Xbox and Bethesda's beloved post-apocalyptic RPG franchise Fallout is all the rage right now, with Season 2 of the TV show doubling its player counts on Steam, several free DLC add-ons hitting Fallout 4 recently, and more. Indeed, the last few months have been a great time to be a fan of the series — and in the days leading up to Season 2's finale episode, Bethesda has a treat for those who may not have played one of its biggest games.
From now until February 4 — one day after the finale of Season 2 of the Fallout TV show — you can play Fallout 76 for free across all of its platforms, including Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC (Steam, Xbox on PC), PS5, and PS4. Any characters and progress you make in the game will carry forward if you choose to purchase it after the free-to-play period ends (it's only $7.99 right now; it's usually $39.99).
Fallout 76 is one of the largest modern Fallout titles you can play right now, both in terms of available content and in terms of player count. As recent SteamDB data shows, the game has had, on average, around 20K-30K players on Valve's PC gaming platform at any given time.
That's not quite as large as Fallout 4's 30K-50K average, but it's above Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. Ultimately, these are healthy, respectable numbers — and they're in addition to all the players on Xbox and PlayStation consoles that can't be tracked due to the lack of publicly available metrics.
As the first multiplayer RPG in the series with live-service patches and MMO-like elements, Fallout 76 was (and for some, still is) quite controversial, and got off to an extremely rocky start in late 2018. Bethesda stuck with it and has routinely improved it with major content updates, though, transforming it into a game that many love and play regularly. Burning Springs, its latest expansion, is its largest in years, and features The Ghoul from the TV show.
Fallout 76 becoming free to play for a week is pretty awesome, though the way Bethesda chose to announce and advertise that is a little...odd. The studio revealed the news alongside a new commercial for its Fallout games that stars Michael Grzesiek, AKA Shroud, one of the biggest streamers on Twitch and a competitive FPS player that used to compete in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (now Counter-Strike 2).
Getting a former pro player that specializes in PvP games to advertise your mostly singleplayer RPG franchise is certainly a choice, but I suppose he's still a very recognizable figure in gaming and may drive some PvP players to give Fallout a shot. Plus, Shroud says he's a huge fan of the series.
"Honestly still shocked I got to be apart of this commercial," he wrote in a post on social media. "As you all know fallout is one of my favorite video game franchises and to see myself in this video is incredibly heartwarming!!"
The commercial itself features Shroud clad in an up-armored Vault suit as he and several "Dogmeat" friends — referencing the canine companions you can find in most of the Fallout games — investigate a gas station for treasure, with a few amusing references to Fallout 4 thrown in. "Have any of you guys seen my son?" he asks the dogs.
Note that while Fallout 76 is the only game that's free to play for a limited time, all of the Fallout games are available to play across Xbox and PC with Xbox Game Pass. They're accessible through Xbox Cloud Gaming as well, with Fallout 4 also supporting Xbox Play Anywhere cross-save.
Do you plan on checking out Fallout 76 while it's free to play? If you've already played it, how do you like it compared to the mainstream singleplayer Fallout titles? Hit me with your take in the comments.
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