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Bethesda launched Wastelanders, the update all about NPCs and role-playing, for Fallout 76 in April. Now, the developer has released a roadmap for the rest of 2020 across two blog posts on its official site. There’s a lot of content coming, including a famous NPC faction from the Fallout franchise’s past.
The current “challenge” system in Fallout 76 is very simple: Players can complete tasks, like killing specific monsters or leveling up while wearing a certain piece of silly cosmetic gear, to earn Atom Points, which can then be spent on cosmetics and quality-of-life items in the Atomic Shop.
A new seasons system for Fallout 76 will overhaul that framework. Players will have a new currency called SCORE points that goes up when completing challenges. Players will advance across a retro-style board game with increasing SCORE points, which grants them rewards. It seems like an improvement over the current system, especially since Bethesda says that “Challenges will be less complicated and easier to complete, typically involving activities players would complete by playing Fallout 76 as they normally would.”
This is essentially a battle pass system, which is popular in other games as a service like Red Dead Online and Fortnite.
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In the fall, the One Wasteland for All event will begin, which will rebalance enemies and levels. This will mean that players won’t leave the Vault, take a wrong turn, and walk into enormous, over-leveled enemies. Higher level Vault Dwellers will also have more of a consistent challenge, no matter where they are on the map.
In the winter, the Brotherhood of Steel will return in Fractured Steel. This will be a Wastelanders-style expansion pack that adds a new faction, quests, and NPCs to deal with. The Brotherhood of Steel have been present in every Fallout game to date; in the early days of Fallout 76, players could discover that they had entered the region, but had all died in the attempt to stop the Scorched.
Starting today, Fallout 76 will be playable for free on PlayStation 4, Windows PC, and Xbox One until May 18, although it will require a PlayStation Plus or Xbox Live Gold membership to play on consoles. All progress earned in the free trial will carry over to the full game if purchased.