Bethesda’sFallout 76,the latest entry in the acclaimedFalloutfranchise, was not without its flaws when it released in 2018. Unlike its predecessors, the online action RPG did not receive multiple awards, and instead it was viewed by many to be an unacceptable shift from what had made the series successful and a blatant cash grab withegregiously priced microtransactions.
Recently, Bethesda’s director and executive producerTodd Howard acknowledged thatFallout 76was a letdownfor many players. For example, the game released without NPCs, leaving the wasteland particularly barren of life, an oversight the developer later fixed with the Wastelanders and Steel Dawn DLCs. Like many games that experienced a lackluster launch and reception,Fallout 76today feels very different from the game many fans wrote off two years ago, and Bethesda intends to continue tweaking the game and improving the user experience.
RELATED:Fallout 76 Releases Long-Awaited Inventory Update
Locked and Loaded, the next major update to the game,is slated for release on April 27 but has been available for playtesting on theFallout 76Public Test Serversince March 12, which is accessible to PC players. The update will introduce CAMP Slots and SPECIAL Loadouts, and these were discussed in detail in a recent video with three members of theFallout 76development team.
First, the CAMP Slots feature allows players to build additional CAMPs inFallout 76, increasing the total budget so that players can expand to new locations and open up more fast travel points. CAMPs inFallout 76are one of the more popular aspects of the game, giving players the opportunity to express their creativity, and gamers will now be able to build multiple CAMPs with a variety of themes. The caveat is that only one CAMP can be active at a time.
For Jake Raymor, Senior User Interface Designer at Bethesda, expanding the number of CAMPs a player can own coincides with the overarching theme ofFallout 76,in which a group of survivors rebuild Appalachia. Rather than having a single utilitarian and featureless CAMP, players can now settle down a bit and explore the manyFallout 76CAMP building and decorationoptions available.
Also coming in the Locked and Loaded update forFallout 76are SPECIAL Loadouts, a feature intended to encourage players to experiment with different play styles. SPECIAL Loadouts allow for a full respec of SPECIAL and PERK loadouts, and players can save the different builds to swap between them more quickly and easily than withFallout 76’sold Move a Point system. Move a Point will be removed from the game, replaced by Punch Card Machines, and these can be found at various locations in the game world or placed in a player’s CAMP. Using the Punch Card Machine is free, and loadouts can be changed as many times as desired.
Fallout 76is available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
