Fallout 76's Resurgence: Todd Howard Talks Cross-Play and Future Plans

Fallout 76 has seen a significant increase in player numbers, reaching over a million players in a single day according to Microsoft Corp.‘s MSFT Bethesda.

However, the lack of cross-play in Fallout 76 has drawn attention, particularly as most multiplayer games now incorporate this feature.

In an interview with Kinda Funny Games, Todd Howard, Bethesda’s development chief, addressed the absence of cross-play in Fallout 76, explaining that the game was not initially designed with cross-play in mind.

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“We keep looking into it. It wasn't designed that way from the beginning,” he said. “So obviously we get into server and database silos.”

The game had a rocky launch in 2018. But the recent success of the Fallout TV show on Amazon Prime, helped propel the franchise’s popularity. Meanwhile, Bethesda worked to improve Fallout 76, resulting in a more positive reception from players over the years.

Howard described the game as “sneaky popular” in recent years.

In addition to the lack of cross-play, Fallout 76 also lacks cross-progression, which Howard acknowledged as a significant issue.

He emphasized that cross-progression is more important to Bethesda than cross-play for Fallout 76, but technical challenges have hindered its implementation. Howard explained: “Here's what I would say, which is for us the more the important thing is cross-progression than cross-play — and we do separate them — we'd love to have it all.”

While cross-play and cross-progression seem unlikely for Fallout 76, Howard hinted that future Bethesda games are likely to incorporate these features.

Starfield, their recent single-player adventure, already includes cross-progression between PC and Xbox.

Howard expressed the importance of these features for future games, stating: “Going forward in the world we want to be in, I think it's very important and something that you know in our future games that we're going to be really, really mindful about to make sure — in particular the progression — that where you pick up a game you're able no matter what screen you're on you're able to just keep going with your character and what you were doing.”

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