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Fallout 76 gets a Battle Royale mode, and human NPCs as Bethesda responds to criticism at E3

Executive producer says the criticism was "well deserved".

Mark Serrels Editorial Director
Mark Serrels is an award-winning Senior Editorial Director focused on all things culture. He covers TV, movies, anime, video games and whatever weird things are happening on the internet. He especially likes to write about the hardships of being a parent in the age of memes, Minecraft and Fortnite. Definitely don't follow him on Twitter.
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It's been a difficult year for Bethesda with Fallout 76, a game that's done a fair amount of damage to Bethesda's stellar reputation, particularly with the Fallout series.

Tonight at Bethesda's E3 conference, Executive Producer Todd Howard responded to criticism of the game, calling it "well deserved".

"It's been an exciting year at Bethesda," he joked. "Given the excitement I'm surprised you're still here."

"We had a lot of difficulties at launch," he continued. "A lot of well deserved criticism."

But the silver lining, believes Howard, was the community that built up around the players still engaging with Fallout 76.

"It's one of the best online communities we've ever seen," he said. Everyone's nice to each other.

"This should give us hope for humanity when the apocalypse does come."

Bethesda hasn't given up on the game. Developers Tom Mustaine and Jeff Gardiner went on to unveil new content including Fallout 76's very first human NPCs complete with the kind of full dialogue trees we've come to expect from single player Fallout titles. 

Perhaps the biggest announcement: Fallout 76 is about to get a brand new Battle Royale mode called 'Nuclear Winter' that pits you against 51 other players for the honor of becoming the new 'Overseer'.

When in doubt: do a Battle Royale mode.

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