Does Fallout 76 have a story?

As far as I understand there is a plot thread in it. I'd strain to call it a full story, or at least any sort of personal story. TMU, having not played but pieced together vids, comments, and just obvious conclusions, its a series of holotapes and 'go here, kill this, hit button' style quests searching for your Overseer's holotapes full of long-winded, slowly dawning realization that the scorchbeasts (dragons) are a danger, that the can infect people to make them 'scorched' (Marked men but with virus crystals), and eventually that their deep caves or caverns, or where they come from, need to be nuked to try and stop them from coming to the surface. Thereby giving you the mission to collect the bomb codes, drop the bomb, seal the rift, (thereby defeating Alduin-lite with the Big Thuum) and return you immediately to the otherwise aimless repetition of the gameplay loop. At least until the next rift opens and then you know what to do - drop another nuke.

Everything else is isolated to its own private little unimpactful stories of other dead people and groups, how they died, and maybe how the Overseer found some aspect of each to come to her conclusions. That way you make sure to run into one of each of the holotapes to trigger the 'collect all the ___ group's holotapes to know their story' quest chain. I would not be surprised if there were map markers for them and the challenge was not in finding but in finding a way to stay awake as you walk across their massive map to get the next one.

But take what I say with a grain of salt. Please, I have so much to spare. =P
 
I find it really bizarre that a post-apoc universe stressing the horrors of nuclear warfare unironically allows people to just drop nukes as a gameplay loop.

It's like Pacific Rim but schlockier.
 
So basically another "Infection" plot device storyline. "Something is changing people into monsters, you must find the source and stop it."

Imagine what kind of storylines could have been done about the first Vault(s) opening and coming into contact with survivors and communities on the surface.
Will the Vault Dwellers distrust the survivors who may resent them for leaving people outside during the firestorm while at the same time being envious of their supplies and technology. Do the Vault Dwellers see it as their task of "re unifying" human society, with force if necessary. (it is for your own good)

Have new power factions formed who see the opening of the vaults as an opportunity? Think Mad Max style warlords who want the riches of the vaults but don't care about its potential to help post war society to recover.

And then all the strange and dangerous creatures the vault dwellers run into for which they were never prepared but which survivors have adapted to.

And is there somewhere out there still some pre war artifact or weapon? Still active and ticking down, capable of finishing what the nuclear bombs failed to do; expunge humanity completely or at least in the region.
 
Story is virtual nonexistent. Seems to be a small story based around the scorched and the hive mind fungus that controls them. Instead we have stories like two lovers running from the Brotherhood for some reason.
 
It's got a very shallow questline looking for the overseer and the rest is "environmental storytelling" with skeletons and holotapes of every weird detail you normally don't write down.
So there's some exposition I guess as far as I can tell. I can't imagine caring about what was in this game story/lore wise, even if I was a fan of Bethesda's Fallouts.
 
The Dutch Ghost said:
So basically another "Infection" plot device storyline. "Something is changing people into monsters, you must find the source and stop it."

Imagine what kind of storylines could have been done about the first Vault(s) opening and coming into contact with survivors and communities on the surface.
Will the Vault Dwellers distrust the survivors who may resent them for leaving people outside during the firestorm while at the same time being envious of their supplies and technology. Do the Vault Dwellers see it as their task of "re unifying" human society, with force if necessary. (it is for your own good)

Have new power factions formed who see the opening of the vaults as an opportunity? Think Mad Max style warlords who want the riches of the vaults but don't care about its potential to help post war society to recover.

And then all the strange and dangerous creatures the vault dwellers run into for which they were never prepared but which survivors have adapted to.

And is there somewhere out there still some pre war artifact or weapon? Still active and ticking down, capable of finishing what the nuclear bombs failed to do; expunge humanity completely or at least in the region.
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As it turns out, you need NPCs to tell a decent story. And bethesda were too lazy to put them in the game.
 
Well, the most passable writting in Fo3 was in computer logs, not through npc mouths.
 
Big No said:
Are the Scorched just the poor man's Marked Men?
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Poor people can still afford better than the Scorched. They're effectively the Marke Men with any fascinating history stripped away and replaced with Resident Evil 4's Las Plagas but dumber.
 
I've been playing it with a friend, and no, it doesn't have a real story per se. You get inklings of lore, but they didn't want to actual hammer down a story at all. Basically, there were a few factions around, they eventually all contracted a cordyceps-like fungal infection and became a hivemind. Some of them end up permanently rooted to the ground and explode into spores (which literally just give you a lil dose of radiation), a lot of them are aimlessly wandering around.

That's basically the gist of it. You are someone going out into the wastes to rebuild civilization, only to find that this has been done before and everyone has a disease. It also feels really futile because there's nothing really spelling out that you or any of the new humans are immune to the fungal infection, so the same shit will probably happen to you.

but there might have been a holotape "I missed" aka purposely didn't listen to because I don't have time for that nonsense anyways
maybe it has something to do with the FEV floating around that probably infected everyone at some point
 
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Pretty much every faction has their own quest story you piece together from holotapes, terminals, and environmental storytelling

There's no actual storyline railroading you to anything however, so you can partake in the Fallout tradition of wandering off into the unknown and find things for yourself
 
BigGuyCIA said:
I find it really bizarre that a post-apoc universe stressing the horrors of nuclear warfare unironically allows people to just drop nukes as a gameplay loop.

It's like Pacific Rim but schlockier.
Click to expand...

Considering how the first Pacific Rim gave us the tantalizing aspects of an expanded universe that included Ron Perlman; Kaiju Trafficker, and we wound up seeing a terrible sequel and a potential Netflix cartoon that just screams "Neon Genesis Evangelion, but Worse", hard pass.

And, the idea of mass infection/zombification isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's been done so many times that it feels so hokey. Also; why do the Scorched all have to look like Darth Maul?
 
JDogindy said:
And, the idea of mass infection/zombification isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's been done so many times that it feels so hokey. Also; why do the Scorched all have to look like Darth Maul?
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Hey now, I know the prequels aren't well received but Darth Maul had a cool look! Lmao. I don't know, the Scorched grow crystals or some shit out of their skin? I think that's what someone said it was. Or the crystals help infect them?
 
Its about how much more Bethesda can beat their dead horse of a engine and Bethesda fanboy's epic journey of self discovery and realizing that Bethesda just does not give a shit about them or the product they put out.
 
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