Fallout 1st



Fallout 1st is a paid subscription service for Fallout 76. It costs $12.99 USD for one month and $99.99 USD for one year. A number of features and items are unlocked upon becoming a Fallout 1st Member. It was first made available with patch 14 on October 23, 2019.

Controversy and user reaction
Upon the announcement of Fallout 1st, gaming news sites were quick to point out the point of contention for the user base was that several long-requested features were gated by the subscription, most importantly private worlds. IGN echoed many of these main criticisms. The nature of the subscription service was described by Cass Marshall of Polygon as being in "harsh conflict with the content of Fallout 76, "further contrasting the conflicting anti-capitalistic messages of corporate greed and the pre-War automation riots with a nickel and diming subscription."

Reaction by some users to Fallout 1st was initially negative, concentrating in the period immediately after its announcement and introduction, in May 2020. Gamesradar reported that some players targeted subscribers specifically to grief in game, akin to a class war mimicking the in-universe class struggle. Other complaints referred to several features not working as intended upon launch. Despite being fixed by later patches, some users of Fallout 76 protested the launch by creating in-game protest messages or quitting the game entirely. One example of such is Fallout First, a domain purchased by David Chapman who created a website to mock the announcement post of Fallout 1st. The website has shut down by January 2021 but can still be accessed through an archive.

After several months, the griefing of 1st users began to cease, due to more players subscribing to the service and initial outrage dying down.