CHARLESTON — As soon as “Take Me Home, Country Roads” hit the ears of gamers, they knew the new game in the “Fallout” series had something to do with West Virginia.
Then, images of the Capitol building, Woodburn Hall at WVU, The Greenbrier, the New River Gorge Bridge and even Mothman appeared in the preview for “Fallout 76.”
Video game company Bethesda Softworks announced Sunday the game would be released Nov. 8.
The game series explores what would have happened if the Earth was destroyed by nuclear warfare during the Cold War.
Andrew Caridi with WEPM-AM, a MetroNews affiliate, is a big fan of the game and has been following the series for a while. He said he is very excited that such a popular game is going to be set in his home state.
“That’s completely crazy to think about, that a game company this size is focusing on West Virginia, but it really can do everything, but just sort of capitalize and express what West Virginia has to offer and really all the cool stories and culture and history that the state has,” he said.
Bethesda is well-known for creating one-player, role-playing games; however, “Fallout 76” is going to be different. The game will be the first from Bethesda to be online, allowing players to interact with others in the game.
At the company’s showcase at the E3 electronics convention, game director Todd Howard said the game will be entirely online. Howard added that the game will be more of a “shared world” game where players will be on a map with only around a dozen or so other people.
Caridi said many gamers are not happy about this change.
“This is the first time they’ve tried anything to make it multiplayer, and that’s exactly what it is,” he said. “You’ll have your own character experience, but you’ll also be able to play with people in your group and do some exploring yourself. You’ll be able to build settlements and defenses, but you’ll also run into people who are trying to take your resources and kill you.”
After the trailer was released Monday, many social network sites were blowing up with talks about the game.
“The response of the community on Reddit, for example, they’re not particularly crazy about it, and I can’t blame them,” Caridi said. “This is going out on a limb from Bethesda, but you’ve got to understand that this company has been making nothing but those solo RPG’s since the mid-’90s.”
“Fallout 76” will serve as a prequel to all the other games in the series.
“This is almost kind of a branching out of sorts, not only in the story, not only in the exploration but obviously in the gameplay as well with it being online,” Caridi said.
For those who are fans of “Fallout 4,” the world of “Fallout 76” will be four times the size of the most recent game entry. “Fallout 76” will have the largest map of any of the games in the series.
“Fallout 4” made more than $750 million in the first 24 hours it was released in November 2015, and last year the company announced that the game was its all-time best seller.
