Besides, post-war Chicago was only mentioned again in Fallout: New Vegas through a potential ED-E companion. We learn that ED-E was a robot sent to Navarro, California, where the Enclave was located during Fallout 2. The ED-E was to be repaired at the Enclave outpost in Chicago before moving west.
- Fallout 76 Release Date and Time, How Big is the Fallout 76 Map? – Everything We Know
- Is Fallout 76 On Steam?
- New River Gorge
- The Greenbrier
- Players Can Launch Nukes
- There Are No NPCs
- Platforms
- Possible Location and Setting
- New Orleans
- Chicago
- Alaska
- Somewhere Else?
- New York
- Chicago
- When the Different Fallout Games Take Place
- Is Fallout 5 Likely to Follow Fallout 76?
- How to download Fallout 76 for free
- Are there any restrictions to the Fallout 76 free weekend?
Fallout 76 Release Date and Time, How Big is the Fallout 76 Map? – Everything We Know
Here’s all the information you need about Fallout 76, including the release date, gameplay, trailer, nuclear weapons and more.
A guide by Jake Green, the guide’s editor
Updated June 27, 2019
Fallout 76 will be released at the end of 2018 and it seems that it will extend the famous Fallout universe in a new, large way. In this Fallout 76 guide, we walk you through everything we know so far about Bethesda’s upcoming online game, including the final release date of Fallout 76, all of the Fallout 76 gameplay features we’ve seen so far, and other keys details about the upcoming game.
Is Fallout 76 On Steam?
Now that Fallout 76 is available, you may be wondering where you can pick it up. If you’re a PC gamer, your first port will likely be Steam, but unfortunately Fallout 76 won’t be there. Instead, Fallout 76 is only available on Bethesda.net. You’ll need to install Bethesda’s own launcher to play it, and the company avoids Steam altogether.
All of this was in line with what we saw in the trailer, with the Treasury decorated for a “reclamation day”, referring to the day the treasury was reopened 20 years after the war. This would make Fallout 76 the earliest Fallout game we’ve seen, set 185 years before Fallout 4 and 59 years before the first Fallout game.
New River Gorge
This iconic bridge is hard to go wrong with anything else. While there may be many similar bridges in the coal country, I’m pretty sure they were inspired by the most popular in the state. We wrote about hiking, biking, and fishing in the New River Gorge, but never survived there during the apocalypse. It will be interesting to see how the developers have incorporated the surrounding mountains, wilderness and of course the New River into the game.
The Greenbrier
Ironically, Greenbrier sits above a Fallout-style bunker. Built in the 1970s by the US Congress, the facility was decommissioned after the Washington Post unveiled its cover in 1992. Now Greenbrier is an upscale resort located in Sulfur Springs, West Virginia. It is a popular attraction, hosting many important sporting events such as golf and tennis championships.
It’s brand new Appalachia. 🌄 From Thursday – May 14 to May 18, explore all that #Wastelanders has to offer during the # Fallout76 Free Weekend pic.twitter.com/O9IGSysB7K – Fallout (@Fallout) May 13, 2020
Players Can Launch Nukes
Earlier Fallout games generally avoided providing players with weapons of mass destruction. While mini nuklets are the staple of the series, in practice they aren’t much more devastating than a large hand grenade. If players wanted to do real damage to a settlement, the best they could do was walk around the area and annihilate all its inhabitants (unless bombing the city was part of the mission).
This changes in Fallout 76 as players can finally get the cheats for firing nuclear weapons. Bethesda director Todd Howard explained that players can use nuclear missiles to attack other players and destroy their settlements. Launching an atomic bomb will not only wipe out everyone in the target area, but also change the face of the map and spawn new irradiated creatures.
There Are No NPCs
Photo: Bethesda
Vault 76 is the first to open after nuclear devastation, so when you venture into the wastelands no one is waiting for you. Other players are in a similar situation, but the Wasteland is completely devoid of (unplayable) human life.
This means that the missions have changed taking into account the NPCs traditionally assigned to them. The 76 items found in the environment drive missions, not other characters. Live events that require the cooperation of multiple players sometimes also take place in random locations on the map.
So where next? Each Fallout game has a specific location, so in the next title we have to move to a different location, right?
Platforms
We’d expect Fallout 5 to launch on Xbox Series X and PC. With Microsoft’s acquisition of Bethesda, there’s no question that the next game will be released elsewhere. Phil Spencer said Bethesda will operate “semi-independently.” Not all games will be exclusive and will be decided individually.
Does that mean it’s coming to PlayStation 5? It’s hard to say at the moment, after all, Fallout 76 is still supported on PlayStation consoles. But we realistically imagine Xbox will want to release the game exclusively on Xbox platforms.
Possible Location and Setting
The setting and location of Fallout 5 are of course unknown, but all previous titles have appeared in the US; so we can expect it to be the same again.
Fallout 3 was in Washington before moving north to Boston in Fallout 4. Fallout 76 saw players moved back south to West Virginia. All the newer games seemed to be set on the east coast, only Fallout New Vegas and the original Fallout 2 were set in the west.
So where are we going next? Smart money remains in the east of the United States. But there are a few locations that are more likely than others.
New Orleans
In 2016, a trademark application was filed for the property “Fallout New Orleans”. We visited noon earlier, including the “Point Lookout” and “Far Harbor” DLCs in Fallout 4 in Fallout 3, so it’s not unbelievable.
Chicago
Chicago is featured in Fallout Tactics, a real-time turn-based tactical RPG. In New Vegas, ED-E points to the Chicago Enclave, which means we may have unfinished business there.
Alaska
Maybe the new Fallout will go back in time? Back to 2077? It’s a place and time we’ve visited before, namely Operation Anchorage (the first DLC in Fallout 3).
Somewhere Else?
Can we go elsewhere? Is it finally time to cross the seas? Perhaps we will go to China or Russia to see history from a different perspective. Europe will undoubtedly be a popular place to visit.
Maybe the new Fallout will go back in time? Back to 2077? It’s a place and time we’ve visited before, namely Operation Anchorage (the first DLC in Fallout 3).
New York
First, I will get rid of my homer, especially after sharing the image above. There is definitely enthusiasm around the New York City game Fallout. Although New York City has been seen in post-apocalyptic form many times in dozens of media forms and even in other games like Tom Clancy’s The Division, the Fallout series can provide a unique take on its theme and mechanics.
I want to point out that in the Fallout community there is some myth, an urban legend, the Mandella Effect or all of the above in relation to New York City. Many people think that New York is just a nuclear strike crater in the Fallout universe, but this is completely unfounded and false. There is no evidence in tradition to support this claim, and I have no idea where it came from.
Fallout New York, however, has great potential. It sits in a central location between the two most recent Bethesda entries in the main series – Fallout 3 and Fallout 4, allowing them to set the game in between, and maybe even right after two games. This would allow the transfer of characters, but more importantly, factions from the previous two games – namely the East Coast Steel Brotherhood.
One of the most famous and famous features of New York are the subway stations. Fallout 3 had tons of such stations and tunnels, which allowed the player to travel great distances under the city. In the New York depiction of Fallout, the game’s developers can reuse this idea on a larger scale, harnessing the power of the current consoles we mean to allow players to navigate the New York City subway system. (Probably filled with Rad-Rats)
Speaking of harnessing the power of consoles such as the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, New York City may actually be represented as opposed to Boston in Fallout 4. Infamous that players had large frame drops as they entered downtown Boston in Fallout 4. In Series X However, thanks to FPS Boost, Fallout 4 works flawlessly in downtown Boston. I’d love to see Fallout where we can roam the big city without any performance issues. The New York game on this set of consoles is an absolute bargain.
However, is there any confidence in the Fallout game from New York?
New York is mentioned many times in the 3D Fallout era, but all references to it refer to the city before the nuclear war, never after the war. Maybe this is where the myth of “New York is a crater?
There is ample evidence of New York City’s Fallout in the form of the Bethesda Game Studios story movie. Lead designer and lead screenwriter Emil Pagliarulo, who worked on Fallout 3 and Fallout 4, talked about the possibility of setting a new series in New York. During the early planning of Fallout 4, New York City was a possible location for the game and even a physical design document was drawn up for it. However, developers later chose Boston, shelving the idea from New York.
Maybe I’m a Homer as a native New Yorker, but the return to this idea saw potential on next-gen consoles. While Boston barely ran on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One at times, the use of more powerful consoles to set up in New York seems to fit.
Chicago
The Windy City plays a role in the non-canonical Fallout Tactic, in which a Brotherhood of Steel chapter reappears in the region after their aircraft crashes near the city ruins. This image of the Brotherhood of Steel differs significantly from any other depiction in the series, which is largely the reason it has been decanonized since then.
Some of this, however, is still canon. As mentioned in Fallout 4 Lancer-Captain of the Brotherhood of Kells, there was still a Brotherhood aircraft that crashed near Chicago and formed its own detachment, cutting itself off from the rest of the Brotherhood of Steel. However, none of the actions that the chapter took in Fallout Tactics is mentioned, and instead only its very existence remains.
Besides, post-war Chicago was only mentioned again in Fallout: New Vegas through a potential ED-E companion. We learn that ED-E was a robot shipped to Navarro, California, where the Enclave was located during Fallout 2. ED-E was to be repaired at the Enclave facility in Chicago before moving west.
Even with these flakes of information, they are great beginnings for something bigger!
Since both the Enclave and Brotherhood of Steel are canonically present in the region, it is just ripe for a story based on their re-contradictions. Not to mention how interesting the city of Chicago can be, with its many sights. The main Fallout game has never been set in the Midwest before, so Chicago would be the perfect opportunity. If the next Fallout doesn’t want to go full concrete jungle with its downtown New York City, Chicago will be your next best choice.
It’s possible that Bethesda is trying to incorporate some social features into the game, but on the other hand, they probably want to keep it separate enough not to feel like a true sequel to Fallout 76’s most multiplayer game.
When the Different Fallout Games Take Place
The Fallout series timeline is long and complex. The Great War, the result of which is the action of the franchise, begins in 2077. (Coincidentally, the same year that the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 CD Projekt Red takes place!) After this event, Fallout 76 is the first game to appear after the apocalyptic timeline . Players emerge from Vault 76 on Reclamation Day in 2102, twenty-five years after the start of the Great War. The next game on the timeline is the original Fallout; players set off from Vault 13 of this game in the year 2161. Fallout is followed by a 36-year hiatus before Fallout Tactics begins.
At this point, all games are played in chronological order. Fallout Tactics takes place in 2197 and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel in 2208. Fallout 2 begins in 2240 and ends the original series by Interplay Entertainment. When Bethesda took over the Fallout franchise, they decided to set up Fallout 3 many years later, in 2277. Since then, games have generally been held much closer together. Fallout: New Vegas takes place in 2281 and Fallout 4 in 2287. Consequently, Bethesda seemed to be more interested in only the small leaps in time than in the large leaps made by Interplay. However, it was a trend that was held back by Fallout 76, which went back almost 200 years in time to 2102.
Is Fallout 5 Likely to Follow Fallout 76?
An important fact to keep in mind when looking ahead to Fallout 5 is that Fallout 76 is considered a spin-off. When the game was first announced, Todd Howard made it clear that the decision not to call it “Fallout 5” was an indication that it was a spin-off and that the next base game would be Fallout 5. Moreover, he stated that Fallout 5 would be a more traditional single player title. (Not to mention the repeated claims that the multiplayer aspects will not change the direction of the brand.) Of course, there could be a chance Fallout 76 would have its own spin-off sequels if its format proved popular. However, it now seems rather unlikely.
So, considering that so many aspects of Fallout 76 seem both unique to it and intentionally different to set itself apart from the rest of the series; Fallout 5 seems unlikely to take place nearby. Indeed, the decision to set Fallout 76 this far from the rest of the series may have been a deliberate way to make sure the game doesn’t have any major canonical implications. In a similar way, Elder Scrolls: Online goes a long way in Tamriel’s past compared to the base Elder Scrolls games.
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How to download Fallout 76 for free
As Bethesda has not provided any official instructions on how to access the Fallout 76 Free Weekend, we imagine it will be searchable like other free weekends for similar games in the past. Here’s what we know.
PS4: Search for Fallout 76 or click this link and select “Full Trial” if it’s not already available.
Xbox One: Select Free Play Days from the dashboard and search for Fallout 76. Searching for Fallout 76 in the Microsoft Store may also direct you to a demo.
PC: Download the Bethesda Launcher and search for Fallout 76. You should be able to download a free trial version from there.
Are there any restrictions to the Fallout 76 free weekend?
No! You can download and play the entire game for the duration of the event. This includes a new extensive Wastelanders update that adds human NPCs and a whole new questline for new and existing players to enjoy. Since the full game and this trial version use the same save data, your progress should carry over to the full game if you decide to buy it. At the moment, it is on sale for $ 29. That’s all there is to know about the Fallout 76 Free Weekend.
Fallout 76 is now available on Xbox One, PS4, and PC.
What do you think of Fallout 76 having a free weekend? Does this encourage you to try Wastelanders? Tell us in the comments section!