25 major updates later, Fallout 76’s map has expanded its borders, added numerous storylines, and even allowed players to cut off their own noses and bask in the radioactive pools of the Wasteland. It’s certainly something to marvel at now, but it hasn’t always been like this.

Fallout 76’s launch has gone down in the videogame annals as something of a car crash. It wasn’t helped by the fact that loads of players were incredibly hyped to finally get their hands on a multiplayer Fallout game, only to be stifled by poor performance and missing features. Even before the full release, the beta also had a rough launch with no text chat or FOV slider, and issues with its download.

But a lot of time has passed since then—I’m talking about seven years. Now players can enjoy a huge map full of tasks to complete, mutants to kill, and plenty of beautiful places to set up camp. But the game’s beginnings haven’t been forgotten.

“A big part of live services is achieved through the course of the project,” Jon Rush, creative director for Fallout 76, tells Ted Litchfield during an interview. “It’s becoming familiar with and accustomed to your player base or your community. I’d kind of made a joke earlier, where it’s like a blind date. It’s like, hi, I’m Fallout 76. Oh, hi, I’m your player base. Well, it’s nice to meet you. Let’s see if we can work things out.

“You grow together and understand what one another wants, and use that to sort of shape the game into the best it can be. So I view the initial launch as really the prelude or the first chapter to a much bigger Fallout story.”

Live service games do tend to get better with time (at least that’s the hope), as devs figure out what kind of players are sticking around, and players also figure out what they want to get out of the game experience.

I played Fallout 76 at launch and quickly dropped off it. But after giving it some time, I came back to the game a few years later when it was in a better state and have played on and off since then. It’s a great game to jump into when you’re craving a fight with a bunch of Wasteland raiders but don’t want to go about it alone.

“Players that have stuck through since day one have seen Appalachia change over the years, right all the way up to our 64th free update, which is about to come out,” Rush says. “Players that maybe came in midway through or are just coming in now get to experience that rich history of the region by playing through all the content that’s been in since launch and added since.”