Is Fallout 76 Worth Playing in 2024?

Fallout 76 got off to a very rocky start back in 2018, but it’s come a long way. There have been a whole host of expansions, and people absolutely are playing it. But should you? If you’re wondering whether Fallout 76 is worth playing in 2025, here’s the answer.

Table of contents

• Is Fallout 76 Worth Playing in 2025?
• What’s Good About Fallout 76?
  • What’s Bad About Fallout 76?
• All Expansions and DLC for Fallout 76

Is Fallout 76 Worth Playing in 2025?

Fallout 76 is finally worth playing in 2025, after seven years of free expansions and it actually does some things other games haven’t. One recent update adds in the ability to become a ghoul, once you’re at a sufficiently high level. There are Fallout 4 mods to let you do this, but Fallout 76 actually has you treated differently because you’re now a ghoul.

You’ll still need to play the game online, but it feels like a proper Fallout game, with one exception I’ll get to later. If single-player Fallout is more your thing, it won’t replace Fallout 4 or Fallout: New Vegas. But even so, it’s absolutely worth exploring for a while, just to soak in all the lore and the other elements it adds to the Falloutvertse.

What’s Good About Fallout 76?

Fallout 76 was, initially, a ghost town, with not an NPC in sight. It was horribly incomplete but seven years, it actually feels like a proper Fallout game.

It has a huge open world to roam, and it has all the retro-futuristic trappings of prior Fallout games, as well as energy weapons, weird monsters, vaults and so on. It introduces a host of new enemies and elements such as the Scorched, and boasts many, many quests to undertake.

Fallout 4’s base crafting might have not been to everyone’s taste, but here you can go absolutely wild. Bases aren’t just for show, either. You can build your own base and add in machines to sell the items you collect. So, while you’re wandering around the wasteland, caps could be piling up at home.

That’s in-game currency, I should add – you can’t make real money playing Fallout 76. But if you’re feeling devious you can craft Saw-style bases that will kill players. I’ve fallen foul of a couple and as furious as I was, I have to tip my hat to those players’ creativity. Speaking of evil, the game makes you work for it, but you can nuke sections of the main map, which is a neat mechanic.

If you get to team up with some friends and stick together, there’s plenty of scope for multiplayer shenanigans, taking on the wasteland’s worst together. Unlike the single-player Fallout 4, you’ll have someone to show your ridiculous costumes to. Even if your friends aren’t into Fallout 76, there you can join up with strangers and conquer the wasteland.

There’s more content coming all the time, and unlike The Elder Scrolls Online, every expansion and piece of DLC has been free.

Related: Fallout Season 1: Power Armor, Explained

What’s Bad About Fallout 76?

Fallout 76 isn’t perfect. There are a few negatives, though far fewer when it first launched. For me, my least favorite thing about the game is seeing bases all over the place. That might seem like an odd gripe given it’s a multiplayer game, but it does make the world seem less barren.

Since there are other players around, the VATS system no longer slows down the world, which makes kills less satisfying. And when it come to base building, a lot of the super cool stuff is locked away, often requiring you to grind to unlock it (more so than resource gathering in Fallout 4), and the game’s not short on microtransactions.

All Expansions and DLC for Fallout 76

Wondering just what DLC Fallout 76 has received since its launch? Here’s every free expansion and DLC Bethesda has added.

1. Wild Appalachia
2. Nuclear Winter
3. Wastelanders
4. The Legendary Run
5. One Wasteland For All
6. Steel Dawn
7. Locked & Loaded
8. Steel Reign
9. Fallout Worlds
10. Night of the Moth
11. Invaders from Beyond
12. Test Your Metal
13. Expeditions: The Pitt
14. Nuka-World on Tour
15. Mutation Invasion
16. Once in a Blue Moon
17. Expeditions: Atlantic City – Boardwalk Paradise
18. Expeditions: Atlantic City – America’s Playground
19. Skyline Valley
20. Milepost Zero
21. Gleaming Depths

The Expeditions expansions add new locations to visit, including The Pitt (previously seen in Fallout 3) and Atlantic City. The latter isn’t as massive as its name implies but it’s still a new place to roam. Nuclear Winter was a battle royale mode but it was removed back in 2021. And the Wastelanders update, which arrived shortly after Nuclear Winter, finally added NPCs to the wasteland.

Ultimately, Fallout 76 is absolutely worth playing, whether you’ve long craved a multiplayer Fallout or if you’re a Fallout completionst, it has a lot going for it. And given that it’s on both Game Pass and PlayStation Plus, you’ve nothing to lose by stepping into the Appalachian Wasteland.