Games-as-a-service has become an increasingly popular model in the industry over the last few years, especially so with the shared-world genre, where the likes of Ubisoft and Bungie have not only turned around initially disappointing games, but have also continued to support them long afterward as well. With Fallout 76, Bethesda is veering into shared-world territory, and they plan on having a similar model for the game.
While speaking with GameSpot, Bethesda’s SVP of marketing Pete Hines stated that Fallout 76’s servers are going to be up “forever”, likening Bethesda’s plans for the game’s future to what Blizzard has done with World of Warcraft, which continues to have a very active userbase even more than a decade since its launch.
“How long is Fallout 76 going to be up?,” Hines said. “Forever. I don’t know how to give an answer other than that. It’s not like anybody makes a game and goes, ‘Well this is going to make it for 10 years if we’re lucky.’ Nobody thinks that way. How long has WoW been up now? Is that game planning to sunset in a year? I seriously doubt it.”
“We’re going to keep going as long as people keep playing it and it shows no sign of slowing down,” he continued. “Once we get to private servers or whatever happens in the years following; I don’t know. Maybe there’s a point where it doesn’t matter. But … this is a massive franchise and a massive undertaking, and our commitment to it is it is never-ending, and that it continues on an ongoing basis.
“I see a plan for this game for years and years and years. So talking about when it’s not up is kind of irrelevant. I have nothing to look at that says it’s not going to be up forever.”
Bethesda have spoken in the past about Fallout 76’s never-ending nature as well, and given the game’s nature as an online-focused title, that’s to be expected. According to Bethesda, though, even at launch Fallout 76 is going to have a bevy of content for players to dive into- over 150 hours of side content, for instance.
Fallout 76 launches on November 14 for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
