'Fallout 76': Bethesda Permanently Bans Players for Homophobic Attack

Online games are a phenomenal way to group up with friends and take on a gaming adventure together. Unfortunately, the downside to a more social gaming experience is that some people are capable of ugly behavior and it can ruin the experience for others in a setting like this. Unfortunately for Fallout 76 players, that ugliness came out in a shocking way - resulting in an entire group being banned for horrifyingly homophobic behavior.

The ban was put in place following a group of Fallout 76 players that were targeting perceived homosexual players while chanting "We have come to eliminate all gays" in the proximity chat. How the proximity chat works is exactly how it sounds - if you're near another player, they can hear you.

That means when player 'NathanTheHicc' and his friends would go up to another playing yelling things like "Queer down" and "Decontaminate the aids," the targeted player can hear every bit of it. One player in particular came forward after being targeted by this group of bullies with a clip showing it in action.

Warning that below footage can be viewed as disturbing, strong language ahead:

So @bethesda, how do we report people in @Fallout? @ChipWhitehouse @Handsandhead and I literally had our characters hunted down and killed by homophobic players. I'll post more of the video in a thread. Strong language warning. pic.twitter.com/gN1rsRFz1h

— AJpls (@twitch_ajpls) November 16, 2018

Called themselves the "gay eliminators" "cleansing the wasteland of the queers" "know what we did to your people back then, we killed them" THIS is the stuff said to us tonight when playing Fallout. @bethesda @BethesdaStudios @Fallout #Fallout #Fallout76 pic.twitter.com/zwPuz7AbsG

— AJpls (@twitch_ajpls) November 16, 2018

Bethesda Support commented on the thread showing how to report a player, but the footage went viral quickly.

The harassment continued. The player above told Eurogamer, "The three of us were having a good time and talking to him and then one of us commented on his character or his characters outfit being cute. He replied, 'I don't fuck with that homo shit' and left."

They then came back after a short amount of time, "The game notified me that if I didn't fight back, they would do limited damage so I didn't fight back and hoped they would just get bored and leave," AJ told the site. "They stuck with it and even joked about how 'this is the strongest queer I've ever seen'."

NathanTheHicc also addressed the ban and his behavior, telling the site: "My version of the incident is more or less the same as the public has taken it, the only differences being the fact that I don't hate gay people. It was just a late night of having fun and after the first encounter (seen on my channel) we felt it would be fun to offend them somehow. You can call that evil but I think it's just playful immaturity.

"I do not regret the incident. I will not apologise given the opportunity. I don't plan on doing anything like this in the future but to be fair I didn't plan the initial incident, I just found them and decided to go through with it."

Both Nathan and his friends that were participating in this behavior have all been permanently banned. A studio representative also highlighted that it's these unfortunate incidences that sparked the reason for the 'permanent ban' option while in the game and that reporting behavior like this is absolutely vital to keeping the gameplay experience enjoyable.

Thoughts on the above footage? Run into similar behavior in Fallout 76 or another game? Tell us what you think in the comment section below, or share your story with me over on Twitter @DirtyEffinHippy.