Last week saw the release of Amazon Prime’s long-awaited Fallout TV series, to massive success. The series currently sits at 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, with an audience appreciation score of 88%. The series has been praised for its faithfulness to the source material, although in our review we criticized the inconsistent tone, at least in the debut season’s first half.
The series hasn’t just been successful in its own right; it’s helped bring attention to the franchise as a whole, including Fallout 76. The first online game in the franchise, Fallout 76 also has the biggest map in the franchise, four times the size of that in Fallout 4.
Upon its initial release, Fallout 76 was criticized for its poor performance and the absence of human NPCs. The game saw more success with the release of new content, such as April 2020’s Wastelander expansion. This saw concurrent players on Steam climb to 22,095 players, then to 32,982 the following month. However, numbers soon fell, never exceeding 20,000 concurrent players after this period.
However, Fallout has seen Fallout 76 attract new players, reaching an all-time concurrent Steam player count of 39,455 – up 210% from 12,735 in March.
At the time of writing, that number has fallen to 18,779. However, this still represents the second-highest player count since May 2020. It should also be noted that concurrent player count is likely to fluctuate, and with the game achieving close to 40,000 concurrent players on a weekend, it’s possible that we could see figures jump again in the coming weeks.
Will Fallout 76 continue its strong performance? That remains to be seen. It’s possible that the series will continue to attract new players to the game as more and more people watch it. It’s also worth noting that the core game itself hasn’t changed and while it’s previously seen other jumps in the player base, what’s kept Fallout 76 going for so long is a devoted core audience. While it’s possible that some of the tens of thousands of new players will stick with it, it’s also possible that players will fall to previous levels.
