Why would you want to play a multiplayer game with a solo play style? Has Bethesda succeeded in bringing multiplayer to the Fallout franchise, especially when so many aspects of the Fallout games are at their best in a single player game? Well, as you'll discover through most points in this article, almost everything about Fallout 76 could be considered a weaker Fallout experience in a multiplayer game compared to what fans are used to in the franchise's single player games, but it's probably still enough of a Fallout game that Fallout fans who prefer single player games may want to play it.
Up until Fallout 76 , Fallout has been a single player franchise, so it has a large fanbase of gamers who are fans of single player games. Since the game's announcement, a lot of fans have been asking Bethesda whether or not the game will have a single player mode, an offline mode, or whether it can be played solo. While the game does not have a single player mode or an offline mode, it can definitely be played solo... so naturally, a lot of fans are giving it a try and doing so. During the last B.E.T.A. session, between multiple worlds (since I quit and restarted a number of times), I noticed that most players on the map weren't teamed up with a cluster of up to 3 other players - they were just off doing their own thing.
Fallout fans might wish that F76 was Fallout 5, or a spinoff in the style of Fallout New Vegas - in other words, wishing that F76 was the next single player entry in the franchise. Since F76 is built on Fallout 4, it hasn't advanced as far technically as we usually see between sequels in Bethesda's franchises - it could be considered more like Fallout New Vegas was to Fallout 3, than Fallout 4 was to Fallout 3. But it is still a brand new Fallout game world with a Fallout premise, and Fallout fans love exploring Bethesda's massive open world games. So while it's not Fallout 5 - and unfortunately it's no Fallout New Vegas - it does offer some satisfaction for fans during the long wait until the next Fallout single player game.
Fallout games have always been about exploration, and F76 is no exception. With its beautiful game world, there are a lot of places to explore. In fact, Bethesda has said that F76's game world has an area that is 4 times larger than Fallout 4's game world. Exploration, however, isn't the same when you play with a multiplayer team. Multiplayer teams are usually running around without taking the time to stop and smell the irradiated soot flowers. So if you want to explore the world of F76 and appreciate the game's beauty, you might want to play solo.
New to the Fallout franchise with F76 is a "Photomode" feature that facilitates taking screenshots of your adventures and travels, either with or without your player character being displayed, and includes options such as filters and photo frames. (The game then includes these photos from time to time in its loading screens rotation.) Because F76 has such a beautiful game world, many players may simply enjoy spending time taking photos of their exploration. Just as with the exploration aspect, your teammates might not want to stand around while you're trying to take that perfect photo.
Many Fallout fans who prefer single player games may not be into multiplayer gaming, but they might not want to miss the new Fallout lore that will be included in F76. Although F76 doesn't have NPCs, it does have plenty of holotapes, notes, terminals, locations, robots, creatures and more that add plenty of lore to the rich history of the Fallout franchise. So many gamers that aren't into multiplayer gaming might play F76 solo simply to take in the lore. Again, just as with the exploration aspect, your teammates aren't going to be sitting around while you want to carefully read every terminal message, so if you want to enjoy F76's lore, you might want to play solo.
Bethesda hasn't included any NPCs in F76 - human NPCs, that is, there are still robot NPCs in the game - because in this multiplayer incarnation of the Fallout franchise, they want gamers to roleplay as the NPCs. The lack of NPCs also fits with the game's storyline - you're the first to emerge from the vault in the area, so it doesn't make sense for there to be a large existing population in the game world, as there is in other Fallout games. While this removes NPC interaction and a lot of story that you would expect to find in a single player game, it does make for a brand new single player Fallout experience - if you play solo, you're in for a much more isolated Fallout experience than any previous Fallout game. There are, however, no lack of enemies to engage. You'll constantly be running into non-friendlies at every location you visit.
F76 isn't a hard game. Enemies have levels and so if you encounter an enemy that's too high level, you can easily escape by running away from the location where the enemy is based. Playing solo, a player can typically take out a pack of enemies that are close to the player's own level without too much trouble (and with very little risk in trying, as death has minimal penalties), even if the pack has a leader that might be up to 10 levels higher than the player's level. Because of this easy difficulty, it's not necessary to play in a team if you'd prefer to play solo instead. In fact, you might find the challenge of combat in solo gameplay more satisfying than playing in a team.
A lot of single player Fallout fans are not thrilled with the idea of PVP in F76's multiplayer game world, and so Bethesda's system of essentially making PVP consensual may be unappealing to those who enjoy PVP, and may deter many gamers who enjoy griefing from even bothering to play the game, since griefing will be more effective in many other games. This actually really takes away from F76's roleplaying possibilities as a multiplayer game, but may make the game more attractive to single player gamers.
Bethesda has failed to include a PTT (push to talk) feature for F76's voice chat, and there's also no text chat in the game - at least as of the date of this article, before the game's official release while the game is still in B.E.T.A. This means that with the voice chat on, your mic will be constantly picking up sound, and you'll constantly hear sound from everyone else's mics as well (up to 24 gamers per world instance). Because of this, gamers who are less inclined to enjoy a multiplayer experience might be more turned off by gamers who are narrating to themselves because they're streaming, gamers who don't have a quiet environment and have background noise such as children or pets, etc. Gamers who enjoy single player games might decide to just turn off the voice chat and go off to explore on their own.
Gamers who prefer single player games like being able to pause the game, save the game, be interrupted, take a break, play casually for just a short amount of time, play at their own pace, etc. without having to schedule around playing with a multiplayer team or without getting into a play session that requires them to be there for a long time or a set amount of time. By playing with a solo play style, you can mostly play F76 in this way as well.
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