Fallout 76 2024 Review: Best Builds, Milepost Zero Update, and Gameplay Insights

And a music video that I feel is a real banger.

Please see me in my office.

In 2022, during my streaming phase, I found myself deep in the world of Fallout 76. After spending countless hours in the game since its release on and off, my love for the camp-building system began to fade as I ran into more and more frustrating elements of the game. While Fallout 76 has its merits, especially for those who enjoy survival games, it suffers from issues that drag down the overall experience. By 2024, the game feels like it’s hit Milepost Zero, stuck in a loop of repetition and flawed design choices.

All images are screen-capped by the author.

—

The Camp: A Creative Outlet with Limits and Little Feedback

One of the more enjoyable aspects of Fallout 76 is the ability to build your camp. Customizing your little slice of the wasteland can be incredibly rewarding, and it’s clear that Bethesda put a moderate amount of effort into this system. Back in 2022, I spent hours upon hours perfecting my camp, crafting defensive structures, and finding ways to make it unique, but most importantly immersive. I like my camps to look like part of the actual game. For those who enjoy building and creativity in games, the camp system is a highlight.

However, after some time, the limits of the camp system become more apparent. The building budget is restrictive, and once you’ve hit the cap, the creativity begins to feel stifled. While it’s great for base builders, it doesn’t offer much in terms of real gameplay progression or meaningful interaction. Most players that come to your camp will walk up to your shop (if they can find it, some people treat their vending machine like it’s a game of hide and go seek) and then just leave.

Fallout 76 features the newly released “Best Builds” camp rating system that allows other players to “like” your camp build. Great idea in theory, but in practice, no one “rates” (I use quotes because really it’s just a like or thumbs up button) these builds unless it’s tied to a weekly challenge.

During these weeks, players will simply vote and unvote five times on the same camp just to complete the challenge, providing no real feedback to camp creators (What “challenging fun!”). It’s a shallow interaction that undermines the effort put into these camps and that’s if you even get an interaction. The most popular camps usually only have 10–20 likes so far a week or so since this update feature has been around.

Best Builds: A Broken System

While Fallout 76 offers a way for players to showcase their creativity through the Best Builds feature, the system is deeply flawed. After registering your camp as a “Best Build”, it will appear on random servers — whether you’re online or not — where other players can visit it for a limited time, I’ve heard it stays up for one hour and I have also heard two hours that camp will appear on other random servers. I’m not sure what the actual timeframe is.

While this sounds like a great way to get recognition for your work, it often feels pointless and frustrating.

My camp has been registered as a Best Build for 11 days. Not a single like.

For example, my camp has been up for 11 days and hasn’t received a single like. It’s not because the camp isn’t creative or well-designed; it’s because players have no real incentive to visit or interact with these featured builds. I’m guilty of it too, I see no reason to visit other best builds, but this is because I think most people build crappy camps.

Players tend to simply make some sort of house with a floating foundation and throw whatever “fun house” assets they have into it. No thought to theme, presentation, or arrangement. It’s usually just a hodgepodge carnival inside badly built structures.

Best Build Camps essentially function as “tourist attractions,” where players can wander around and appreciate the design, but they can’t interact with the shop, buy items, or engage in any meaningful gameplay around your camp.

This is likely because Bethesda wanted to avoid technical issues, like two players buying the same item from the same shop at the same time. However, this restriction severely limits the incentive for other players to come to see your camp if they can’t do any shopping.

If you think about it, it’s a poor excuse because you can have more than one vending machine at your camp in your normal version of the camp and simultaneously have additional shops inside your vault to complement the ones in the overworld camp.

There’s nothing to keep two players from hitting buy at the same second. Quite frankly, the system could surely handle determining who hit buy first so I’m not sure why you can’t use a player shop at a Best Build camp even if the player is offline.

The player could easily collect the profits the next time they log in. My player shop has been packed full for a long time because I have to be online for people to browse it.

Without any real engagement — no trading, no interaction beyond simply sightseeing — the Best Builds system feels like a missed opportunity. Players visit these camps purely for tourism, and there’s little incentive to give feedback or offer likes. Turning your camp system into Facebook/Instagram might have sounded great on the Bethesda whiteboard, but it is a actually a pretty depressing feature.

The lack of engagement makes the Best Builds system feel pointless. Bethesda should address these limitations by finding a way to allow shop access or introducing more meaningful interaction options for visiting players.

As it stands, the system feels more like a missed mark than an active part of the game’s community-driven experience, leaving creative camp builders feeling overlooked and unappreciated. Additionally, the Best Builds system is not clearly explained to players whatsoever.

Cool, but a huge headache at the same time.

Perk Cards: A Cumbersome System

The perk card system in Fallout 76 is designed to allow players to customize their builds and playstyles, but in practice, it ends up feeling like a cumbersome and overly complex mechanic. Players earn perk cards as they level up, which can then be slotted into various categories to boost stats, provide special abilities, or enhance specific combat strategies. While this sounds like a good way to tailor your character, the reality is far from ideal.

The station to change your SPECIAL loadout.

I never seem to have the right loadout when I need it.

One of the main issues with the perk card system is that players are forced to constantly swap cards in and out depending on what they’re doing. Need to craft something? You’ll have to load up on crafting perks. Heading into combat? Better swap them out for damage-dealing perks.

This constant juggling disrupts the flow of the game, making the system feel more like a chore than a tool for customization. Instead of feeling flexible, the perk card system adds unnecessary layers of micromanagement that detract from the overall gameplay experience.

This scrap boxgives you limitless storage, one of the perks of paying a monthly subscription for Fallout 1st. But when does a perk become a necessity? Pretty quickly. Predatory and scummy on Bethesda’s part. They create a problem and offer to solve it for a price.

Inventory Management: A Never-Ending Struggle

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of Fallout 76 is its inventory management system. If you don’t have a premium subscription to Fallout 1st, you’ll spend a significant amount of your playtime struggling to manage your inventory. The stash limit is painfully low, and players are often forced to make difficult decisions about what to keep and what to discard.

It’s blatantly obvious that Bethesda designed the inventory system to push players toward subscribing to Fallout 1st, which grants access to a larger stash and other conveniences like the survival tent. Without it, you’re constantly playing the game of “Where am I going to put this crap? What should I throw out?” Trying to organize and clear inventory just to make room for more loot is not my idea of fun.

I’ve always hated Bethesda games’ obsession with making you feel like you have to pick up every little thing or you might be missing out. It’s not fun and the idea of my character carrying around that many objects, some of a pretty large size like typewriters, rotary phones, or lanterns breaks the immersion for me even if you have a backpack. It’s just dumb and a waste of my IRL time.

Power Armor, Power Headaches

Putting together a suit of power armor is a pain in Fallout 76. It’s difficult to piece together a full suit because keeping track of what you have on your current rig is a nightmare.

The power armor modification system needs a total overhaul. Additionally, the power armor gives zero bonus to carry weight, which is odd. It can however if the piece happens to have weight modifiers, but there’s no base carry weight increase just for wearing the chassis. In past Fallout games, power armor was always a special thing, but now it seems too easily obtainable.

Most players wear it at certain events, others all the time, and if you have the marsupial mutation or jet pack, you can jump extremely high in it. The lack of haptic feedback on the console version of Fallout 76 when walking, jumping, and landing in power armor cheapens the feel of the game and the overall vibe of power armor.

The power armor can also sprint just as fast as normal players, which I feel is contradictory to most cinematic depictions of the power armor in the past. Once again, something that should be dessert in this game feels like your main course.

The Caravans: Milepost Zero’s Saving Grace

The 2024 update, dubbed Milepost Zero, introduces caravan missions, which are easily the most engaging aspect of the update. In these missions, players are tasked with escorting caravans across the wasteland, fending off waves of enemies, and ensuring the safe passage of supplies. It’s one of the few instances where the game captures a true sense of community and purpose.

Unlike the repetitive and often dull public events, caravan missions offer a refreshing change of pace. They require a bit more strategy, coordination, and teamwork, something that’s sorely missing from the rest of the game. While they’re not groundbreaking, these missions manage to inject some much-needed fun into Fallout 76 and stand out as one of the few redeeming features of the Milepost Zero update.

The Microphone Issue on Xbox Series S|X

One peculiar issue that has persisted since launch is the almost complete lack of voice chat on Xbox. In a multiplayer game like Fallout 76, communication should be key to surviving and thriving in the wasteland. However, I’ve never heard another player speak once in my life on this game.

This might be because the microphone is constantly set to open mic, causing players to avoid using voice chat altogether. The lack of communication can make the game feel isolating, despite being an MMO. It’s unfortunate, as better communication could help foster more teamwork and social interaction, which are sorely lacking in the game.

Teams That Don’t Team Up

While Fallout 76 encourages players to join teams, the reality is that most teams you join don’t actually do anything together. More often than not, you’ll find yourself on a team where everyone is scattered across the map, doing their own thing. Usually, all your teammates will just be sitting at their camp.

There’s very little cohesion or collaboration in these groups, which defeats the purpose of having teams in the first place. Most people just use these “teams” for the passive stat bonuses. Add in a community of mutes and you got yourself a real lame experience.

This disconnect between players feels like a missed opportunity in a game where community and teamwork should be essential. Bethesda’s emphasis on multiplayer gameplay falls flat when players rarely work together or communicate.

The Removal of Survival Mode and the Limitation of Other Modes

One of the biggest changes that has impacted the player experience in Fallout 76 is the removal of the beloved Survival Mode. Originally, Survival Mode was the go-to for players looking for a more intense, high-stakes experience in the wasteland, offering a hardcore version of the game with harsher penalties for death and greater rewards for those willing to take the risk. Its removal left a void in the game that the remaining modes — Adventure Mode, Dweller Must Die, and Custom Worlds — struggle to fill.

You can take your character to any of these modes, but progress is always limited to wherever you gained that progress in giving most people no real incentive to play these extra modes. Good luck getting someone to come to your custom world.

One of the reasons I speculate Survival Mode was given the axe is because Bethesda couldn’t seem to find a way to balance PvP enough to warrant an open PvP server. The concept of PvP in Fallout 76 has always been problematic, with many players either avoiding it altogether or being frustrated by its mechanics.

In Survival Mode, open PvP is made for exciting but often unbalanced encounters, where certain players dominate thanks to overpowered builds (which is the M.O. for most players) or exploiting the system. Bethesda likely struggled to maintain a fair and competitive environment in such a chaotic setting, ultimately leading to the mode’s removal.

Now, Adventure Mode is the default and most popular option, but it feels like a watered-down version of what should be an apocalyptic survival experience. Without the heightened danger that Survival Mode once provided, Fallout 76 often feels more like a casual MMO than a true survival game. In fairness though, it never claimed to be. It is disappointing for me nonetheless. Post-apocalyptic games are supposed to be about survival.

The fact that you can’t starve or die of thirst in Adventure Mode removes much of the urgency that should come with surviving in a post-nuclear wasteland. It feels pretty lame when the core mechanics of a survival game — like managing your hunger and thirst — are entirely optional and don’t pose a real threat aside from increasing AP (action points) recovery time.

This lack of danger strips away a major component of what made the Fallout universe compelling in the first place, leaving Adventure Mode feeling more like a theme park tour through the wasteland than a fight for survival.

Dweller Must Die mode, introduced as a harder version of the game, does add some difficulty, but it’s mostly centered around increasing enemy damage and health, making everything feel even MORE like a bullet sponge than Adventure mode just in case you don’t run out of ammo enough as it is and want to spend more time at the crafting bench. Unfortunately, any progress you make in Dweller Must Die and other seasonal modes doesn’t carry over to Adventure Mode. Most of the time when you log into a DMD server you will be hard-pressed to find another player.

Similarly, Custom Worlds, which offer unique and fun mechanics and weather/climate options tailored to the player’s preference, are locked behind the Fallout 1st subscription and also don’t allow for progression to be transferred between modes.

My custom world is the definitive failure to launch.

Above you can see my custom world, from back in 2022. I could never get anyone to join me because no one wants to make progress on a world if it can’t come back to adventure mode, which is the only mode that has players.

If you read the description you can see I had this world set for an ultra-hardcore experience. Too bad, huh? People might have joined if these custom worlds had been perpetual (meaning online all the time). No one wants to wait for the owner to get online to play especially if nothing they do in that world can be taken back to the solely populated playpen world of adventure mode.

These extra modes should have forced player to start from scratch. If you can just port your Adventure Mode character over it feels pointless and you will always feel pressed to go back because no custom world host is going to pay for Fallout 1st to have a custom world forever and players know this. I suspect this is by design.

Bethesda gives you the illusion of variety but they want all their players in Adventure Mode because that’s what gives the impression that the game is populated. People don’t pay outrageous money for C.A.M.P assets and cosmetics for no one to ever see them and if you play anything other than Adventure Mode no one ever will.

This division between modes forces players to choose one and stick with it, discouraging many from trying out the more challenging options or experimenting with the game’s mechanics.

As a result, most players gravitate back to Adventure Mode, which lacks the hardcore elements that made Survival Mode enjoyable for a certain subset of fans. This leaves the majority of the player base in a watered-down experience, lacking the survival intensity that many expected from a post-apocalyptic Fallout game.

The removal of the Survival Mode and the failure to create a cohesive system that allows for flexible play across modes has significantly reduced the game’s appeal for those looking for more than just casual gameplay.

Inclusivity for Everyone (Unless You’re Straight)

One not-so-unique aspect of Fallout 76 is its commitment to representing the LGBTQIA2S+ community through various in-game flags and icons. Whether you identify as pansexual, non-binary, transgender, or any other part of the spectrum, Fallout 76 ensures you can fly your flag proudly. The game features an extensive array of LGBTQIA2S+ flags, including the following:

It’s like the UN of sexuality and gender, with one major group left out.

Intersex Inclusive Pride Flag, Transgender Pride Flag, Traditional Pride Flag, Progress Pride Flag, Pansexual Pride Flag, Non-Binary Pride Flag, Lesbian Pride Flag, Intersex Pride Flag, Gender Queer Pride Flag, Gender Fluid Pride Flag, Bisexual Pride Flag, and Asexual Pride Flag.

These flags can be used as player icons or decorations at your camp, offering representation for a wide range of identities.

However, this inclusivity leaves one group feeling left out: straight, cisgender players. If you don’t identify with any of these groups, there’s no flag for you. While it might seem like a minor issue, it can feel like an oversight, especially for a game that strives to be inclusive.

Why would you represent all the people’s sexual orientations, but not give the people who make people a flag as well? It’s like they are punishing cis-gendered heterosexuals for being straight by excluding them.

I find the fact that the straight flag is officially called the “straight ally flag” tells you everything you need to know about this concept. If you’re not an ally of this political movement you must be an enemy.

If Bethesda was worried about starting a “flag war” by including the “straight ally flag” then they shouldn’t have handed out flags and it implies that the LGBTQIA2S+ community doesn’t see straight people as “allies” in their culture war if the presence of a straight flag would be seen as inflammatory. I feel we have enough actual wars to be concerned about and war… war never changes.

Bethesda is more than happy to bring that real-life line in the sand into their Fallout universe for a few extra points with certain players which ultimately means bigger bucks for their stakeholders regardless of how alienated, excluded, unimportant, and unwanted it makes their cis-gendered heterosexual players feel. Us versus Them is always a great zeitgeist to force on your customers. I’m sure it will never backfire.

What adds to the disconnect is the fact that, despite this visible focus on representing different gender identities and sexual orientations, in-game robot NPCs still address players as “Sir” or “Ma’am” based solely on their character’s biological sex. Pretty triggering, Bethesda.

I was wearing a dress I had just bought on my character just for hoots and this robot had the nerve to assume my gender. I had never noticed this until that moment despite going to this location hundreds of times. I was about to go Gamestop on this guy! Seriously, call me sir, ONE MORE TIME!

This inconsistency raises questions about the game’s true commitment to inclusivity. It’s as if the flags and icons are present for surface-level representation, but the underlying mechanics of the game haven’t fully embraced the nuances of gender identity.

So, while Fallout 76 makes strides in representing the LGBTQIA2S+ community, the lack of sensitivity in NPC interactions undermines that effort, making the inclusion of a wide range of pride flags feel hollow in practice.

I guess Todd Howard is a pandersexual! Is there a flag for that? I imagine a Vault-Boy (Not sure what a boy is. Perhaps Todd Howard could explain that for me.) with Todd Howard’s hair and money signs for eyes on a colorful set of stripes.

Image by DALL-E

The thing that gets me is that when the flags first came out in the Atomic Shop for free you were forced to take them into your catalog to make the “FREE” sticker go away. So basically if you don’t take all these flags into your catalog you will never know when something new is “FREE” in the shop thereby shoving their politics down everyone’s throat lest you miss out on future daily freebies in the Atomic Shop.

Do you think it’s important to display your sexuality or gender identity on a flag outside your base in the apocalypse? For example, if I’m asexual and I put out the flag, it will communicate to potential raiders that I won’t be interested in any advances.

The player icon flags that show up on the map are useful because they let you know whether or not it’s a hate crime if you attack a player with one of these flags, although you can’t attack players that often in this game.

If the exclusion of a straight pride flag tells you anything it’s that Bethesda doesn’t think being heterosexual is something to be proud of. If all straight people vanished tomorrow Todd Howard wouldn't have anyone to sell 10-dollar digital curtains to in a hundred years when his brain is floating in a jar.

I know lots of people reading this are thinking right now: “Why does this person give a shit about this? What’s the big deal?” Because I was told to give a shit about it by Bethesda and numerous other developers over the past four years. A developer doesn’t put this many flags in your game if you don’t want people thinking about, talking about, and dwelling on the topic.

I think about it every time I open the world map and hover over a player with one of these flag player icons. I think about it when I am looking for a flag for my camp and all I have is one raider flag and 12 LGBTQIA2s+ flags to choose from.

I don’t have any issue with gay people. I have a gay brother and I voted for Obama in 2008 mainly because gay marriage was a national issue on the table. Hell, Timothy Cain the creator of the Fallout franchise is a gay man and it has never been an obstacle to my affection for the franchise.

However, claiming to be inclusive and excluding straight people is hypocritical and makes them feel like they don’t have a place in this game. Don’t take out your political grievances on your customers who just want a few hours of escapism.

Don’t ask me my political opinions in 2024 because both sides seem to hate me and it’s okay because the feeling is mutual. It’s almost like the powers at play don’t want you to possibly come up with your own custom take.

Repetitive Events and Boring Gameplay

One of the biggest issues with Fallout 76 is its lack of engaging content. The events in the game are repetitive and unchallenging, especially when dozens of players swarm an event, turning enemies into cannon fodder. Bethesda’s idea of challenge seems to be increasing enemy health, making everything a bullet sponge. This isn’t fun or engaging; it’s tedious.

Instead of creating dynamic open-world gameplay, Fallout 76 opts for monotonous events that lose their appeal after the first few runs. The lack of variety in these events quickly leads to boredom, with players grinding through them more out of obligation than enjoyment.

The gunplay wouldn’t be so boring if you could actually utilize cover and not just have to kite every monster and raider all the time. Most of the time kiting doesn’t work that well either. They want your armor to go broke quickly so they can sell you more “repair kits” in the shop it seems.

This My Vault

In 2022, I created a lighthearted and satirical music video I made live on Twitch expressing my frustrations and thoughts about Fallout 76, and I’m embedding it here for you to check out. The video, titled “This My Vault”, is set to a humorous, self-written track that pokes fun at some of the game’s more annoying aspects, like repetitive events, grind-heavy leveling, and Bethesda’s focus on monetizing through the Atomic Shop.

It’s a playful take on the absurdities of the game, with lyrics that call out everything from lackluster content to the over-the-top emphasis on Fallout 1st. So, if you want a good laugh or just a glimpse into my feelings about Fallout 76, give it a watch!

The lyrics can be found in the video description.

Fast Travel Kills Immersion

The reliance on fast travel in Fallout 76 is another immersion killer. Due to the nature of the events, players are forced to fast-travel across the map constantly to get to the action on time. While this convenience is necessary, it detracts from the survival aspect of the game and diminishes the importance of player camps.

Premium players, with access to the Fallout 1st survival tent, have an even greater advantage. This mobile fast travel point allows players to bypass the need for other camps entirely. It’s embarrassing that the game design prioritizes convenience over immersion, especially in a game that should be about survival in the wasteland.

Conclusion: Why Can’t I Quit You, Fallout 76?

Despite all the frustrations, lackluster updates, and downright grindy mechanics, there’s something about Fallout 76 that keeps pulling me back in. I can’t seem to stay away, no matter how much I roll my eyes at the neutered survival experience or curse the inventory management system. Maybe it’s the joy I find in building my camp — tweaking every little detail, crafting a personal slice of the wasteland that’s all mine.

Or maybe it’s the ambiance of the Fallout universe itself, the immersive sense of decay, danger, and dark humor that Bethesda has so masterfully woven into this franchise.

My comic book store as featured in “This My Vault”.

Even though I’ve spent hours criticizing the game (and with good reason), there’s an undeniable pull to the Appalachian wasteland. Whether it’s escorting a caravan or just wandering through the eerily beautiful landscape, Fallout 76 still manages to capture my attention in a way few games do for about two to six weeks a year on average.

Sure, Fallout 76 in 2024 still suffers from inventory woes, repetitive events, and a PvP system that never really worked. But there are still those fleeting moments — when you’re building, exploring, or just soaking in the dystopian vibes — that remind you why you loved the Fallout universe in the first place.

Overall, Fallout 76 is a flawed product that will leave you feeling generally unfulfilled. It's fun and immersive for a while, but you may find yourself playing more than you'd like to admit. You might hit level 80 and then see a level 2000+ player walk by, making you think, 'That could be me. Oh God, that could be ME!'

I have personally done my week in this game for the year and I am once again quitting while I am ahead. It was good to see my old vault and camps, but in the end, I’m the only person who gives a shit about my camps. Best Builds made that entirely clear.

If this game had an actual community on Xbox it might be tolerable, but it doesn’t and it’s not. I give Fallout 76 four out of 12 sexual identity and orientation flags.

That’s like an IGN 7 so be proud of yourselves Bethesda! Keep up the tenacity because not every company will do anything for money and you got the grit!

Hungry for more content about the Fallout universe? Discover one of the creator’s major influences in my other story “How a 1970’s Film Influenced the Fallout Franchise”.

🌟 Stay Connected and Support My Work! 🌟

Hey there! Please follow me on Medium to stay updated with my latest articles. If you like what you read, consider supporting me with a tip on BuyMeACoffee. Thank you for being a part of my journey!