Hands-on withFallout 76’s next expansion: Yep, it has Walton Goggins

Bethesda provided flights from Chicago to New York City so that Ars could participate in the preview opportunity for Fallout 76: Burning Springs. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.

Like anybody, I have a few controversial gaming opinions and tastes. One of the most controversial is that Fallout 76 —the multiplayer take on Bethesda’s rethink of a beloved ’90s open-world computer roleplaying game—has been my favorite online multiplayer game since its launch.

As much as I like the game, I’ve been surprised that it has actually grown over the past seven years. I’m not saying it’s seen a full, No Man’s Sky-like redemption story, though. It’s still not for everyone, and in some ways, it has fallen behind the times since 2018.

Nevertheless, the success of the streaming TV show based on the game franchise has attracted new players and given the developers a chance to seize the moment and attempt to complete a partial redemption story. To help make that happen, the game’s developers will soon release an expansion fully capitalizing on that TV series for the first time, and I got to spend a few hours playing that update to see if it’s any fun.

That said, don’t get distracted by the shiny TV tie-in. The important work is a lot less flashy: combat overhauls, bug fixes, balance updates, quality-of-life improvements, and technological tweaks—all of which have been added to the game over time. Ultimately, that little stuff adds up to be more impactful than the big stuff for players.

With that in mind, let’s take a quick look at where things stand based on my seven years of regularly playing the game and a few hours with the next major expansion.

Months of combat and game balance overhauls

You probably already know that the game originally launched without NPCs or the kinds of story- and character-driven quests most people expect from Fallout and that those things were added to the game in 2020, with more similar additions in the years since.