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Following the successful premiere of Prime Video’s Fallout, the game developers at Bethesda decided to celebrate by making their most recent Fallout game free for all Amazon Prime members. In collaboration with Prime Gaming, players can claim one free code between April 11 and May 15 which can be redeemed for one copy of Fallout 76 on the Microsoft Store. After claiming the code, it will be valid for redemption until June 24, at which time both the code will expire, and the game will go back to full price.

Despite releasing nearly six years ago, Fallout 76 still retails for $40 on most digital gaming shops, which makes this quite a deal for Amazon Prime members. Prime Video’s Fallout premiered all eight episodes on Wednesday, April 10, and has since received glowing praise as one of the best video game adaptations of all time, on par with HBO’s The Last of Us. Fallout currently sits at a remarkable 93% critics score accompanied by an 85% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, with many reviewers praising the series’ commitment to faithfully adapting the source material.

Is ‘Fallout 76’ Like the Other ‘Fallout’ Games?

In short, no, Fallout 76 is nothing like the rest of the games in the Fallout series. Fallout‘s 1-4 are single-player RPG’s primarily driven by the main story campaign with plenty of rewarding exploration mixed in. Fallout 76, on the other hand, is an online multiplayer RPG which doesn’t include a story and was released in 2018 to poor reception. The game is the lowest rated in the series with a bullet, landing at a score of 52/100 from critics and 2.8 out of 10 from users on Metacritic. Fallout 76 is well-regarded as the ugly duckling in a franchise which was largely spotless for more than 20 years. Given that Fallout 76 is the most recent Fallout game released by Bethesda, it makes sense for this to be the game that’s put on sale. Unfortunately, this will likely not be the smartest move in the long-run, as this is not the game that Bethesda should want players to have as their foray into the franchise. Most who have played Fallout 76 have little desire to return to it, especially with a next-generation update for Fallout 4 coming on April 25. Fallout 4 or New Vegas being the game to go on sale would’ve been a much more accurate reflection of the series’ quality and a better entry point for new Fallout fans.

In a world where video game adaptations are largely hit or miss, it’s refreshing to see series such as Fallout and The Last of Us adapted with such obvious care for the source material. More projects like Fallout and fewer like Far Cry, Max Payne, or Uncharted are better for everyone.

Fallout is available to stream on Prime Video in the U.S.

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