Fallout 76 post-launch roadmap: new quests this spring, raids this summer

Fallout 76’s new mode, Survival, arrives in March along with new missions, new items and more features. Bethesda Game Studios shared all the details today in a six-month development roadmap for the game, which will bring high-level raids this summer and an even larger update in the fall.

Developers have three quarterly updates planned — March 12’s Wild Appalachia (whose name and some other details had been announced earlier); the summer’s Nuclear Winter; and then Wastelanders in the fall.

Nuclear Winter will at last introduce Vault Raids, cracking open Vaults 96 and 94 with them. 96 and 94 have been found by players in the Savage Divide region of the game, but their entrances are sealed and inaccessible. (The sealed vault someone recently clipped into by mistake is Vault 63; it was not mentioned in the developer’s note.)

Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks

New quests coming in Wild Appalachia will center around the game’s cryptids (Mothman, the Flatwoods Monster, et al.) and the Pioneer Scouts, who so far have only been alluded to in a location and some items left behind. The Scouts’ missions will deliver “a customizable backpack for increased utility,” Bethesda said.

Other features will allow players to build vending machines at their CAMP and set items for sale to other players there. Brewing and distilling will be added to the suite of crafting options, along with a more functional camera and a limited-time event centered around the Fasnacht celebration in Helvetia.

“Thank you for sticking with us as we figure this online experience out together, and we do mean ‘together,’” developers wrote in a note to players today. “We know the game had a difficult launch, and we’ve made mistakes along the way. We share in your frustrations when we do.

“Know that we’re fully dedicated to making this game the best it can be — and even more so, a platform for endless Fallout adventures for years to come,” they added.

Here are the highlights of what BGS has planned for Fallout 76:

Wild Appalachia

• Brewing and distilling (March 12) will be introduced with a new quest, and will offer new appliances for the CAMP and new recipes, including, ahem, “Nukashine.”
• Fasnacht Parade (March 19): This draws on the celebration of Fasnacht (somewhat like Mardi Gras) celebrated by the Swiss descendants of Helvetia, West Virginia.
• Survival (March 26): More on that is here.
• Player vending (April 9) and the new Camera (April 16).
• The cryptids quests are a series called Shear Terror! (arriving April 9) and the Pioneer Scouts quests are a series called Ever Upwards (May 7). The scouts missions will offer merit badges for completion.
• The Purveyor (May 23). This is a vendor where players may exchange and scrap legendary items. Every star rating on a legendary item for scrap increases the player’s chance to get higher quality legendary gear.

Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks

Nuclear Winter

• A new mode of play, also called Nuclear Winter, is coming, “completely changing the rules of the Wasteland.”
• Vault 94 and 96 raids, billed as “for our most seasoned players.”
• Legendary Players: A prestige system letting highly advanced players reset their characters and gain new, more powerful abilities.

Wastelanders

• “Our biggest and most ambitious update for 76,” says Bethesda, “will include a new main questline, new factions, new events, new features and even more surprises.”

Fallout 76 launched in mid-November and has since been bothered by issues of balance, continuity, stability, and exploits. Developers seemed to make headway on one of the game’s longest running problems when they purged Fallout 76 of most of the high-level items some players had duplicated through an exploit.

“Your voices push us to do better and your support has meant everything to us,” Bethesda said today. “We’ll do our best to earn it.”