Bethesda Apparently Shocked People Didn't Like PvP in 'Fallout 76'

Fallout 76 didn't get off to the greatest start. Plenty of people were unhappy with how quiet the game was without NPCs to interact with and then a law firm began investigating Bethesda for "Deceptive Trade Practices". And lets not even get into the whole 'nylon vs canvas' bag incident.

So it's hardly surprising that Bethesda put a lot of hope into the PvP mode, that was introduced last year, as a way of appeasing unhappy players. But according to an interview with Pete Hines, Bethesda's senior vice president of global marketing & communications (thanks, USGamer), PvP didn't get quite the enthusiastic reception that Bethesda was hoping for.

"Well, I mean at the end of the day, our intention was always, we're going to put this out there, see what folks think, and then cater the stuff that we do later to their reaction," said Hines, "So, for example, I think we were a little surprised how few people wanted to take part in PvP and how many more they were interested in PvE together. As opposed to, 'I want to test my mettle against you and let's get into a duel.' There's some folks who do, don't get me wrong, but I think it's a smaller percentage of our player base than we thought."

A new (and free) expansion, Wastelanders, is ready to launch on 7 April and will add reputation systems, human NPCs, dialogue trees, and single-player instances across all platforms. If you've not been too badly stung by Fallout 76 before now, it looks like it could be a good opportunity to give the game another shot. And Hines is quick to point out that the Wastelanders expansion isn't the end of the content.

"We have a plan. We have a roadmap that we'll be sharing before too long, probably after Wastelanders," said Hines. "Let's get through Wastelanders and then talk about that. That will cover all the way through the end of this year. We've already been talking about, internally, what is our plan for content into next year. When we feel confident enough to share that with everybody, I'm not certain, but like, we throw it out pretty far."

You can check out the trailer for the Wastelanders update above (here if you need a direct link). Let's hope it gets more of a positive reaction than the lukewarm response that the PvP mode received.

Featured Image Credit: Bethesda

Topics: Bethesda