This morning's official reveal of Fallout 76 by Bethesda has led to many questions by the fanbase. The results, however, are much more different than they appear to be.
According to a report from journalist Jason Schreier on Kotaku, Fallout 76 will be "an online survival RPG that's heavily inspired by games like DayZ and Rust."
Schreier, citing three anonymous sources who have worked closely on the project, reported that the game is designed to be an experimental entry into the series.
The original plans for Fallout 76 were actually a multiplayer version of Fallout 4, with the goal of bringing the Fallout universe online. According to Schreier, the game will still contain a story and questlines, but will take cues from the base-building feature in Fallout 4 "and other survival-based and multiplayer mechanics."
The game will be based on Vault 76, which in the lore of the franchise it was a "control" vault that had no long-running experiments integrated into it, as per Fallout custom thus far. Due to this, Vault 76 was meant to be opened 20 years after the nuclear war. With this setup, one of the main objectives of Fallout 76 is for players to make their mark onto the world and literally rebuild things from the ground up a generation after the nuclear bombs fell. This will also provide one of the earliest looks at the Fallout universe, as previously the earliest game in the timeline (excluding Fallout 4's prologue) was Fallout 1 which was set 84 years after the great war.
The development team behind Fallout 76 includes not only Bethesda Game Studio' main office in Maryland but also the new Bethesda Austin studio. The Austin Studio, formerly known as BattleCry Studios, was officially acquired by Bethesda in March of this year. Bethesda Austin's only work for the company thus far has been post-release multiplayer content for id Software's Doom. Previously, they were working on an online hero combat game called BattleCry that was canceled by Bethesda in 2015, meaning they likely are bringing the online expertise to this project.
Very little official details have been revealed regarding Fallout 76, such as an official release date. However, an official fact sheet from the developer, that was incredibly sparse on any information included there that it will be coming to PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, which should put to bed any fears that it is a mobile game. Bethesda is promising more information at their E3 conference on June 10th.
What are your thoughts on this rumor? Do you like the idea of Fallout 76? Leave your comments below.
