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Fallout 76 is an upcoming online multiplayer action role-playing video game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is the ninth game in the Fallout series and serves as a narrative prequel to the series. It is scheduled to be released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on November 14, 2018.
Gameplay
Fallout 76 will be Bethesda Game Studios' first online multiplayer game. Players may play individually or with a party of up to three others. All the servers for the game will be dedicated, with the player automatically allocated to one of them. While the game is expected to launch with public servers only, game director Todd Howard revealed plans for private servers to be introduced some time after the game's launch.
These private servers will allow players to invite friends to play in order to prevent undesirable aspects of player versus player gameplay such as griefing from affecting an individual player's experience of the game.
Howard described the delay as being necessary to allow Bethesda time to assure the stability of public servers.Elements of previous Fallout games will be present and modified to work with the real-time game.
The V.A.T.S. system—a mechanic first introduced in Fallout 3 that allows players to pause the game to target specific locations on an enemy's body to attack—will be used in Fallout 76 as a real-time system, though it will still allow players to specify targets on an enemy's body.
The game will feature an open world four times the size of that of Fallout 4. The game world is called "Appalachia" and is a representation of West Virginia. It features recreations of real locations in the region, including the West Virginia State Capitol, The Greenbrier, Woodburn Circle, New River Gorge Bridge, and Camden Park.
The game will also feature numerous new mutated monsters, several of which—such as the Mothman and the Flatwoods monster—were inspired by West Virginian folklore.
Premise
Setting
Fallout 76 is a narrative prequel to previous Fallout games. It is set in an alternate version of history,and takes place in 2102, twenty-five years after a nuclear war that devastated the Earth. The player character is a resident of Vault 76, a fallout shelter that was built in West Virginia to house America's best and brightest minds. The player character exits the Vault on "Reclamation Day" as part of a plan to re-colonize the Wasteland.
Development
Fallout 76 uses a modified version of Bethesda's Creation Engine designed to accommodate multiplayer gameplay. Work on modifying the engine was carried out by Bethesda Game Studios Austin. The modified engine also allowed the development team to incorporate new lighting models, rendering processes and more accurate terrain mapping. These allowed the development team to create a world with sixteen times more detail than was possible with previous iterations of the Creation Engine. The game also includes a dynamic weather system that allows for localized climatic conditions and greater draw distances mean that these weather events can be observed by the player from far away.
Release
The game was announced on May 30, 2018; the announcement was preceded by a twenty-four hour live stream on Twitch showing a Vault Boy bobblehead toy in front of a monitor with a "Please Stand By" test pattern screen, a signature image of the series. This stream was watched by a total of over two million people, with more than one hundred thousand people watching at any time.
Details of the game were announced by Howard during Bethesda's press conference at the Electronic Entertainment Expo on June 10, 2018, including its anticipated release date of November 14, 2018. As it is Bethesda Game Studio's first experience with a fully online game, Howard confirmed that there will be an open beta phase, beginning on October 23, 2018 for Xbox One, and October 30, 2018 for PlayStation 4 and PC.
Reception
In response to the announcement that the game would only feature multiplayer, a petition was created by fans of the series which called for the game to include a single-player mode. The petition received thousands of signatures within a day.
Following the announcement of Fallout 76, there was a burst of interest in tourism in West Virginia. The website "West Virginia Explorer" reported an increase of fifteen times the visitors to the site in the days after the announcement, while management of the Camden Park amusement park said there was an increase in people looking to purchase park merchandise.
The teaser trailer shown at the Electronic Entertainment Expo featured a cover version of John Denver's song "Take Me Home, Country Roads". Fans of the series expressed interest in the song, prompting Bethesda to announce plans to release the song on digital musical services, with all proceeds from it being donated to Habitat for Humanity, assuring a minimum US$100,000 donation.
