While Fallout 76 will very likely forever be remembered for its disastrous launch and subsequent spate of controversies, the game seems to doing quite well for itself as the years passed. In the latest end-of-year retrospective, Bethesda revealed some key stats which included a unique player count of 13.5 million.
In some ways, that’s both a big number but also not – Fallout 4 hit 14 million players within a day of launch, and was itself struggling with a fair bit of critical panning and fan outcry at the time. However, racking up 13.5 million players is still something to be proud of in the gaming market, especially for a spin-off.
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If Fallout 76 were a country, it would be the 75th most populous, nestled between Zimbabwe and Guinea. Yes, that simple discrepancy of just 1 between the vault number and the ranking is driving us nuts, too.
This stat also marks a growth of over 2 million new players added since the end of last year, which closed on 11 million unique players. This shows that since its seemingly impossible redemption arc, Fallout 76 has managed to stay on an upward angle. Now that it’s actually good, we see even more growth possible in its future.
A lot of that growth also happened very recently, with over half a million new players joining the bombed out world of the wasteland since the last report from the developers, which was in October. Fallout 76 is enjoying new content releases and events, much to the joy of its particularly loyal fanbase.
Over the years since one of the most drama-ridden launches in gaming history (and that is saying a lot), Fallout 76 has been patched, fixed, updated and expanded significantly, now having reached a point where it actually lives up to the promises set before release, and. Having achieved the status of being “good, actually” marks it as one of the few successful redemption stories in gaming.
Players can look forward to more content being released for the game in the new year. While Fallout 76 isn’t pulling numbers like some of the biggest multiplayer titles out there, it is clearly good enough for Bethesda – at least until Fallout 5 goes on the menu.
In the meantime, fans have that Fallout TV show to look forward to if they’re itching for new adventures in the wasteland. Bethesda themselves have their hands full with Starfield at the moment, and they’re also supporting The Elder Scrolls Online with new content, too.
In a funny bit of synergy, the Epic Game Store was giving away Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout Tactics the day these stats went live.
