Fallout 76: Steel Reign Review: Specs
Platforms: PC, PS4 (reviewed), PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S.
price: Fallout 76 Free Update
Release date: 7 July 2021
Type: Online Action / RPG
Fallout 76: Steel Reign is Bethesda’s latest free online action/RPG update. Although Steel Reign does its best to correct some of the game’s initial bugs, it’s unlikely to satisfy Fallout 76’s many critics.
It’s an understatement to say that Fallout 76 didn’t have the best launch. The fact that it arrived carrying more insects than a flophouse mattress was almost expected for such an ambitious online project. After all, even the widely revered Fallout 3 had plenty of those.
But the biggest problem was that Fallout 76 lacks a lot of the features fans of the series have come to expect, particularly the non-playable human characters it interacts with. This was the wasteland we knew and loved, but it was strangely devoid of character. Critics have criticized her harshly and rightly.
A series of free updates since then have gone a long way in fixing those flaws. Last year’s massive Wastlanders brought back the non-playable human characters; One Earth for All helped improve combat. Still Down made an important group of the Brotherhood. With the Locked & Loaded update earlier this year, which overhauled both the important special gear system and camp crafting mechanics, it’s fair to say that Fallout 76 is now a very different beast from the sick creature it once was.
Steel Reign, the game’s eighth major update, is skillfully trying to reintroduce something else that’s been sorely lacking so far: real consequences for your actions. Read our full Fallout 76: Steel Reign review to learn more.
By the way, Fallout fans may now have a TV series to look forward to. The Prime Original series has just started shooting, and we’ve already had a look at the set.
Fallout 76: Steel Reign Review: What’s New?
Steel Reign is primarily a story-based expansion, as it concludes the Brotherhood of Steel mission from the previous Steel Dawn update. There are five missions, two of which are very long. Depending on how you play the game, you will likely get about five hours of entertainment from it. Unfortunately, I am categorically unable to get into a room without searching every drawer and trash can, so it probably took me twice as much.
The other side of Steel Reign is the new Legendary Crafting feature. This enables you to – you guessed it – craft legendary weapons in your own camp, instead of having to buy them from other players or the Purveyor Murmrgh seller, or earn them through quests. You can now also craft Legendary Power Armor, if you’re walking around Wasteland in a big metal suit of your liking.
For another sci-fi game that has some Fallout DNA, check out The Outer Worlds because it parodies uncensored capitalism very well.
Fallout 76: Steel Reign: Story Review
Steel Dawn wound up with two Brotherhood leaders, Paladin Leila Rahmani and Knight Daniel Shin, at each other’s throats. Shane is a soft-drawn soldier who sees violence as the answer to just about everything, while Rahmani is a more complex and interesting character. It’s more political than military – although it’s also useful with a laser rifle. In Steel Reign, you’ll finally have to choose between them, with long-lasting effects.
Before you get to this point, there’s (another) superhero mutant problem to deal with. One mission challenges you with Shane, one with Rahmani and the third with writer Odessa Valdez, another Brotherhood character who could use more detail. Fallout 76 is trying very hard to give its NPCs a backstory, but they haven’t quite reached Fallout: New Vegas’ storytelling levels yet.
Other factions also play their part, including a new raider gang called the Hellcat Mercenaries. In addition to having some power armor, these mercenaries look pretty much the same as all the other raiders. Then there are some scientists who – shock, awe! – Trying to play the role of the Lord with unfortunate consequences.
It’s all somewhat tacky, and I often found myself tapping into dialogue to get to the action. In the end, you’re not likely to care much about what happens to anyone here.
As I mentioned, Steel Reign is trying to give things a little more weight by having you take sides. This is something the game has done before, as the Wastelanders force you to choose between settlers and raiders. It’s an approach that Fallout: New Vegas has perfected, featuring Legion, NCR, and Mr. House distinctive ends; I agonized over it for several days. Here, it took me about 20 seconds. Without hundreds of hours of gameplay and characterization behind it, my decision didn’t really matter, which is a real shame.
Fallout 76: Steel Reign: Gameplay Review
Still, one of Fallout 76’s biggest failures is the non-fictional nature of its story missions. Even with all the different factions and characters, many missions still end in glorious fetch missions, which send you halfway across the sprawling map to kill some baddies and collect a Holotape or two.
However, some of the tasks here are a little more diverse. One of them takes you through a scary train tunnel, reminiscent of Fallout 3, and to an underground facility clogged with vines and ogres. Another sees you exploring an abandoned basement. Yes, it’s just another basement among many, but at least it’s a new basement.
None of this is particularly difficult, though. Last year’s One Wasteland for All update changed the leveling system so that you can now meet NPCs who are roughly at your same level, wherever you are. But most veteran Fallout 76 players will now be above level 100, and by then, you’re pretty much invincible anyway. I’m at level 89 – should be higher, but I spend a lot of time crafting – and I wear powerful armor, with different active effects, I die once every few months. There is not much risk here, it does not make sense that you need to take this carefully or always pay a price.
However, Fallout 76 is a really good game right now. It’s just that so much of its appeal lies outside the story lines.
The wording, for example, is great. The ability to set up and set up as many campsites as you see fit (within the confines of the still-of-times-frequent building system) has led to some great creativity in this corner of hypothetical West Virginia.
Visiting other players’ camps in and of itself is a great and fun way to spend some time, not least because the Fallout 76 community is, on PlayStation at least, one of the best I’ve ever encountered. It’s rare to find anyone truly obnoxious. Oftentimes, you either team up to take down the Scorchbeast, or just wave and move on. But it’s also common to see higher level players helping out newcomers just for that, leaving ammo gifts and health packs in specific locations just to be nice.
The new Legendary crafting system is a good step in the right direction too, although there’s still a lot of grinding involved. Previously, myths were a random, scattered thing; Now, it’s a random, scattered thing that you can make at home. To make a legendary weapon, you need two things: legendary units and legendary cores. You can buy the former and earn the latter at public events and daily operations.
That’s fine, because the events and processes are generally fun to complete. But the frustration comes from the fact that there is still an element of chance about whether you will get the legendary effect you want. Miss it, and you have the option to rewind – but that requires more cores, which means more grinding.
Away from all this, Fallout 76 works because it offers an interesting world to explore. It’s a really vast place, with huge amounts of diversity in the terrain, and so many creatures to discover (and eat). It’s so much fun to simply walk around, visit campsites, do weird events, find new locations, and go with the flow.
Fallout 76: Steel Reign: Visuals and Audio
On PS4, Fallout 76 looks and sounds like you’d expect, given that it comes from the 10-year-old Creation Engine from Bethesda. Sometimes it’s picturesque, with verdant forests and jagged Appalachian peaks forming a stunning backdrop to your daily meanders.
It’s also impressively diverse. You’ll get a real sense of place, whether you’re making your way through the misty Mire or making your way through the deserted Toxic Valley. The engine isn’t very hot to human faces, which is a bit of a problem, given the amount of Steel Reign you spend talking to people.
It’s also worth noting that the game is still prone to bugs, even long after its release. Super mutants and other creatures are regularly included in half, half of the scene, and the killer blow often sends your unfortunate victim flying across the room, as if they were hit by a truck rather than a gunshot.
Fallout 76: Steel Reign Review: Verdict
As a standalone update, Fallout 76: Steel Reign is fine. It adds some fun quests to keep time away, and improves a bit on the current crafting system. If it wasn’t free for existing players, I’d be more important. But as it is, it is good enough to pass a crowd.
Building on a series of much larger previous updates, Steel Reign is helping bring Fallout 76 closer to where it should have initially been: the truly basic Fallout online game. It’s not fully realized yet, but it’s getting closer all the time.
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