Fallout 76 Will Call Out Trolls As Murderers With A Bounty On Their Head And A Star Of Shame

It's safe to say that one of the most anticipated games that we learned of at E3 this year is Bethesda's Fallout 76. We already knew key details about the game going into this year's Quakecon, like that the game is online only and will put players into a wasteland set in West Virginia. We know some about the various version of the game Bethesda will offer and that it will launch on November 14. There will be no multiplayer cross-play thanks to Sony, and the game won't be offered on Steam for PC gamers, instead, Bethesda is selling directly to the PC crowd.

Despite knowing all of those details, there is still a lot about Fallout 76 that we don’t know. More details were offered up at Quakecon and we are even more excited for the game to land. The details here were gleaned from the Quakecon 2018 Fallout 76 Q&A, which you can watch in the video below. One of the hallmarks of all the Fallout games has been the ability to level up your character as the game progresses. Leveling up in Fallout 76 will be like past franchise entries with each leveling up in 76 allowing you to invest a point in one of your main stats. You will also gain access to a Perk card.

These Perk cards will give the player specific benefits, and the cool thing is that the perk cards can be swapped out during play for boosts that will benefit you more in each specific situation. One example listed is a Night Person card to increase your intelligence at night, but it can be swapped out so you don’t hate the sun as you did in some past franchise entries.

Every few levels in the game will give the player a Perk Card Pack with four random perks. Some of those perks might be higher level cards that won’t help you at all at your current level. There is no level cap in the game but after level 50 your stats are locked and you only gain perk cards. We already know there are no NPCs in Fallout 76 all interactions will be with enemies or other players. This means you will have to talk to other players via voice chat. Any gamer who prefers to play alone without yapping masses and profanity-laden chats won't appreciate that bit.

This also means you can’t charm the NPCs for more information as you could in the past and therefore Charisma has changed allowing you to share perks with friends at higher levels. PVP combat is optional, if you challenge a player or if you are challenged you must accept to be forced to fight. You can kill other players without issuing a challenge, but that is hard to do and when successful you turn into a Wanted Murderer.

When you are a Wanted Murderer a bounty is placed on your head and every other player in the game sees you on their minimap and the bounty paid when you are killed comes out of your own money stash. That is one heck of an anti-grief system. If a player kills you, your options include blocking them, earing double reward for seeking revenge, or you can just keep on wandering the wastes turning the other cheek. Fallout 76 will be very different from past franchise entries and it sounds as if change might be a good thing.