Bethesda Restores Stolen Fallout 76 Items By Cloning Players' Characters

Some Fallout 76 players fell victim to an exploit last month and had their items stolen, their character stripped down to just the basics with no Legendary weapon or gear to their name. Bethesda acknowledged the issue when it happened in December and promised it'd be corrected with some sort of compensation given out to those affected, but it wasn't clear at the time how the goods would be returned. It seems that players are now getting their stuff back plus some extras for their trouble, and the solution sure is an interesting one.

Bethesda's solution for the problem was to clone the characters who were affected by the rampant thefts. Those characters would have exact replicas of the inventories players had on December 20, 2019, which means that it'd be like they never had anything stolen from them in the first place. Affected players were also given over 8,000 Atoms for their trouble to spend in the in-game store however they like.

Players shared their accounts of what happened on Reddit (via Kotaku) to show communications with Bethesda that outlined the company's compensation plans. One of those players who goes by the in-game name Romulox and said they can be seen in the video that showed the thefts in action shared a screenshot of an email with Bethesda that confirmed the details of how the stolen items would be returned.

"We are happy to provide you an update regarding your Fallout 76 character's stolen/hacked inventory," the email said. "A clone of your character (with a modified name) will be restored on January 22, 2020. Once restored, this character will have the entire inventory of items, gear and scrap (100% of your stuff) that it possessed on December 20, 2019. In addition, we will be providing you with 8,250 ATOMS to help you in your adventures."

The email continued to say that the players' accounts would now default to playing as the cloned characters with the returned goods, but if you for some reason want to play as the non-cloned character without the stolen goods, you can do so through the character select menu.

The initial thefts can be seen in the video above where a player ran up to others and swiped their loot. Other players corroborated the Redditor's post to say they too had been given their stuff back or heard from Bethesda, so it looks like this latest Fallout 76 issue is coming to a close.