Xbox Game Pass is an excellent service that lets you play more games for your money. Not everything that gets added to the roster deserves your time, though. There’s plenty of rubbish to go with the genuine treasures. This trash heap is about to include Fallout 76 .
Even a Game Pass listing shouldn’t be enough to convince you that Bethesda’s predatory, buggy, snooze-fest is worth the time it takes to download – much less play.
We hadn’t heard much from Fallout 76 in a while. It was a welcome departure from Bethesda’s streak of seemingly making the game more heinous with each passing month.
There have been numerous controversies surrounding the title, including some incredibly sketchy pricing activity.
The worst crime was adding a premium subscription to a full-priced game.
The “Wastelanders Update” supposedly fixed a lot of the issues that caused the game to be poorly received.
The Atomic Shop still exists, though. That’s telling.
Bethesda has a clear strategy. Milk players for all they’re worth. Fallout 76’s arrival on Game Pass is the latest proof.
The hope is that you’ll try Fallout 76 for “free,” then get suckered into a neverending stream of in-game purchases.
It wouldn’t be so bad if the in-game prices weren’t so egregious. Even buying simple clothing like a caravan trader outfit can cost nearly $10 . That’s appalling for a game that initially cost $60.
Bringing the title to Game Pass isn’t going to erase this sordid past. Fallout 76 didn’t deserve your attention when it launched in 2018. It still won’t deserve your time when it arrives on Xbox’s subscription service on July 9.
All it’s ever going to be is an awful cash grab from a dreadful company. The last thing we need is to give Bethesda a reason to double down on this monetization strategy.