Bethesda has been unusually frank regarding the upcoming Fallout 76 beta, telling players to expect “spectacular” bugs and issues as they head out to explore the wasteland for the first time.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise of course. Online games are often full of issues at launch – that’s what betas are for.
Then there’s the fact that it’s a Bethesda game, and the studio is kind of infamous for bugs and glitches in their open world releases.
Bethesda’s openness is actually kind of a refreshing in an industry known for PR guff and doublespeak. In a note to fans, the studio explained that Fallout 76 is quite unlike anything they’ve ever done before, and they’re gonna need the fans to feedback to them more than ever during the beta.
They said:
We all know with the scale of our games, and the systems we let you use, that unforeseen bugs and issues always come up. Given what we’re doing with 76, we know we’re opening everyone up to all new spectacular issues none of us have encountered. Some we’re aware of, such as areas where performance needs to improve with lots of players. Others, we surely don’t. We need your help finding them, and advice on what’s important to fix. We’ll address all of it, now and after launch.
The Fallout 76 beta starts today (October 23) on Xbox One, before heading to PlayStation 4 and PC on October 30. This will obviously be a key time for the game, and a vital factor in whether this endeavour succeeds or fails.
It’s important to note that the beta won’t run 24/7, and will instead have set times for each region, so that Bethesda can “stress test” the servers by maximising the number of players on Fallout 76 at any one time.
The specific PS4 and PC beta times have yet to be revealed, but UK gamers can play on Xbox One between 12am and 4am October 24. Not an ideal time, to be honest.
Meanwhile, Europe can play between 1am and 5am (CEST, October 24), East Coast US gets 7pm to 11pm (ET, October 23), and West Coast US has the much more reasonable 4pm to 8pm (PST, October 23).
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.