First, Fallout 76 Season 4 will kick off, bringing Armor Ace back to a new Cold Steel game board, where he’ll team up with other Power Patrol teammates. A new season also means new content, including Power Armor skins, weapon skins, workshop items, and consumable rewards. “My personal favorites from the upcoming Season are the Commander Chaos Power Armor skin and the Breath of Death flamethrower skin,” says Tucker. Take notes.

Since you may want to horde all the new goodies, it’s a good thing Locked & Loaded is giving players an extra CAMP slot. You’ll be able to set up a new base of operations, hangout space, or whatever kinda vibe you’re looking for that’s totally separate from your original CAMP. “No one needs to worry about how they get an extra slot. Everyone will get an additional C.A.M.P. slot when the Update goes live, for a total of two C.A.M.P.s!” says Tucker.

Fallout 76 will also be getting a feature players have been asking for since the game launched: SPECIAL loadouts. These will let players save their preferred Perks and SPECIAL stat allocation so they can easily choose the right character build for activities and challenges. “Initially, we looked at making just Perk loadouts but the more we played with that design, the more we realized it fell short on providing players with the ability to truly change builds. So, we expanded the design to also allow players to not only change their Perks, but also their SPECIAL points – this allows players to not only change the things they are good at (Perks), but also the ‘DNA’ of who their character is (SPECIAL stats), which directly influences what they are good at,” explains Tucker. 

The Locked & Loaded update will also include several new locations and mutators in the Daily Ops rotation, including Vault 96, the Watoga Raider Area, and West Tek Research Center. There’s also a new Daily Ops game mode called Decryption, which will task you with facing off against enemies buffed with the Savage Strike mutation. “Decryption encourages players to take out enemies before they can attack you,” explains Tucker. “Basically, it embraces sneak builds and stealthy play styles. If you are more of a ‘run and gun’-type player, you might find this mode a bit more challenging.”

This is just the first of several updates coming in the Fallout 76 2021 roadmap, which will also include a new Legendary tier and an evolution to Private Worlds. 

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Yesterday, during a roundtable discussion between Xbox and Bethesda, Todd Howard said: “When [Fallout 76] launched, the litany of issues we had, and we let a lot of people down, and, well, there was very little we didn’t screw up honestly,” 

It’s a brutal but fair reflection on a game that many felt ultimately missed the mark on understanding what made Fallout so good: a lived-in world and meaningful characters and quests, all of which Fallout 76 was missing at launch nearly three years ago.

Now though, Howard feels as though Bethesda’s acquisition by Xbox will help the former’s game be better-tested before launching. In fact, Howard even implied that had Fallout 76 launched on Xbox Game Pass, the game’s earlier months would have ultimately been easier to weather. Howard even claimed that Fallout 76 is one of the most played games on Xbox Game Pass to date, an impressive feat considering the games on offer.

Fallout 76 is now available on Xbox Game Pass, having been added to the subscription service back in July 2020. Yesterday, during the Bethesda and Xbox roundtable discussion what the acquisition of the former by the latter would entail for both parties, it was revealed that 20 Bethesda games would be arriving on Xbox Game Pass immediately.

There’s now the likes of Dishonored, Wolfenstein: The New Order, The Evil Within, Fallout 4, and many more Bethesda games available on Xbox’s streaming service. During the roundtable, Xbox boss Phil Spencer hinted at future Bethesda games being available on Xbox Game Pass on day one, and even made comments about future Bethesda games being exclusive to Xbox platforms.

As for Fallout 76, there’s a general consensus among players that Bethesda has largely turned things around since the disastrous launch in 2018. A whole host of additions over the last three years have really gone a long way to breathing life into the game, including NPCs, quests, factions, and multiple expansions, like the most recent Steel Dawn expansion, which introduced the famed Brotherhood of Steel to Fallout 76’s Appalachia.

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Bombs Drop Day is the day in the Fallout-verse that the catastrophic thermonuclear war began and the familiar post-apocalyptic setting was created. The actual day is October 23, but Bethesda sees it fit to host a full week of celebrations on all platforms.

The free week includes the base game, Nuclear Winter mode, this year’s massive Fallout 76 Wastelanders expansion, and the recent One Wasteland update, which adjusted enemy levels, stats, and XP to correlate with your character’s level. Essentially, you get the best and most current Fallout 76 client free of charge for a full week. Though, it should be noted that Xbox players will need an Xbox Live Gold membership to take advantage of the deal.

The Fallout 1st free trial is also a huge value. The membership, which is usually $100 a year, hooks players up with a range of premium features – it’s enough of an advantage that it ignited a civil war between subscribers and non-subscribers last year. The trial version doesn’t include every one of those benefits, but you will have access to the Scrapbox and Survival Tent. Just log in during the free week and snag the preview item from the Atomic Shop and your Fallout 1st free trial begins.

As is typically the case with free trials, the full Fallout 76 game is being discounted for a limited time. And if you do decide to pick it up, your progress from the free version carries over. Until October 27, here are the Fallout 76 sales you can take advantage of:

• Fallout 76 – 60% off base price
• Fallout 76 Wastelanders Deluxe Edition – 50% off base price
• Fallout 76 Raiders and Settlers Content Bundle– 40% off base price (discount excluding PlayStation Store)
• Fallout 76 Raiders Content Bundle – 40% off base price (discount excluding PlayStation Store)
• Fallout 76 Settlers Content Bundle – 40% off base price (discount excluding PlayStation Store)

From now until October 26, Bethesda is also hosting the first ever Atom Pack sale. These are the discounts:

• 500 Atoms – 20% off base price
• 1000 Atoms (+100 bonus Atoms) – 25% off base price
• 2000 Atoms (+400 bonus Atoms) – 30% off base price
• 4000 Atoms (+1000 bonus Atoms) – 35% off base price

With a bunch of new players wandering around the Wasteland for the free trial, Bethesda is hosting a few in-game events, which run from October 22 to 26. Those include Double SCORE, Double XP, and 25% off Legendary weapons and armor from Purveyor Murmrgh at the Rusty Pick.

If you are thinking of checking it out for the first time, don’t miss our essential Fallout 76 tips.

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• Fallout 76’s online world is the perfect way to explore its prequel setting and tell a fresh story (opens in new tab)

Do you have to play with other players in Fallout 76?

Short answer no. There’s nothing for the majority of the game that will stop you shunning all human contact. None of the core missions require you play with anyone, and as long as you’re a high enough level you should be able to manage most threats. Later game, as you journey to higher level areas, you might want to take some time to grind if you’re going solo, but for the most part you can work though the quests you find unbothered. If you do come across another survivor, just walk away: as long as you don’t attack them or interact with them there’s little they can really do apart from get in your eyeline. 

You’ll basically have to opt in if you want human contact. Mainly through joining public events when they appear on the map. Even these can be soloed but by their nature you’re more likely to meet people. Then there are the nuclear blasts that create high level areas. If you go to one of these there will be people everywhere trying to score high level loot. Again, you don’t have to talk to anyone but you’ll all basically be fighting together and with high level creatures rampaging, you won’t survive long in isolation. 

Do you have to talk to other players? 

No. As long as you leave people alone, it’s safe to assume they’ll stay away from you. The map is big enough for you to be able to avoid other players, plus you can always see other players’ location on the map so you can plan where to go next to get the most peace and quiet possible. The only thing I’ve heard so far from another player was the sound of someone munching crisps. I, on the other hand, found myself unintentionally talking out loud to players before shutting the hell up when I realised my mic was on.

Will other Fallout 76 players kill me for fun?

They can try but – and this is a big but – PvP is only initiated if you fight back. Do nothing and the damage they can do to you is so minor as to be meaningless. Just walk away and they’ll get board after a while. When two players exchange any direct damage (mainly shooting and melee) you’ll enter a PvP state with real damage and be able to fight to the death. Players, who instigate attacks and succeed, will be branded a murder on the map with an open bounty any other player can collect. So things are really weighed against causing trouble. 

Can I block players or opt out of PvP?

Yup. Blocking players won’t remove them from that play session unless you log out, though. Instead it prevents them from hearing your voice chat and vice versa, and automatically refuses any trade or team invitations they might send you. You can opt out of PvP by enabling Pacifist Mode, but that doesn’t prevent anyone from hurting you. Pacifist Mode means you can’t hurt anyone, so if someone starts to attack you they are guaranteed to always deal reduced damage and be branded as Wanted if they un-alive you. 

Is there enough story to keep me busy if I play alone?

Yep. As we said, pretty much all the game can be soloed. However, it’s worth pointing out that when you get further on in the main quest and find yourself exploring Cranberry Bog you really need to over-level and ensure you’re at a minimum of level 50. Otherwise you’re going to be a bright red squish on the ground in five seconds flat. As a rule, it’s always wise to tackle main quests later after you’ve got side quests out of the way, as you’re going to want to be as a high a level as possible to take on the tasks Fallout 76 is going to be throwing your way. 

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GamesRadar (opens in new tab) reported recently that some Fallout 76 players were griefing Fallout 1st (opens in new tab) subscribers for their gall in supporting the service. One founder of the aristocracy called VectorZarak told Polygon (opens in new tab) that as verbal attacks on Bethesda began to spread to subscribers, he first tried to ease the tension with in-game memes about the supposed class war, which helped to form a satirical culture around the divide.

And then what started as a joke quickly turned into a small organization on the defensive about their choice to enjoy, and thereby support financially, a system that most of the internet vocally abhorred. VectorZarak says the first couple of days attracted roughly 100 members, and at the time of this writing 359 Facebook (opens in new tab) users have grouped together for the cause. There’s also an invite-only Reddit (opens in new tab) group for the Aristocracy. 

“There was a real change in the dynamic as people flooded in. The anti-subscription players had become very toxic, so much so that players could not even discuss the private servers or the bonuses that came with them without being insulted or yelled at. What started as a joke quickly turned into a safe haven, where players who had subscribed could openly discuss Fallout 1st topics without being attacked,” VectorZarak told Polygon.

Naturally, the spirit and behavior projected by the group is a spectrum. VectorZarak says they’re satirizing elitism and standing boldface up to community backlash. Others choose to stir the pot by stubbornly referring to non-subscribers as “peasants” and doubling down for the sake of “getting under someone’s skin.”

If Fallout 76 didn’t host a civil war before, the existence of the Apocalyptic Aristocracy proves it’s inching ever closer to one. If only Bethesda could’ve known what waves the ripples of controversy following Fallout 1st would make.

Class war or not, don’t miss out on the best Black Friday game deals (opens in new tab) for 2019.

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Multiple (opens in new tab) Reddit (opens in new tab) posts (opens in new tab) regarding the Scrapbox have cropped up in the past 24 hours, and they’re filled with comments corroborating the problem. These players all describe a similar issue: you can store and withdraw Scrap just fine, but when you log out or change worlds, Scrap stored in the bottomless Scrapbox just up and vanishes. It’s unclear if this Scrap has actually been deleted or, if so, if it will be returned to affected players. 

The Scrapbox isn’t the only reported issue with Fallout 1st, either. Players (opens in new tab) also (opens in new tab) say (opens in new tab) that Fallout 76’s new private worlds – by and large the headlining feature of Fallout 1st – aren’t as private as they seemed. Players have found that brand-new private worlds sometimes contain dead NPCs and may be missing items and enemies that spawn naturally, which suggests that private worlds are actually private sessions of existing servers which have already been affected by players. Playing solo has also proven to be a challenge for some players, as several have reported that anyone can join a private world without an invitation as long as they’re on the host’s friends list.

These reports are isolated, at least for now, but given Fallout 76’s history, it wouldn’t be strange for it to launch new features with game-breaking bugs. Given the uproar around the very existence of Fallout 1st, let alone the price, the timing and nature of these bugs is unfortunate, to say the very least. We’ve reached out to Bethesda for more details on these bugs and potential solutions, and will update this story if we hear back. 

The release of Fallout 1st comes less than a week after the delay of the Wastelanders NPC expansion (opens in new tab), which is now scheduled to arrive early next year.  

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Along with a PTS and perk loadouts, Fallout 76 plans to roll out multi-factor authentication for increased account security, a legendary system, fixes to the social menu that should address the issue with sending and accepting friend invites, and various public event improvements including cooldown adjustments and performance-based loot. Bethesda (opens in new tab) says they’re “hoping” to get the PTS running by 2020 and perk loadouts are being planned for early 2020. The legendary system has been pushed back to Q1 2020.

Bethesda says they’re keeping a close eye on feedback from the Fallout 76 community via Reddit communities, social media, and official forums. Among other updates, the studio says they’re looking into, but not yet committing to, adding PC text chat and the ability to rejoin a server after being kicked or dropped.

The announcement also reveals that new details about the Wastelanders update are coming closer to launch. We don’t yet know exactly when the supposedly massive Wastelanders add-on will drop, but Bethesda says it will “fundamentally change the way you experience Fallout 76.”

Don’t forget to check out our list of the 25 best open world games (opens in new tab) to make you forget our world exists. 

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Project lead Jeff Gardiner said the Vault 94 raid is “very puzzle based,” but you can bet there’ll be plenty of bad guys to shoot too. Like the raids in Destiny and The Division 2, Fallout 76 raids will feature multiple difficulty levels. Playing on higher difficulties will add a timer to the raid and improve the loot you receive. It sounds like there are multiple encounters to the raid, with each encounter rewarding a bit of loot and the final fight rewarding the most. 

Bethesda didn’t share everything the raid will dish out, but Gardiner did confirm a set of “potted plant” Power Armor, which is basically a stealthy Power Armor ghillie suit. This set of Power Armor will also provide a set bonus once you equip all of the pieces. Today’s looter shooters are slowly getting more and more comfortable with Diablo 3 and MMO-style armor set bonuses, and it’s encouraging to see Fallout 76 get on board. 

The Vault 94 raid was designed with four players in mind, but it will be available to smaller parties. Gardiner said it’s even possible to solo the raid, but that it will be extremely difficult. Extreme difficulty never stopped Destiny players from soloing raids and raid bosses, even ones thought to be impossible to handle alone, so I’ve little doubt that solo raiding will garner its own competitive scene in Fallout 76. 

Bethesda also showed off Doom Eternal’s Battlemode multiplayer mode (opens in new tab)  at QuakeCon, giving us our first look at its playable demons, power-ups, and more. 

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“Survival Mode is a more competitive and dangerous new game mode for Fallout 76, and contains a number of changes from Adventure Mode that you may want to be aware of before you dive in,” Bethesda said in the patch notes (opens in new tab). “However, it’s also important to note that you can still complete quests and events, level-up, loot, and explore Appalachia in Survival Mode just as you can in Adventure Mode.” 

If you attack another player in Survival Mode, you’ll deal full damage to them from the start. The “slap damage” system present in Adventure Mode, which would protect your target from damage until they return fire, is disabled. Damage is somewhat normalized to prevent high-level players from steamrolling noobs, and to reduce one-shot kills, but the fact remains that in Survival Mode you can attack anyone at any time and deal normal damage.

If you kill someone in Survival Mode, you’ll receive a “random amount” of aid items from their inventory and all of their junk. Cap rewards for killing other players are also doubled, meaning you’ll lose double Caps when you die. If you are killed, you won’t be able to directly seek revenge like you can in Adventure Mode, but you can spend more Caps (at least 200) to put a bounty on your killer which marks them on the map. Which reminds me: players will not appear on the map unless they have a bounty on them or they’re in the top three on the “Longest Life” scoreboard. Other scoreboards include Player Kills, XP Gained, Enemies Killed, and Time Wanted. 

Survival Mode is unabashedly cutthroat, but it will reward you for braving its lawless frontier. All experience gains are increased by 20% for starters, and accomplished player killers stand to make a lot of money in Caps and supplies. If you’re planning to give the mode a try, think carefully about whether you want to make a new character for it. As Bethesda previously warned, “all your progress from Adventure mode will travel with you, and anything that affects your character in one game mode will also affect them in the other,” and that includes death penalties. 

Not interested in PvP or Survival Mode? Well, Adventure Mode hasn’t changed. It’s still the same old Fallout 76. In fact, PvP is now even less of a factor in Adventure Mode. Previously, when rogue players attacked you in Adventure Mode, you’d take slap damage even if you didn’t return fire. As of update 7.5, slap damage has been reduced to zero, so as long as you don’t shoot back, you shouldn’t have to worry about player killers or griefers – at least out in the world. Fights over workshops will still feature full damage. 

Here are some Fallout 76 single player tips (opens in new tab) for all the lone wolves out there.

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Bethesda says a mid-January update will bring fixes for reloading the Lever-Action Rifle, some new Perk Cards, and a desperate bid to stop the robot tenders of Whitespring from duplicating themselves. Pretty standard stuff, but the developer also casually mentions (opens in new tab) working on a new mode “where you can work together, or not, without PvP restrictions” it’s hoping to roll out sometime in the first quarter of 2019.

Fallout 76’s approach to player-versus-player combat is idiosyncratic. The game can only be played on randomly matchmade servers (unless you choose to manually jump into a friend’s game) and Bethesda curbed the online bloodbaths this entails in many other games with an impromptu duel system; players can attack one another freely, but the damage they inflict is a mere “slap” until their victim returns fire and begins open combat. Players can still kill one another with slap damage, at which point they’ll become a wanted criminal, or enable Pacifist Mode to avoid doing any damage to other players whatsoever. It’s kind of a lot.

Adding an open PvP mode to Fallout 76 would remove most if not all of those complications. It would give griefers even more firepower, sure, but at the same time it would also keep more bloodthirsty killers penned up together instead of slapping at folks who just want to loot buildings and get on with their lives. Bethesda says it’s currently testing the PvP mode internally, so hopefully it won’t be much longer until we learn more about it.

Fallout 76 has had a very rough start, but at least this latest news gives players more to look forward to than the potential arrival of loot boxes. (opens in new tab) 

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