The Fallout 76 B.E.T.A. (Short for Break-It Early Test Application) was a test-run of Fallout 76 that ran from October 23, 2018 to November 8, 2018.
Background[]
In the weeks leading up to the official launch of Fallout 76 on November 14, 2018, Bethesda Softworks ran multiple tests of the game's servers to gauge how efficiently the game would operate. The first of these was the aptly named "Stress Test" which was available to North American Xbox Insiders who had pre-ordered the game for a limited time of just a few hours on October 13, 2018. No achievements, savable progress, or substantial gains within the game were possible during this period, and anything achieved within the Stress Test was not carried over to the B.E.T.A.
On October 23, B.E.T.A. was released as a standalone application from the main Fallout 76 game. It was available only to Xbox players who had pre-ordered the game for the first week, but on October 30 access was granted to players who pre-ordered on PS4 and PC, and it would remain this way until the B.E.T.A. was discontinued before the game's official launch. The servers did not run 24/7, instead only being opened up for select time slots within the day. Contrary to the Stress Test, progress made in the B.E.T.A. did carry over to the full release of the game.
The Fallout 76 B.E.T.A. was discontinued in the week before the game fully released, and is no longer accessible to players.