Update: Anonymous sources have reportedly described Fallout 76 as an “online survival RPG.”
It’s been an intense 24 hours, with hundreds of thousands of people tuning into Bethesda’s Twitch channel to watch a television displaying a looping gif of the words ‘Please Stand By’.
Then, at 14.55 BST today, the camera blurred out of focus and Todd Howard walked into shot announcing a teaser video for something that will be fully revealed at Bethesda’s E3 show in two weeks on June 10.
Showing shots of the inside of a vault – a child’s bedroom, an indoor sports field, and all to the sound of John Denver’s ‘Country Road’ – the teaser announced a new Fallout: Fallout 76.
We’re well into E3 ‘leaks’ season now, so here’s a list of upcoming PC games that we might see next month.
Language in the teaser – which you can watch below – suggests a focus on rebuilding after the fallout of the nuclear war has settled. This could mean that Fallout 76 will revolve around the settlement building systems introduced in Fallout 4.
Kotaku reports that three anonymous sources have described Fallout 76 as an “online survival RPG,” resembling titles like DayZ and Rust. That may initially come as a disappointment to fans of Bethesda’s history of narrative design, but Kotaku’s sources also said that Fallout 76 will have a main storyline and quests, so it seems as though it will be more directed than other games in the genre.
Nothing can be confirmed until Bethesda provides more information, so in the meantime have a watch of that Fallout 76teaser trailer:
The initial teasing tweet, the stream, and the introduction for Todd Howard all tie the announcement comes from Bethesda Game Studios, rather than Bethesda the publisher, suggesting that the game is being developed in-house. We had suspected this would be an announcement ofFallout 5, rather than a spin-off handled by another studio, but it sounds like Fallout 76 could be a bit of both – being both in-house and a spin-off.
Obsidian, who recently launched Pillars of Eternity 2 this month, effectively confirmed it wasn’t involved in the new Fallout project shortly after Bethesda’s tweet.
How do you let someone down easily?
Asking for a friend.#ItsNotUs
— Obsidian #Deadfire (@Obsidian) May 29, 2018
There are rumours that this Fallout will have a multiplayer component and may even be a Fallout MMO in the vein of The Elder Scrolls Online, but I’m not holding my breath on that one.
#PleaseStandBy pic.twitter.com/5IUjkURCcM
— Bethesda Game Studios (@BethesdaStudios) May 29, 2018
Whatever Fallout 76 is, expect to see significantly more next month at E3 2018.Bethesda ran a seriesRage 2 teasersfor several days before the official announcement, but Howard suggested this is all we’d hear about Fallout 76 until the E3 show. That’s not to say details won’t leak ahead of the show.