc..) stay with you. you lose your gear and supplies, but in a game as easy to farm as this, that's not an issue. You are given a credit limit to yank things from previous seasons over, such a hard-to-get deviants or, for much more credit, your high level gun.

On top of that, there's a permanent island that never resets. You can bring stuff over from your in-game stockpile, or have it all dumped over there at server transfer. This is an entirely unnecessary part of the game, but at the same time, building geeks like me can make some truly wild stuff without worrying about it being demolished.

If I have any complaint about the game, it's that I feel there's an excess of mechanics. You can upgrade your weapon blueprint to make a stronger weapon, you can upgrade the built weapon to make it even stronger, you can upgrade the mod on the weapon to make it have stronger affects, you can swap out the weapons calibration perks to give it different bonuses, all of these require different resources and time to farm both the right mod/calibration you want. It's extremely daunting and confusing the first time you dip your toe into that pool. While I understand it now, there are times I have to stop and refresh my memory.

For this review, I only played on PvE servers, so I don't know how PvP feels. Though based on the single PvP public event in the PvE servers, I feel that high-level players in the PvP servers are literal gods; doming anyone lesser than them without a second thought. So my recommendation is the PvE side of things if you want to give it a try

I gave this game a full six-week run before making my thoughts known. So here they are. It's way more solid than a free-to-play game should feel. The game itself is a little wild. it's equal parts Pal World and Control, making it a survival crafting game with an extranatural horror vibe that I really enjoy. Visually, it's impressive, landscapes are vast and open, and aside from the basic low-level zombie types, the monsters are all unique and fit into the aesthetic of the game very well. And the amount of varied content that has been packed into this is nothing short of amazing. The reason the playable map is so big is because your base stays when you log off. You heard me right Fallout 76 players: the landscape will always be dotted with constructions varying from the beginner 'platform with a bed on it' to some truly impressive feats of architecture. This includes wiring up your own electricity and water pump system, building defenses, and decorating it however you like. The actual construction part has a small learning curve, especially if you come from Fallout 4 or 76. Once you break that bias, however, it's fairly intuitive. to prevent over saturation, each server is broken into ten 'worlds'. You can freely hop between worlds, and even yank your house into a new world if you want to neighbor up with a friend. (though getting on to the same server as a friend is a bit of a hassle at this time) The game itself is a story-based progression familiar to anyone who has played similar survival games. You can go anywhere, but death comes much more swiftly if you don't spend time in each zone to upgrade your equipment. There's a surprisingly solid narrative on the PvE side of things, with repeatable dungeon-type silos, big boss arenas, and public events similar to any MMO. You also can start a home defense-type event at your home, which is how you earn the in-game premium currency. There is no pay-to-win; you have to work to get the good stuff. End game comes down to repeating these on harder difficulties, as well as running the much harder Prime War events. I'll pause to give some serious props to the Prime War system. The map is scattered with these zones for the wars. When activated, those zones become merged with every world on the server, so any player from any world can hop in without issue. It does have some lag issues, most notably if players leave their personal vehicles in the way of the boss and suddenly the server has to calculate physics for a car being kicked across the map and send them to every single players' client. but when running it with a good group, it's a lot of fun. Because the game was built for a chinese audience, progression is always swift. It was made with the Chinese gaming law in mind, so timers longer than one hour are extremely rare. (typically those are for crafting end-game resources, and since they run when when you're offline, it's rarely an issue). not to mention that story progress and leveling comes without much grinding. There has been a lot of pro/con discussion regarding the seasonal reset system. After going through one now, I am much more comfortable with both the how and why of it. First off: it's optional, but the developers do say that the older servers will be taken down at some point in the future. Not to mention that continuing the games narrative requires a server swap. Progress that matters (weapon blueprints, mods, player skills, etc..) stay with you. you lose your gear and supplies, but in a game as easy to farm as this, that's not an issue. You are given a credit limit to yank things from previous seasons over, such a hard-to-get deviants or, for much more credit, your high level gun. On top of that, there's a permanent island that never resets. You can bring stuff over from your in-game stockpile, or have it all dumped over there at server transfer. This is an entirely unnecessary part of the game, but at the same time, building geeks like me can make some truly wild stuff without worrying about it being demolished. If I have any complaint about the game, it's that I feel there's an excess of mechanics. You can upgrade your weapon blueprint to make a stronger weapon, you can upgrade the built weapon to make it even stronger, you can upgrade the mod on the weapon to make it have stronger affects, you can swap out the weapons calibration perks to give it different bonuses, all of these require different resources and time to farm both the right mod/calibration you want. It's extremely daunting and confusing the first time you dip your toe into that pool. While I understand it now, there are times I have to stop and refresh my memory. For this review, I only played on PvE servers, so I don't know how PvP feels. Though based on the single PvP public event in the PvE servers, I feel that high-level players in the PvP servers are literal gods; doming anyone lesser than them without a second thought. So my recommendation is the PvE side of things if you want to give it a try