It is no great secret that when Fallout 76 launched last fall, things didn’t go exactly the way Bethesda had hoped. While that may be an excellent story for another day, here we are half a year later, and with all the fixes, improvements, and added content since launch, a lot of players who left the game shortly after release are coming back. And, what seems to be the popular opinion of players giving Fallout 76 a second chance is that it feels like a whole new game, and they’re generally enjoying it. Is it perfect? Well, have you ever played a complex online multiplayer game that was? I sure haven’t, and there are certainly blemishes still in the game. Is it making great leaps and bounds with bug fixes, quality of life improvements, and loads of new content that appeals to a wide variety of players? Absolutely. And we’re only in the very beginning of their ambitious roadmap for 2019.
In late February, Bethesda began to open up with the community about their plans for the rest of the year, and laid out a three-phase roadmap, starting with Wild Appalachia in the Spring, Nuclear Winter in the Summer, and finishing 2019 with Wastelanders in the Fall. Since then, they’ve given a bit more information about the subsequent phases, but right now we’re in the innards of Wild Appalachia.
With Wild Appalachia releasing first, they also gave a more detailed roadmap with some of the content we could expect to see, but they’ve also given us several new and unexpected surprises as well.
We’ve covered all of the prior content from Wild Appalachia elsewhere, so if you’re interested in what you might have missed, you can catch up. What has me, and many others most excited, is what’s to come.
Starting next Tuesday, May 7th, we’ll have player vending. While I’m sure there are going to be plenty of tweaks coming to the system in the future, as of Tuesday you’ll be able to mark items in your stash as being for sale. You select the price, and once you power up the vending machine, it puts a marker on the map with a brief description of your wares. Now aspiring salespeople don’t have to stop wandering the wastelands to hock their wares, or buy goods from others.
We’ll also have a legendary scrapping machine introduced, paving the way for the legendary vendor later this month. Essentially, legendaries drop like candy in Fallout 76, but often what we get doesn’t quite live up to our wildest dreams. Take a load of your unwanted legendaries to the scrapper, and you’ll get legendary scrip in return. The more stars on the items you scrap, the more scrip you get. So for now, even without the vendor here, that’ll free up a lot of stash space for us hoarders. Once the legendary vendor arrives, currently slotted for May 23rd, we’ll be able to turn in our scrip for better legendaries.
While we don’t know exactly how this will work, it’s certainly better than nothing. And, just like most of the other systems in the game, if players have ideas of how to improve the system (without entirely breaking the loot grind), it can always be adjusted.
Another new addition will be quests and events related to the Pioneer Scouts, who will somehow be passing on their survival knowledge, but perhaps more importantly, fancy backpacks! Sure, you’ll be able to unlock cool new things for your C.A.M.P., and probably some apparel also, but did we mention the backpacks? Again, we don’t know everything yet, but they inherently increase your carry weight, and there are a variety of mods that can be learned to augment their functionality and appearance. Among the benefits of the various mods are even more carry capacity, increased damage resistance, or a refrigeration unit to help your perishables last a bit longer. And, a pleasant surprise for those of us who have at least one character who lives in power armor, you can still get all the backpack benefits while tromping around Appalachia.
So I mentioned some surprise content in the previously released updates for Fallout 76, but there’s one more huge thing we expect/hope to come before Wild Appalachia ends. See everything in that fantastic video above is a known quantity. Either it’s been released already, or it’s been described and dated, like the legendary vendor. Except for one thing. The underground raid. Some of the underground footage is of The Burrows, but most of it is of Arktos Pharma. Eagle-eyed fans picked up on some of the clues and called it, and then it was officially confirmed at Bethesda Game Days by Chris Mayer, the Development Director. Further, it’s noteworthy to mention that multiple panel members said it is one of the most amazing dungeons they’ve ever seen, and they can’t wait for us to be able to play it. They also said it’s pretty hard, which hopefully will be a significant contrast from The Burrows.
So raids are coming in the summer for sure, but Arktos Pharma should be coming sooner. If they can pull off challenging and rewarding raids, that will go a long way for a lot of us out here. There is so much to do in Fallout 76, but given that it’s an online multiplayer game, many of us will be focused on the very narrow raid/loot aspects of the game. I’m hoping Arktos Pharma is a good first step leading into the vault raids over the summer, and bigger and better down the road. Until then, we’ll be gearing up, and exploring the unexplored. Join us, won’t you?
