I also asked the Fallout 76 team about cross-play and cross-progression—the ability to play with friends on different platforms (or to at least access the same character across platforms). These features are likely nontrivial to implement, and they weren’t standard in 2018. They’re increasingly expected for big-budget, AAA multiplayer games today, though.
Unfortunately, the Bethesda devs I spoke to didn’t have any plans to share on that front. Still, it’s good to hear that the company still supports this game enough to at least launch modern console versions—and to continue adding major content updates.
OK, we can talk about the TV show update now
Speaking of major content updates, Bethesda is planning a big release called Burning Springs this December. It marks the second significant map expansion. Whereas the first expanded from the game’s West Virginia locales southward into Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park, this one pushes the map farther west, into the state of Ohio.
Ohio is a dust bowl now, it seems, so Fallout 76 will see its first desert locale. That’s an intentional choice, as the launch of this expansion will be timed closely to the release of season two of the TV show, and the show will be set in Nevada (specifically, around New Vegas). It obviously wouldn’t make sense to expand the game’s map all the way out to the western US, so this gives the developers a way to add a little season two flavor to Fallout 76.
As I was leaving my home to go to Bethesda’s gameplay preview event for Burning Springs, my wife joked that they should add Walton Goggins to the game as the ultimate tie-in with the show. Funny enough, that’s exactly what they’ve done. Goggins’ character from the show, The Ghoul, can be found in the new Burning Springs region, and he voices the character. This game is a prequel to the show by many, many years, but fortunately, Ghouls don’t age.
