Tracking the real-world locations of Fallout 76 hints at a massive game

Fallout 76 is a huge game — four times bigger than Fallout 4, according to Bethesda. The game takes place in West Virginia, and act as a prequel for the entire series. There’s apparently a reason so much of the imagery from the trailer shown during Microsoft’s press conference echoed the original Fallout game.

A Reddit user went through the trailer and mapped the locations in the game to the real-world equivalents on an actual map of West Virginia, and yeah. This looks like a massive game.

TheSajuukKhar/Reddit

While Fallout 76’s locations jump around the entire state, it’s unlikely that West Virginia is being mapped on a one-to-one basis. Other Reddit users have tried to figure out the scale of Fallout games in the past, with one player estimating Fallout 4 to measure 3.82 square miles. That would mean Fallout 76 is about 15.28 square miles in size.

The state is actually 24,038 square miles in real life, which would be ... challenging for a game to match. But those who know West Virginia are likely to see landmarks they recognize when playing the game.

We’ve already written about the Greenbrier, the actual nuclear fallout shelter for Congress in West Virginia that was outed by the Washington Post in 1992.

“The purpose of the facility was to function as the seat of power for the American legislative branch in the event of nuclear war,” our own Charlie Hall wrote. “According to the official website, the 112,544-square-foot bunker is situated some 70 feet below the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. It features a 25-ton blast door and a decontamination chamber. Situated a modest four-hour drive away from Washington, D.C., the facility was built to house both the Senate and the House of Representatives, as well as a full complement of aides.”

Nuclear war, my friends. It’s not a fun subject.