Fallout 76 hasn't been doing well as of late. In fact, to call the game a success in any way, short of it actually getting pushed out of the dry-dock, would be an overstatement. Thinking about this, one has to wonder - what can Bethesda do to salvage Fallout 76?
Fallout 76 free-to-play could potentially be one solution to the mounting myriad of problems the game has caused Bethesda so far, but then again, it would open a wholly different can of worms, too.
Will Bethesda make Fallout 76 free-to-play? It's hard to answer this question without knowing what sort of stuff is going through their collective heads right now, but it's not exactly without precedent for a developer to do so. Remember that Fortnite itself started its proverbial life as a pay-to-play COOP release.
What we ought to wonder, however, is whether this sort of solution would work for Fallout 76 as-is, and the answer is - slim chance. According to most players who've spent some time with the game, the majority of items you can buy with Atoms, Fallout 76's "premium" currency, are simply not worth it. For example, stuff you could get for free in Fallout 4, or even in 76 itself, in some cases.
There are few - or none, rather - enticing items to facilitate constant microtransactions in Fallout 76, and be this the result of piss-poor planning or sheer benevolence on Bethesda's part, it matters very little.
In the end, Fallout 76 as it currently exists would be a fairly poor free-to-play title, and Bethesda would have to invest time and effort into retrofitting the game to work as such. Is that something they're eager to jump on? We're going to go with a firm 'nope' on that one...
