Continuing its dedication to tweak, tinker, and add to Fallout 76 following its rocky start, Bethesda’s latest update to the MMO game, One Wasteland, brings a new set of balances and additions. Centre stage here is the titular One Wasteland balances, which have been added with the aim of ensuring that low-level players have an easier time getting into the game, and higher-levels players keep being challenged.
Also of note are the addition of legendary perks. Each has four ranks, and players can begin to unlock them at level 50. There’s the ‘brawling chemist’ that automatically generates combat stims at “regular intervals”. Then there’s the one that grants melee kills a chance to cause whatever poor enemy they just connected with to explode. So, self-administering drugs and spontaneous combustion, just like all the best Fridays.
Alongside this, there are daily repeatable missions called ‘daily ops’ which, according to lead level designer Steve Massey are “unlike anything else in the game”. These replayable encounters change up combat by mutating the already mutated denizens of the West Virginia wasteland, making for “challenging encounters that will push player builds and abilities to the limit”.
This new enemy mutation system is intended to act as a “parallel” to the player’s own mutations. “They give every enemy you face a superpower that forces you to change play patterns, think creatively, and group up to succeed.” Says Massey “Enemies can explode on death, freeze you with their attacks, be cloaked when not attacking, or only be killable by a melee attack.” Hopefully not all at the same time, though.
You can read the full notes here for the update, which Bethesda is calling the “largest update to Fallout 76 since Wastelanders”. There has only been one other major update since Wastlelanders, mind, but we forgive you.