Fallout 76 has reached 13.5 million players

In its Fallout 76 retrospective for 2022, Bethesda revealed that the shared world RPG has "grown significantly" and now reached 13.5 million total players. It's a 2.5 million increase compared to 2021's 11 million player count. 

Fallout 76 had a notoriously buggy launch in 2018 (even by Bethesda standards), and a troubled development due to alleged crunch and mismanagement. It's improved in the years since, and it definitely helps that the game is on both Xbox Game Pass and part of PlayStation Plus. 

Other stats in Bethesda retrospective include 9.4 million daily missions (or "ops") completed throughout the year, and 2.9 million total nukes have been dropped in the survival game set after a nuclear apocalypse. 

With the continued existence of Fallout 76, Bethesda has managed to keep the franchise stable and in the public consciousness, which is important considering the next mainline Fallout installment may be some ways off. 

Earlier this year, design director Mark Tucker told AusGames that the studio would continue to invest in the game for the foreseeable future. "We're dedicated to updating Fallout 76. The message to our players is, there should be no reason to think that we're not going to continue updating this game.”