After a horrible launch and herculean comeback, Fallout 76 has passed 13.5 million total players

Fallout nuke
(Image credit: Bethesda)

Fallout 76 has become one of the higher-profile comeback stories of the past few years. It was meant to be a bold multiplayer direction for a storied single-player IP, but while it previewed fairly well, it launched and reviewed pretty terribly – our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Fallout 76 review described it as worn as the post-apocalyptic world it depicts – and it took Bethesda years to scrub the resulting stain off. Sﷺome players would no-doubt argue that the game's still not up to par, but after years of triage, u-turns, massive overhauls, and regular content updates, Fallout 7𝄹6 has clawed its way back and passed 13.5 million total players. 

Bethesda's year-end Fallout 76 confirmed the updated figure, whജich has gone up by roughly 500,000 total players since October. As ever, a game's total player count doesn't tell us how many active or concurrent players it has. The best reference we have for that is probably , whicꩵh reports an average of about 7,000 concurrent players for Fallout 76 throughout 2022, with a yearly peak of 17,506 in October. That said, Steam is just one of the ways you can play Fallout 76 on PC, and the game is also on consoles - including Game Pass, currently - so this figure is pretty limited too.

Speaking of Steam, Valve's storefront is a reasonably reliable barometer for the public opinion of the game. Fallout 76 is now sitting at over 40,000 total user reviews on , 76% of which are positive. 79% of the most rece🥂nt 1,000 reviews are positive as well, which is a pretty decent showing, especially compared to its utterly disastrous opening year. I think this short review from user captain_colwyn, who had 313 hours logged as of December 20, sums up the trend nicely: "It's good now, try it." 

The most important (and telling) update in Fallout 76's history was probably the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Wastelanders expansion, which saw Bethesda bend on the game's multiplayer tone and add bespoke NPC storylines with full dialogue, bringing it sli𝔉ghtly more in line with the likes of Fallout 3 and Fallout 4. Fallout 76 is still pri🍌marily driven by other players, but the presence of more factions and characters made the game more interesting to some fans of the single-player games.

Bethesda's annual report also contains a few more interesting factoids on the game, like players dropping almost three million nukes, spending over 48 billion caps at player-owned shops, and downing over 127 million Nuka-Colas. Oh, and pour one out for the three most🗹-killed enemies: 🌌the feral ghoul, scorched, and super mutant. 

Now standing on a steady foundation, Bethesda is eyeing at least another five years of support for Fallout 76

Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his jo🔥urnalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.