Fallout 76 drops to $40 for Black Friday

Bethesda is offering a sweet Black Friday deal on Fallout 76, the post-nuclear multiplayer survival-hijinks game, which you can now pick up from retailers including Best Buy, Amazon, GameStop, the Humble Store, and Bethesda itself for $40—33 percent off the regular retail price.

Enthusiasm for the markdown may be tempered somewhat by the fact that Fallout 76 launched just nine days ago. Price reductions are a fact of life but it's unusual to see a cut this deep so soon after release, especially on a game as "big" as Fallout 76, which led up to its launch with the usual high-profile preorder campaign. On the other hand, it's also unusual to see a Fallout game get hammered as hard as this one has: That Metacritic aggregate score of 55 is the lowest ever for the series.

Even so, this is a deal worth considering. Fallout 76 might be a mess right now but there's a potentially good game underneath all that: Despite its issues, Chris said in his review that he "had long stretches of fun" with it, and Bethesda presumably has the resources to pull it together. Which is no guarantee that it will, but if you're willing to roll the dice on it, this would be a good time. 

Most of the retailers don't list an expiration date for the sale price, but the Humble Store says it will be available until November 27.