Fallout 76 didn't have the best of launches with the multiplayer game set in the post-apocalytic universe stumbled out of the gate. However, since then as the team has worked on the survival game, it's become one of the most played games on Xbox, according to Todd Howard.
In this past week's Bethesda Joins Xbox round table, Bethesda Game Studios' Todd Howard talked about Fallout 76, its launch and what the acquisition of ZeniMax Media by Microsoft could mean for not just Fallout 76, but future games to be better tested before launching.
"When that game launched, the litany of issues wehad, and we let a lot of people down," Howard said, referring to Fallout 76. "There was very little we didn't screw up, honestly."
Howard goes on, talking about how the company has turned Fallout 76 from one of the poorest launches to now one of the most played games on the Xbox platform specifically, with Howard even mentioning that he called Phil Spencer, Head of Xbox, for some advice after the troubled launch.
"And one of the people that I called was Phil [Spencer]. And I said 'Hey, there's so many things we're dealing with, what advice do you have?' And he put me in touch with some people at Xbox who are able to look at all of the games in the system and what was important and wasn't important to the other games that made it for the long haul. And that kind of advice really, really helped us. And now, seeing 76 being one of the most-played games on Xbox, we're just incredibly fortunate to be there."
Fallout 76 struggled mightily when it launched, with technical issues that plagued the game, as well as the general fact that it lacked the charm and meaningful interactions that made the Fallout universe so loved. Fallout 76 made the jump to Game Pass in June 2020, with Howard actually implying on the roundtable that had the survival game launched on Game Pass, it might have been easier for the team to get through those early months.
Fallout 76 is still chugging along as well, with update after update adding what many felt was missing from the survival game when it launched in 2018. Last year's Steel Dawn update brought the Brotherhood of Steel to the game, and has just relaunched its PTS with the upcoming Locked and Loaded update.
