Fallout 76 Will Be Down Temporarily on January 21

Bethesda has announced a temporary server shutdown for Fallout 76, which is scheduled to happen in the coming days. This decision follows player complaints about several major issues that many believe have rendered Fallout 76 “unplayable.”

Fallout 76 received its 21st major update on December 3, 2024, with the launch of the Gleaming Depths season. Since then, an increasing number of players have expressed frustration over frequent and unwarranted crashes. Of course, some of Fallout 76’s performance issues can be traced back to the Skyline Valley update from June 2024, meaning players have been dealing with game-breaking glitches for over 200 days. However, a fix finally seems to be on the horizon.

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Bethesda Support announced via Twitter that Fallout 76 will go offline for maintenance on Tuesday, January 21, at 10 AM ET (9 AM CT). The post doesn’t specify how long the update will take but confirms that all platforms, including consoles and PC, will be affected. Based on past maintenance schedules, downtime is estimated to last between three and six hours, though this is not officially confirmed. Although the support team hasn’t detailed which issues will be addressed, it’s widely assumed the update will target Fallout 76’s raid crashes that cause players to lose rewards.

Fallout 76 Will Be Down for Maintenance, Not a Season Update

Bethesda Support’s announcement on Twitter has left some fans confused. Some initially believed the temporary shutdown was tied to Fallout 76’s first major update in 2025, Glow of the Ghoul. However, the January 21 downtime is strictly for maintenance, not a seasonal update. It’s also worth noting that fans can monitor server status in three ways:

Bethesda’s Fallout 76 saw a significant player count surge following the success of Amazon Prime’s live-action adaptation of the Fallout universe. Some players suggest that this unexpected growth in the fanbase may have led Bethesda to rush out content without giving developers enough time or resources to polish it. However, others argue that Fallout 76 has been out since 2018, and these ongoing crashes and glitches are hard to justify for a seven-year-old game. On the bright side, Bethesda has remained committed to the game, with regular patches and hotfixes, like the January 21 update, signaling a potentially brighter future for Fallout 76.

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Bethesda Game Studios, the award-winning creators of Skyrim and Fallout 4, welcome you to Fallout 76. Twenty-five years after the bombs fell, you and your fellow Vault Dwellers—chosen from the nation’s best and brightest – emerge into post-nuclear America on Reclamation Day, 2102. Play solo or join together as you explore, quest, build, and triumph against the wasteland’s greatest threats. Explore a vast wasteland, devastated by nuclear war, in this open-world multiplayer addition to the Fallout story. Experience the largest, most dynamic world ever created in the legendary Fallout universe. Expand southward to Skyline Valley – a brand-new region of Appalachia. Investigate the cause of the electric storm circling overhead and unveil the mystery around Vault 63 and its dwellers, including a shocking new Ghoul type – The Lost.

Systems

Released

November 14, 2018

Multiplayer

Online Multiplayer

Engine

Creation

ESRB

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

How Long To Beat

34 Hours

Steam Deck Compatibility

yes

X|S Optimized

No

PS Plus Availability

Extra & Premium

File Size Xbox Series

97 GB (May 2024)

OpenCritic Rating

Weak

Cross Save

no

Cross-Platform Play

no

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