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Bethesda Acknowledges That Taking Fallout Online Is “Scary”

Fallout 76 will no doubt be a big change of pace for the series upon its November 14 release on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Trading out the traditional single-player experience for a shared-world multiplayer survival game, the upcoming prequel sets itself apart from its predecessors in a very clear way. Despite the larger scope and other players to interact with, Bethesda’s online game still focuses on offering a rich and detailed world to explore, with its fair share of strange events and oddities to uncover, but there’s no doubt that world-building has taken a backseat in the process.

There was a lot to unpack after our hands-on time with the game at a recent event, so we spent some time talking with Bethesda Softworks’ VP of Marketing Pete Hines about the game’s ongoing development. During this chat, we learned more about Fallout 76’s previous life as a potential multiplayer mode for Fallout 4, the initial worries the developers had in switching things up, and how the game will continue to evolve long after its release.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for clarity and readability.

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The original concept of Fallout 76 was based on the planned multiplayer mode for Fallout 4. Can you talk about what that original idea was, and how it evolved into what we have now?

Hines: Yeah, the original idea for 76 was born out of revisiting the concept that we get asked about often, which is multiplayer or co-op in our games. They ask every single time we release a game. Looking into that for Fallout 4, we decided that we had some ideas but it wouldn’t really work for what we’re doing for that game. It had to be its own separate game and its own separate thing. From a high level, it’s very much what you guys got to play today [in other games], you can play with others, but you’re in a shared Fallout world with quests, a character system, and a number of survival aspects.

We have done some things differently, like there’s no NPCs in the game and you’re not having dialogue with a lot of different characters. But instead of that, you’re doing a lot more world exploration and emergent gameplay, finding notes and hollow-tapes from people who were in the world who have disappeared, and trying to figure out what was going on before and what they were like. But deep down, it’s still the same basic idea of a shared Fallout experience and how that works with others thrown in the mix.

To transform an offline, single-player experience into an online game, you’d inevitably have to alter or strip down some of its more familiar aspects. Was that something the developers had some worries about in the early goings of this game?

Yeah, absolutely. We knew going in, this is not just gonna be Fallout 4 with multiplayer. It’s inherently going to have to look and feel different in order to be the type of experience that works with many different players together. We’re not doing an MMO, not just doing a last-man-standing game–it’s still an RPG. It has elements of those kinds of things, but yeah, there’s inherent things that are different–but there’s also a lot of things that look and feel very familiar.

For instance, the tone, the vibe, look, and feel of the world can go a long way to give you a sense of familiarity to sort of wrap your head around things. It’s still a Fallout world, even though these things are different. But yeah, this is a really scary and different thing to be a part of. We are fully aware of that. We are making changes and making a different kind of game, but it’s one that we are excited to try and see what it can turn into.

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There is a stronger sense of isolation when you’re alone since there are no NPCs to meet. But that all changes when you meet other players. Do you feel that the Fallout experience is heightened when you’re playing with others?

Absolutely. Look, the only way that anybody has previously shared their experiences with Fallout was essentially water cooler talk. Right? Coming in the next day to say, “Here’s what I did and then I did this, and then I had this quest and fought these super mutants and I thought I was gonna die.” You’re able to enhance those experiences when you’re playing with others. We’re all experiencing this together, and you’ve never been in a Fallout game and been able to yell to a friend and actually have them help you.

Those kinds of things are what Fallout 76 brings that the other ones simply couldn’t do. A shared, in the moment experience. You can’t get it any other way, and it’s why we wanted to try it out. Yes, it’s different. Yes, it’s a departure, and it’s new and scary. But it’s an opportunity to have people share experiences that they’ve always wanted but have never been able to before.

Another thing that’s interesting about 76 is that it’s the earliest Fallout game in the series. Despite this, we’re still seeing some familiar factions and enemies, which may conflict with what people already expect. Did you feel that a more loose approach with the timeline had to be taken in order to keep those familiar aspects of the game intact?

I don’t know if I would say loose, but I would say that our developers take things like lore and canon seriously, and if they’re going to do something they’re going to make sure that there’s a real reason for it. We have proven with the Elder Scrolls games, that in places where some things happened one way, that we’re willing to say, “Well lots of people will say things happened one way,” and the opposite or something else could entirely be true. So there’s no question that we’ve gone back to change things to fit what developers have wanted to do, and not be holden to something that somebody wrote 20 years ago.

But having said that, we don’t take it lightly to just go change whatever we want. There has to be a thought process; what is the rationale? Why would this logically work in this time? Why would there be super mutants, or the brotherhood of steel? How does that all fit and hold together? There’s absolutely reasons and explanations in Fallout 76 for how all that ties together.

You’re also taking a bit of a different approach with the PC version, as it’ll be exclusive to Bethesda.net. Can you elaborate on why the game won’t be on Steam?

Mostly because of the kind of game it is. It’s an online, always-on game, and is a service. That was also based on our experiences with other online games as well. We felt that having a direct relationship with our customers was super important to us. And so doing it through Bethesda.net exclusively allows us to have that one-to-one relationship with customers, that quite honestly you don’t always have when you go through another third party where they might own the relationship with the customer in terms of being able to email them or to reach out directly and contact them.

So it simplifies things a little and we believe it’s going to help us deal with some issues and challenges that we’ve seen in the past. And again, it’s a new experience, like the game itself is and we’re going to see how it goes and how it works and what benefits it allows us to have in making sure that our customers have the best experience possible.

Mods have certainly taken off on Bethesda.net as well, which was particularly successful with the Creation Club integration in Fallout 4. Can you talk about how mods will play into Fallout 76, and how exactly they’ll work within the online space?

I don’t foresee a universe in which we allow players to come in [to Fallout 76’s public servers] with their own unique and different mods. If you want to run mods, they’ll have to be done on a private server. You’ll be deciding what sort of mods you’re including and running, and everyone playing on that server is playing with those mods. Those are a ways off, though. I imagine it’s going to be at least a year before we hit that point because it’s going to be a lot of work. But mods and private servers are definitely coming.

…our developers take things like lore and canon seriously, and if they’re going to do something they’re going to make sure that there’s a real reason for it.

Fallout 76 was revealed fairly recently, and we’re now already close to its release. It does however seem like the game struggles a bit with framerate and some other issues–which was due to it being an older build according to other devs we spoke with. Can you talk about some of the challenges that come from keeping the game so secret, while still prepping for its impending release?

Yeah, I mean honestly, we just got to art lock [all assets and environmental details set] a week or two ago. And until you get to art lock, you really can’t get deep into game optimization. We’ve done optimization paths on some parts of the world, but not all just yet. But the bigger thing for us was that we had tried to do earlier, we had different parts of the world that were in different places. And with games like ours, we tend to want to say, “Look, just go wherever you want and do whatever you want,” that’s what’s fun about these games.

Even though we know that the whole game wasn’t optimized, and we know that there’s parts of the game we haven’t gotten to yet, they were close enough that we were comfortable with letting people get their hands on it. And we felt that experience was really important. That folks, like yourself, not be tied to us and saying, “Well here’s the handful of locations you go to.” Because that’s not what’s fun about our games. It’s about going, “I wonder what’s that way? I’m gonna go that way and see what’s that way and see what’s over there.” “Well I’m going this way. I’ll see you later.” That’s always the experience that we wanted folks to be able to have.

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As you said earlier, Fallout is really about your own personal experiences with the game. But now you can share it with others online. Do you have a favorite moment from your experiences with Fallout 76, that best sums up how you feel about it?

Yeah, I don’t have one particular moment that I have that’s better than all the others. A lot of it has just been finding surprises and exploring some random cabin that I found on a hill. And then for whatever reason looking inside of a dog house and noticing the side of the dog house had all of these complicated math formulas written on the side, and the back of it had a small periodic table. I’d be thinking to myself, “What was going on here? Who did this?” One of the few times I’ve played and grouped up with folks, we found one of the amusement parks and one of the carnival games was whack-a-mole.

And you can find those things. They’re called Commie Bashers cause it was whack the commies on the head instead of the moles, and we realized they were weapons and we all equipped Commie Bashers as a melee weapon and just cleared out the mutant park. It was completely ridiculous and silly, but it was just sort of fun being able to play with others and have a shared experience like that, that was just very different. Of course, I could have seen that on my own, but it wouldn’t have been as memorable as with the group. I think folks are really going to enjoy exploring and looking into all the different places where designers have put thought into who was in this world, and what they were doing and what they were leaving behind. There will be a lot of secrets and Easter eggs for people to find.

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Red Dead Redemption 2’s Influences: The Impact Of GTA 5, Max Payne 3, Bully, And More

Red Dead Redemption 2 is Rockstar’s most ambitious game to date. With nearly 20 years of experience and almost 30 games under its belt, it’s clear that the studio is pulling from its rich history in order to make its biggest game to date. Eight Rockstar studios around the globe are putting bits and pieces of eight different games into Red Dead Redemption 2,.

The physical health mechanics from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas appear in Red Dead Redemption 2, for example, and they’re expanded to affect your character’s own personal hygiene. RDR2’s weapon handling emulates Max Payne 3 by only allowing your character to carry as many guns as they can physically hold with their hands and available holsters. Heck, even the NPC interaction from Bully is present, although with improvements that allow you to respond to characters in a variety of ways depending on what’s going on.

With so many past elements showing up in the upcoming open-world adventure, it seems like the game is a true culmination of everything Rockstar has learned. In this gallery, we detail eight of Rockstar’s biggest games from the last 15 years and what they contribute to Red Dead Redemption 2.

Red Dead Redemption 2 launches on October 26 for PS4 and Xbox One. Pre-orders are available now at a number of in-store and online retailers, and there’s some extra content tied to specific platforms and timed exclusive DLC. If you’re curious about all the new features in the game, check out our round-up of everything we know, including the game’s most surprising details.

What do you find the most intriguing about the way Red Dead Redemption 2 takes elements from past Rockstar games? Let us know in the comments below.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004): Physical Health

In 2004, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was the biggest game that Rockstar had ever shipped. Alongside a sprawling map with three distinct cities, San Andreas allowed you to morph CJs body as you played. For example, if you gorged on Meat Stacks at Burger Shot, CJ would start to get plump. Conversely if you ate healthily and hit the gym every now and then, CJ would get buff. An in-shape CJ would garner more respect and have greater sex appeal while a chubbier CJ would have less luck with the ladies.

As unique as this mechanic was at the time, Rockstar has not revisited it in any subsequent games until now. Like CJ, Arthur Morgan will change and evolve depending on how you play. His beard and hair will grow over time if you don’t get him a trim. You can even make him look sharp by slicking his hair back. If you overindulge, Arthur will put on some weight, and even deride himself when he catches his reflection in mirrors. And if he doesn’t clean himself every now and then, Arthur will start to get stanky. NPCs and gang members respond to Arthur differently depending on his hygiene and personal upkeep, even take him aside to suggest that he wash himself.

The Warriors (2005): Melee Combat

The Warriors was a notable contribution to Rockstar’s output mostly due to its overall quality as a licensed game based on a film. It wonderfully worked in the style of its source material into its small sandbox world. Not only that, but it expanded upon the story of the film, giving its characters more background. However, The Warriors’ most notable quality was its melee combat, which was modeled after classic 2D beat-em-ups. While this would be later expanded in Bully, it was in The Warriors that we saw Rockstar’s first attempt at melee combat.

Subsequent Rockstar games dabbled in melee, but none really went for it in the way The Warriors and Bully did. Red Dead Redemption 2 seems to be bringing melee back, giving Morgan the ability to duke it out with enemies by punching, kicking, and even stunning and throwing them. There’s some pretty gnarly sound effects accompanying each blow, bringing it more in line with the level of violence seen in The Warriors.

Bully (2006): NPC Interaction

Compared to Rockstar’s previous open world games, Bully was rather unique. It was a much more intimate experience: Bullworth Academy was far smaller than a city, there were no guns, and if you were a good student you’d be spending a lot of time in class. But the scope, no matter how narrow it was compared to GTA, was the right fit: Bully became an influential addition to Rockstar’s catalogue in its own right.

One of Bully’s more interesting parts was the way you interacted with NPCs. You could greet them either positively or negatively. You could talk your way out of trouble, and even apologize to someone you injured. While it wasn’t as fleshed out as it could have been, it did allow you to respond to social situations in unique ways.

Rockstar briefly revisited this mechanic in Red Dead Redemption where a tap of a button allowed John to tip his cowboy hat to those around him. But now Rockstar is expanding this mechanic in Red Dead Redemption 2. If you target an NPC without your gun equipped, you’re given a handful of options for social interactions. You can greet, threaten, or rob an NPC. Depending on how they respond to Arthur, he can continue the conversation or just walk away. Based on the first several hours, this adds another layer of complexity to the world. NPCs feature a wider range of attitudes toward you–they aren’t all either simply docile or shooting at you. You can diffuse encounters in ways you see fit.

Grand Theft Auto IV (2008): Sense Of Place

Grand Theft Auto IV was a bit of a departure from previous entries in the franchise. Many of the features from San Andreas and Bully had disappeared, and the over-the-top tone was replaced with a more realistic one. Gone were the jetpacks and planes of San Andreas and the ’80s nostalgic decadence of Vice City. And while some players lamented the loss of this wackiness, Rockstar replaced it with something just as important: A strong sense of place. Liberty City felt alive. You could follow NPCs going about their business and Niko could just hang out and befriend key characters. Since GTA IV, Rockstar has opted–for the most part–to create more grounded and realistic experiences that offer a stronger warmth and presence. GTA IV’s vision of a more realistic take on the open-world genre can be seen in nearly all of Rockstar’s subsequent games and is pushed much further than before in Red Dead Redemption 2.

L.A. Noire (2011): Environmental Interaction

L.A. Noire was an unusual game for Rockstar and its developer Team Bondi. Combat was put on the backburner in favor of a slower-paced experience that asked you to carefully explore crime scenes, gather evidence, and question witnesses. If you weren’t thorough, you could completely botch a case, the perp would get away, and yet, the story would continue. Not everyone loved it, but to this day, there are still very few games like it.

One of L.A. Noire’s key mechanics is the ability to examine and manipulate objects found in the environment in order to piece together how the crime went down. L.A. Noire wasn’t the first game to do this, and it certainly won’t be the last, but it’s the only Rockstar game to date that allowed you to interact with the environment to this extent. Red Dead Redemption 2 aims to do something similar. While you may not be solving cases, Arthur Morgan can pick up certain objects in the environment and examine them as you would in L.A. Noire. Instead of exploring the wild frontier you might find yourself holed up in a house examining pictures and notes left by the previous residents. You can even inspect your weapons and shop items.

Max Payne 3 (2012): Shooting And Weapon Management

Max Payne 3 is a bold game. While we wouldn’t call it realistic–you hang from a helicopter and shoot rockets out of the sky during an early section of the game–its mechanics made it feel like one of Rockstar’s most grounded experiences to date. If Max takes a bullet to the head, he goes down immediately, even on the easiest difficulty. But what stands out is how the game handled weapon management. Max could only carry as many guns as he had hands and holsters. This meant that if you were using a pistol and had a rifle, Max would carry the rifle in his other hand. If you decided to dual wield handguns, Max would toss his rifle on the ground. Even the reload animations were different depending on what weapons Max was using.

These mechanics are returning in Red Dead Redemption 2. Every weapon Arthur carries appears on his body. This means you can only take a few weapons with you into a firefight. The rest of your firearms are stored in your saddlebag. Weapon management isn’t the only thing the game borrows from Max Payne 3. At the end of a firefight in Max Payne, you would be treated to a gruesome slow motion kill cam. If you’re into that sort of thing, you’ll be happy to know that this feature is returning in Red Dead Redemption 2 and it will change based on your morale. If you’re a good cowboy, the killcams will look more heroic–but if you are villainous, it will be gorier.

Grand Theft Auto V (2013): Practice Skills And First-Person View

To no one’s surprise, Red Dead Redemption 2 expands on many of Grand Theft Auto V’s mechanics. A notable example is stat building. As you played GTA V, Trevor, Michael, and Franklin’s stats would increase in logical ways. If they swam a lot, their lung capacity would increase, if they drove everywhere, their driving skill would increase, and so on. Red Dead Redemption 2 takes a similar approach with Arthur’s skills. The more he runs, the better his stamina gets, and the more he shoots, the more his sharpshooting increases.

GTA V was also the first Rockstar game–unless you count Midnight Club–to support a first-person camera. It offered a radically different feel to GTA and it’s returning for Red Dead Redemption 2. If you want, you can play the whole game in first person from the very beginning. It even allows you to tweak the first person camera settings to your liking. But remember, just because you can’t see Arthur, it doesn’t mean he shouldn’t bath every now and then.

Grand Theft Auto Online (2013-Present): Multiplayer Scope And Variety

Grand Theft Auto Online is a different beast from Rockstar’s various games. While plenty of its games support multiplayer, GTA Online is far bigger and far deeper than anything the studio had released previously. It’s built off the openworld structure of Red Dead Redemption’s multiplayer. Players can purchase property, build out their garages with exotic supercars, and even start their own businesses. And of course, it has plenty of cooperative and competitive missions and gametypes to participate in.

To this day, Rockstar still releases free updates for GTA Online and it continues to be a massive source of income for the studio. We don’t know much about Red Dead Redemption 2’s online component yet, but it sounds like it will be building off of GTA Online. You will once again be able to explore a massive world as a cowboy or cowgirl and partake in various missions and competitive game modes. Unlike GTA Online, the slower pace of Red Dead Redemption 2 might elevate the more intimate moments that arise. Despite this, it sounds like fans of GTA Online should feel comfortable with Red Dead Online. Though, it’s worth noting that, like GTA Online, it won’t be available until a few weeks after Red Dead Redemption 2 launches.