Bethesda's vice president of global marketing Pete Hines claims Fallout 76 won't be launching on Steam because the studio wants to form a 'direct relationship' with players. 

Speaking during a press Q&A at QuakeCon, as reported by PCGamesN, Hines explained that making PC players download the title using the Bethesda.net client will make it easier for the studio to assess and tackle any problems that might appear post-launch. 

He suggested that's of critical importance given Fallout 76 will be a multiplayer effort that's going to live or die on the company's ability to deliver a smooth online experience, before adding that players will now know to deal with Bethesda directly if anything does go awry. 

"We've done online games before, we've done some games-as-service, and with [Fallout] 76, it was just really important to us to have that direct relationship with the customer, that didn't involve somebody else," he commented. 

"If there's a problem, if there's an issue, it's on us. There's no guessing. There's no, 'oh, well somebody else updated something and now our thing doesn't work and we have to wait to fix it.' It's our game, it's our problem, and we can talk to you directly."