At time of play 2021, surprisingly durable. Did not experience any serious bugs on my ten year old computer nor did I have more than two crashes total in 65 hours of playtime.
Plays pretty identically to Fallout 4, a servicable action-rpg shooter with slightly less satisfying gunplay as server latency and overleveled enemies make everything softer. While strong in the midgame, there is a lack of diversity in enemy types or behaviors that makes further play more and more of a slog. It's basically either ghouls, super mutants, robots, or the new enemy "scorched" which are like ghouls but moderately more smart about their tactics. The peculiar leveling leaves you about a half step behind any enemy you find, making you always feel at odds with the environment. Plus, currency is designed to only be used with other players, meaning it is basically impossible to sell or buy anything. The only rewards come from quests, which are too far and few in between to keep you supplied. I went hours once with no ammo, running gauntlets through super mutant settlements to scrape for 25 .38 rounds.
Exploration is the highlight of this game and is admittedly enjoyable, as it makes the base game's main quest. There is a lot of environmental storytelling to be had and one feels like an archaeologist tracing the timeline of some past battle or mishap, and breakthroughs of finding the answer to a mystery in one town in some bunker across the state is satisfying. Particular highlight is the town of Huntersville and an all too real story of corporate power and pollution destroying a small community. That said, after a while, the lack of any advancement in this makes everything sort of ring hollow and feel dead.
Wastelanders update adds NPCs to the game, but applying that framework to the existing characterless structure is difficult. Chronological issues abound in dialogue, and having to pen in all human characters to just two settlements mean the world never feels alive. The NPCs themselves are rather one note, and you meet them so late in the course of play that they never develop any kind of emotional resonance to them in the way the rich characters of NV do, or even some of the screwballs from Fallout 4 and 3. Likewise, they are all so vague about their backstories and motivations - like you ask them "hey where'd you guys come from" and the response is literally "all over the place." Cool. Way to illustrate a vibrant world, guys.
Story wise, the game is at its weakest. Gone are any kind of exploration of the life and death of America, capitalism, the futility and cycle of war - all left behind. The game treats the absolute horror of casual nuclear weapons use as a piece of zany teehee advertising, for frick's sake. In its place, you in the first half examine an effort to fight a deadly disease. But luckily someone already made the cure, so all you have to do is show the two human groups that they would die without it and they all agree pretty easily. I even expected them to be like "hey, you aren't inoculating our main competitors too? We'd rather they die out." Nope, they're chill about it. The game then takes a baffling left turn into a heist story, where you try to steal the gold reserves of America in a vault. The laughable absurdity of lusting after gold after twenty five years in an apocalypse is never really acknowleged, as every character on their face is like "yeah totally we want some gold, for sure." Your overseer (in every other game an incompetent, evil or worthless person; in this one, your mom for some reason) literally says she wants to rebuild society and you're supposed to be like yeah totally that seems like a good idea. One really misses the story of the Sierra Madre and how greed for the currency and life of the past no longer has any meaning when it has destroyed all of society.
Sigh. Worth getting on sale if you want a passable shooter to zone out to and get some tidbits of more Fallout lore, or if you have too much time on your hands.
Plays pretty identically to Fallout 4, a servicable action-rpg shooter with slightly less satisfying gunplay as server latency and overleveled enemies make everything softer. While strong in the midgame, there is a lack of diversity in enemy types or behaviors that makes further play more and more of a slog. It's basically either ghouls, super mutants, robots, or the new enemy "scorched" which are like ghouls but moderately more smart about their tactics. The peculiar leveling leaves you about a half step behind any enemy you find, making you always feel at odds with the environment. Plus, currency is designed to only be used with other players, meaning it is basically impossible to sell or buy anything. The only rewards come from quests, which are too far and few in between to keep you supplied. I went hours once with no ammo, running gauntlets through super mutant settlements to scrape for 25 .38 rounds.
Exploration is the highlight of this game and is admittedly enjoyable, as it makes the base game's main quest. There is a lot of environmental storytelling to be had and one feels like an archaeologist tracing the timeline of some past battle or mishap, and breakthroughs of finding the answer to a mystery in one town in some bunker across the state is satisfying. Particular highlight is the town of Huntersville and an all too real story of corporate power and pollution destroying a small community. That said, after a while, the lack of any advancement in this makes everything sort of ring hollow and feel dead.
Wastelanders update adds NPCs to the game, but applying that framework to the existing characterless structure is difficult. Chronological issues abound in dialogue, and having to pen in all human characters to just two settlements mean the world never feels alive. The NPCs themselves are rather one note, and you meet them so late in the course of play that they never develop any kind of emotional resonance to them in the way the rich characters of NV do, or even some of the screwballs from Fallout 4 and 3. Likewise, they are all so vague about their backstories and motivations - like you ask them "hey where'd you guys come from" and the response is literally "all over the place." Cool. Way to illustrate a vibrant world, guys.
Story wise, the game is at its weakest. Gone are any kind of exploration of the life and death of America, capitalism, the futility and cycle of war - all left behind. The game treats the absolute horror of casual nuclear weapons use as a piece of zany teehee advertising, for frick's sake. In its place, you in the first half examine an effort to fight a deadly disease. But luckily someone already made the cure, so all you have to do is show the two human groups that they would die without it and they all agree pretty easily. I even expected them to be like "hey, you aren't inoculating our main competitors too? We'd rather they die out." Nope, they're chill about it. The game then takes a baffling left turn into a heist story, where you try to steal the gold reserves of America in a vault. The laughable absurdity of lusting after gold after twenty five years in an apocalypse is never really acknowleged, as every character on their face is like "yeah totally we want some gold, for sure." Your overseer (in every other game an incompetent, evil or worthless person; in this one, your mom for some reason) literally says she wants to rebuild society and you're supposed to be like yeah totally that seems like a good idea. One really misses the story of the Sierra Madre and how greed for the currency and life of the past no longer has any meaning when it has destroyed all of society.
Sigh. Worth getting on sale if you want a passable shooter to zone out to and get some tidbits of more Fallout lore, or if you have too much time on your hands.