The backlash against Fallout 76 has been both surprising and overwhelming. While many have enjoyed their time in the hills of West Virginia, it feels like a large group of gamers, including myself in our review, have come away very unimpressed with the game. While many are pointing to certain promises from Bethesda and calling BS, most of these are easily dismissed as ideas that weren’t implemented, or standard hype. One thing that can’t be so quickly moved past though is the current accusation that the Fallout 76 Power Armor Edition was sold under false pretenses.
UPDATE: Bethesda is now offering buyers 500 Atoms, or about $5 in in-game currency.
ORIGINAL STORY CONT: According to every listing available for the Fallout 76 Power Armor Edition release, it is to include a “canvas” bag. The description from Amazon reads “Full-Scale Wearable T-51 Power Armor Helmet with West Tek Canvas Carrying Bag: This wearable helmet faithfully replicates the in-game model and comes complete with voice modulator speaker, functioning LED head lamp, and custom V.A.T.S. sound feature.” But as players have opened their expensive packages they’ve found that the bag is not canvas, being made instead of nylon, a presumably cheaper material.
One user has been documenting their interactions with Bethesda over this, and the results haven’t been great. After reaching out to Bethesda to complain, Reddit user AlexanderDLarge was essentially told that he was out of luck. “Due to unavailability of materials, we had to switch to a nylon carrying case in the Fallout 76 Power Armor Edition. We hope this doesn’t prevent anyone from enjoying what we feel is one of our best collector’s editions,” said Bethesda’s representative.
Users are taking this to mean that no fix is planned for the issue. What makes it somewhat clear cut that this is a problem is the aforementioned description from Amazon, which mirrors other retailers. Bethesda’s own store also said it was a canvas bag until very recently. It has now been changed to say it is made of nylon, though the timing of this change is unclear.
Whatever ends up happening, it is clear that fans aren’t happy. They paid a premium price for what was to be a premium item. Whether the nylon bag is good enough isn’t the current question, instead everyone is angry that they were told they were buying one thing and then given something else. In many ways it is being held up as an example of what Fallout 76 has been like the whole time.
