Fallout 76 is Skipping Steam

Fallout 76 will not be launching on Steam when it comes to PC on November 14, Bethesda confirmed today. Instead it seems like Bethesda will forgo Valve's marketplace altogether and release Fallout 76 directly through Bethesda.net.

The Fallout 76 beta FAQ page mentions the fact that "the B.E.T.A. [Break it Early Test Application] and the game will be available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and on PC (via Bethesda.net only)." The game's store page also doesn't mention Valve's popular Steam marketplace either, and Bethesda confirmed this is intentional.

"The PC version of Fallout 76, for both the B.E.T.A. and the launch, will be available only via Bethesda.net, not on Steam," said a Bethesda rep in an email to PC Gamer.

The news isn't a huge surprise considering this is the general trend of the Triple-A video game industry at large. EA's games are only available through EA Origin, and Activision-Blizzard have started keeping major franchises like Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and Destiny 2 on Blizzard's Battle.net. Even the biggest game in the world, Fortnite, is only available through Epic's launcher on both PC and soon-to-be Android.

There's also the matter of pay cuts. The reason Epic is ditching the Google Play Store is to not pay a 30 percent cut of the Fortnite profits to Google, and marketplaces like Steam have similar arrangements with games that become available on that platform.

Bethesda also says that the full game will be available for the beta. "Our current plan for the B.E.T.A. is it will be the full game and all your progress is saved for launch." So, you should be playing a full version of Fallout 76 during the beta and whatever progress you make will carry over.

The Fallout 76 beta begins in October while Fallout 76 comes out in full on November 14. Unlike previous Fallout games, Fallout 76 is a multiplayer game set in the Fallout universe. Players will try and survive with other players in a post-apocalyptic West Virginia. It's unclear how the experience of a Fallout multiplayer game will play out in practice, but we will have impressions for you when the beta drops.

For more check out our Fallout 76 guide with trailers, news, and other release info.

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#1 Keivz 11 days ago

30% is way too much. I don’t blame these guys / companies one bit

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#2 camchow 10 days ago

Huh, not a surprising move but might make me less inclined to ever try this. Not so much because I am a diehard steam defender but because of how cheap steam games can eventually get. I was able to get Fallout 4 for 25% off before launch on greenmangaming and same for the season pass before they jump that price up. I doubt we'll be able to find discounts like that if they are only selling it on their own platform.

#3 UnskippableCutscene 10 days ago

@Keivz 30% is probably roughly equivalent on what a publisher used to spend on shelf space, promotion, shipping etc at places like GameStop and Best Buy. The old “how much of your game goes to the developer and how much goes to other hands in the cookie jar” breakdown would apply.

Anyway, I played Quake a Champions closed beta for better part of a year in Bethesda Launcher. It was a pretty horrendous experience, with updates frequently requiring the entire game with all of it’s assets re-downloaded instead of a “delta update” like Steam, where only changed files are re-acquired. When the E3 week free play period began, I immediately jumped on getting the Steam client and re-attaching my account so I could kiss Bethesda Launcher goodbye. It also didn’t have a Save Password box, so you couldn’t just click the icon to immediately login and play like you can with Steam and Blizzard.

Fortunately, a member of the QC community made an app that, if you trusted it (it asked for your Bethesda login info) would check for client updates and then launch the game directly if there weren’t any, limiting your exposure to Bethesda Launcher to the overly big updates. I assume the Fallout community will build something similar.Edited 2 weeks ago by UnskippableCutscene