Bethesda announces Fallout 76 premium subscription

Bethesda has announced a premium subscription service for their MMO set in the Fallout universe, Fallout 76.

The subscription service is called Fallout 1st, and offers subscribers a host of benefits outside of playing the game for free. Included in the benefits is access to private servers, a Scrapbox item that will store all the junk a player has, a Survival Tent placeable fast travel location, 1,650 Atoms, the premium in-game currency for the game, a Ranger Armour Outfit, and an Icon and Emote pack.

Fallout 1st will cost £11.99 per month, or twelve months can be purchased up front for a 36 percent discount. The annual subscription is definitely the better option however, particularly with the amount of Atoms involved in the subscription.

Currently it costs £10 to get 1,000 Atoms, with a bonus 100 Atoms on top. Fallout 1st offers 1,650 Atoms per month, for less than the current exchange rate for the currency. Based on this benefit alone, some are saying that the subscription is worth it, especially those who already spend about £15 on the game’s premium items every month.

However, the announcement of Fallout 1st has been met with a lot of anger from fans, and gamers in general. Prior to the announcement, Bethesda delayed the launch of Fallout 76’s next major update, Wastelanders, into next year. With Fallout 1st following so close on the heels of that delay, many fans have become increasingly disappointed with the game.

Players still need to purchase Fallout 76 before they can play it online for free. While most MMOs use this model now, there are many more that offer the base game for free, and others still that only allow people to play if they commit to a paid subscription.

It seems unlikely that Bethesda will make Fallout 76 free-to-play, like Bungie has done with Destiny 2, so the premium subscription is even more unwelcome to fans who just want to play the game, and have access to benefits like private servers as part of that experience. Most players believe these benefits should be part of the base game, and don’t want to pay for the premium service in order to access them.