Plots that fans feel were underutilized in the game:
- A prequel detailing a community of Vault Dwellers trying to rebuild the world in the wake of a nuclear holocaust while interacting with natives and fighting radioactive threats could've been a great story in itself. However, any potential for that story is squandered by there being zero human NPCs to interact with in the game. Thankfully, it is resolved by Wastelanders.
- In terms of the game world, rural West Virginia ought to be a pretty interesting setting for an open-world RPG. Fallout 3 and 4 were set in decidedly urban areas that were hit hard by the war, so going to the comparatively rustic and untainted countryside could have been something special. Ideally it'd take a page from Skyrim's book and present an expansive wilderness full of forest-swept mountain ranges and river valleys for the player to traipse around in. That's not even accounting for all the industrial set-pieces that would make for perfect post-apocalyptic ruins (IE, dilapidated train bridges, underground shaft mine tunnels, the gorges left by ancient strip mining, ruined steel mills overgrown with creeper vines, ramshackle mountain towns inhabited by the tribal descendants of pre-war coal miners and labor unionists, etc). While some of these elements are present, they're not executed anywhere as effectively as they could have been. The game-world certainly looks lush and pretty, but the rural Appalachian setting's potential isn't fully taken advantage of. The developers failed to make it truly absorbing and fleshed-out like the Mojave was. Part of the problem is that this stretch of Piedmont mountains being populated entirely by monsters and bland zombies but barely any actual human beings. It doesn't feel like a believable location that human beings live in because there aren't any human beings to be found. Combined with the underwhelming writing and artificial, halfhearted design, the game-world ends up feeling even more empty and lifeless than the barren wastelands that 3 and 4 were set in.
- Not enough is done with the short time frame after the nuclear war. 25 years isn't anything to sneeze at, but it's short enough that many people still alive in the wasteland are in living memory of the pre-war times. It would have been interesting to see civilians reflect upon what the pre-war world was like, and come to terms with the scale of what they've lost. Hell, with the Brotherhood of Steel it would have been interesting to have a phasing out of the old guard sub plot. 25 years after the war there would be many US military veterans that are in their middle age or are already old, and they still think of themselves as agents of the pre-war military and hold on to hope they can bring their country back online. It would be a melancholy experience to see these veterans give way to the Brotherhood of Steel, accepting that while the country they once loved and the US military gone for good, the traditions of discipline and brotherhood in combat can still live on in the Brotherhood of Steel — all of them uniting under the banner of Roger Maxson. Arguably the Enclave, for all of their stubborn refusal to admit America has died completely, have room for such a subplot as well.
- Enclave fans felt that having no surviving members of the Enclave aside from MODUS was an wasted opportunity to explore a saner side to the Enclave that might have rejected the genocidal direction the organization went in going into the 2100s and 2200s, especially with the implications that the majority of those in the Whitesprings Bunker rejected Eckhardt's mad plans to destroy China at all costs, resulting in him killing them to push his plans unopposed.
- Dragons and a zombies, err, I mean, the Scorched seem like a sure case of Rule of Cool that can't go wrong, right? Except the dragons are all as mindless as the zombies and there's no one for the zombies to threaten save the nebulous humans outside of West Virginia and the Vault Dwellers themselves. The player characters have already come across The Bad Guy Wins so there's surprisingly little stakes. A Zombie Apocalypse doesn't have much cool to it if everyone is already a zombie.
- The writing for Fallout 76 is about as detailed as any other game with many of the complicated faction politics of the Responders, Brotherhood of Steel, Appalachian Free States, the Mountain Raiders, and Enclave. A very interesting story could have been told by the players going to each faction, joining them, and then slowly winning them over to cooperating against the Scorched. You sort of do this but only after everyone is dead.
- Joining the various factions by going through training is an interesting story and nice nod to the other games as well as the Elder Scrolls. Except, you join all of the factions posthumously (as in everyone in the factions are already dead) via computer terminals so it feels ridiculous.
- The game even lampshades this when you bring up you're already a Responder or Brother of Steel by NPCs confused by your claims as they have no idea who the hell you are.
- Joining the various factions by going through training is an interesting story and nice nod to the other games as well as the Elder Scrolls. Except, you join all of the factions posthumously (as in everyone in the factions are already dead) via computer terminals so it feels ridiculous.
- David Thorpe is a surprisingly developed villain with his own backstory, Love Interest, and involvement in the complicated politics of Appallachia. Being the person who drowned Charleston and wiped out 1000 people, including his own girlfriend, seems like it would be a great start to the player characters hunting him down for some frontier justice. Except, by the time the game begins, David is Dead All Along and now just another mindless Scorched.
- The Mistress of Mystery organization was fascinating, theatrical, and fun. The intrigue, drama, and investigation about who was the traitor to the organization would have been fascinating to solve...if any of the participants were still alive. The player character joining after everyone is already dead just ruins much of the romance for it. It would have also been extremely interesting to deal with Olivia Rivers and Shannon Rivers when both were alive, perhaps with the option to side with one or the other.
- Paladin Taggerdy's conflict with Elder Maxson over the Godzilla Threshold of using nuclear weapons against the Scorched Queen. The Scorched are an existential threat to all existence and effectively invulnerable to everything that might be thrown at them even by the Brotherhood. Indeed, the only way to defeat them in the end is the weapons. However, none of this is debated by the PCs and Paladin Taggerdy is long dead by the start of the game.
- President Eckhart's insane plan to start a second war with China seems like it would have made just an enjoyable a plot to thwart as the Scorched. Sadly, it's already resolved by time you arrive at the Whitespring Bunker.
