It is no secret that Fallout 76 has had its fair share of struggles since launch, with a general poor reception of the game leading to poor sales. Usually when this happens with a multiplayer game, the ‘free to play' discussion comes up. A rumour that Fallout 76 would make the jump began gaining traction over the last few days but Bethesda has now stepped in to shoot it down.
Several stores across the US began removing physical copies of Fallout 76 from shelves over the weekend. Some believed that this was all in preparation for the game to go free to play, removing the need to sell physical copies. Of course, this led to questions being directed at Bethesda on Twitter:
There is no truth to this rumor.
— Bethesda (@bethesda) January 22, 2019
As you can see above, Bethesda has stated that there is “no truth” to the rumour that Fallout 76 is going free to play. At this point, not much else has been said but we do know that Bethesda has a roadmap planned for the coming months, which will involve more bug fixes and content/feature updates for active players.
Of course, there would likely be some backlash if Fallout 76 went free to play after many fans already paid upfront. The Atom store is already a point of contention with this game, so offering some ‘premium currency' likely wouldn't go down too well. For the time being, it looks like we can expect Bethesda to stick to its original plan, with no major shifts in a different direction.
KitGuru Says: Similar rumours popped up after Elder Scrolls Online sales began to waver, although ESO did end up dropping its mandatory subscription model. Do any of you think that Bethesda should consider making Fallout 76 free to play?