Fallout 76 BETA Broke So Quickly That Many Players Can't Even Test It

Fallout 76's beta version has a not-so-surprise name: BETA. Yet, it's a name with a surprising meaning: Break-it Early Test Application.

And as the name implies, this beta version breaks so early that so many players didn't have a chance to try the game. All the bizarre bugs start with a count-down timer that expired at the wrong time on the launcher. Afterward, the game's launcher crash down for about an hour, and when it went back up, it deleted the game and force re-download the entire Fallout 76's client on many players' PC.

Of course, with the gigantic size of 47 GB for a beta version, many players with mediocre internet connection can't finish their download in time. Because of that, this bug leads to many players' outcry, for missing out the beta test phase of the game.

Even though the beta duration has been extended for a few hours, this test phase was still a great disappointment for Fallout's fan all over the world. Especially players who pre-purchase the game to have a chance to test it out, yet got locked out due to some bad bugs.

For those who got lucky and can play the BETA version of Fallout 76, there are even more bugs and problems.

The game's FOV is set at 80 by default, with no way to config within the game. Players have found a workaround for this problem, which is config the .ini file in the game directory. But even when changing the FOV with the above method, it got reset right after using fast-traveling.

Another annoying problem is the lack of a chat bar, meaning there is no text chat in this version. People can argue that the game is still in the beta-testing phase so it will lack so many features. Sure, but text chat is one of the most basic functions of online games and should be implemented early, not at the end of the developing phase.

For those who willing to use micro and voice chat, another problem unfolds. The game didn't feature the push-to-talk button, which means whoever enabled voice-chat will transmit all the voices and noises from their side into the game. And with a party of just 4 people, all the noise can be annoying and distracting at time.

The FPS is locked at 60FPS when VSync enabled, and when uncap, the game produces weird physics problems. Which is now familiar with Bethesda's fans, since the game's physics are tied with the game's FPS. And if this problem is left unchecked when the game launch, there will be so many people moves like The Flash in-game, due to better FPS.

Fallout 76's BETA version is not optimized enough

As far as performance goes, the game has some problem keeping constant 60 FPS, even on better machines. A player with Core-i5 6600K CPU, 8GB RAM, GTX 980, runs the game on High settings, experienced frequent drops to 20~30 FPS, and sometimes the FPS got even lower than that. Which is not a good news for people with a normal PC.

Of course, Fallout 76 was still on the Beta phase, so bugs are unavoidable. More and more problems will be found, and patches will be released. But for a game that lacks a lot of standard features and so close to release date, can Bethesda push out the fixed on time to make the game playable on launch? Let's wait and see.

Fallout 76 will be released on November 14th, 2018.