In Fallout 76, the action takes place in an impressively rendered West Virginia – a rewarding experience of atomic-themed tourism. The West Virginia Tourism Board and State Governor Jim Justice both worked with Bethesda on promoting the title, and in-game locations closely resemble their real-life, non-radioactive counterparts. The locations also resemble actual ghost towns of the atomic age, with the abandoned Ferris Wheel at Tyler County Fairgrounds in the game eerily reminiscent of that found in the deserted amusement park of Pripyat, near Chernobyl.

It’s possible there was no saving Fallout 76, because its very concept was something effectively no one really asked for. More time probably would not have had Bethesda make an offline version of the game, nor populated it with NPCs, which was a conscious decision. It would, however, hopefully have allowed it to at least not be the buggiest release in recent Bethesda history, a company already so known for bugs it was brought up as a meme during the Fallout 76 reveal by Todd Howard himself.

On the other end, there is a varying amount of criticism from people who claim they were not cheating, but perhaps forgot to close third-party software they use with other games. According to these gamers, they are not happy about the indiscriminate bans, especially given some third-party software is used for graphical touchups or fixing in-game display problems. Come to mmocs.com now, you can buy Fallout 76 Bottle Caps with fast delivery and 100% safety.

It's sad that Fallout 76 launched in the state it did and Bethesda's behaviour post-launch does little to fix the mess it found itself in. From a buggy Fallout 76 beta to a disappointing game at launch that needs massive fixes and even its Power Armour Edition that shipped with nylon bags instead of canvas as well as Fallout 76 customer details being leaked, everything that could go wrong with Fallout 76 has gone wrong, making us wonder how it could possibly get any worse.

Bethesda has created some of the most beloved action RPGs of the last two decades, finding sizable audiences with Oblivion in 2006 and Fallout 3 in 2008 before hitting critical mass with Skyrim in 2011. But all the good will in the world wasn’t enough to save Fallout 76 — an online spin-off of the post-apocalyptic series that Bethesda acquired over a decade ago. Reviews from critics and players alike have been underwhelming, and the developer has been in full damage control mode since the game launched in November.

Bethesda has handled the release and blowback of Fallout 76 very badly. It's honestly baffling beyond belief. The publisher has been distressingly silent about the game's problems. As Paul Tassi noted, "this is a release so mangled that Bethesda has to start saying something substantive about it, or else they’re just going to damage their reputation further."