Fallout 76’s Art Director Had To “Fight” To Make The Map Bigger Than Skyrim

Fallout 76 was not well received by fans and critics at all when it launched back in 2018. In fact, it was so bad that project lead Jeff Gardiner has previously said he was yelled at in public, as the community hated both the direction and the execution of a multiplayer Fallout game.

However, it seems that at least one member of the team had their work appreciated at launch: the map designer. Creating the map was the responsibility of the lead artist Nate Purkeypile, who spoke about the game’s launch at a GDC panel attended by GamesRadar+.

Related

New Vegas Flashbacks In Fallout Season 2 Are Going To Hit Different

I’m ready for this post-apocalyptic sin city to break my heart.

“Even though the game had a rocky launch, people liked the map,” recalls Purkeypile. “It was kind of nice to hear ‘hey, that game sucks, but the map’s pretty cool’. I did my job.”

Fallout 76’s Art Director Had To “Fight” To Make The Map Bigger Than Skyrim’s

However, it seems that we almost didn’t get the vast Appalachia map that players enjoyed so much.

“Fallout 76’s map was huge; it’s actually even bigger than Skyrim, and that was something I had to fight for really hard from the start,”​​​​​​ he explains. “I knew it was a game people were going to be spending a lot of time in, and I wanted to capture that epic feel of the West Virginia wilderness.”

It certainly seems that this was the right instinct. Fallout 76 found its footing over time, with various updates bringing the MMO more in line with what the community was after. It saw a boom in popularity after the success of the Fallout TV show too, so it’s a good thing that there’s so much ground to cover – and even more so with a map expansion.

Released

November 14, 2018

ESRB

M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Use of Alcohol