Fallout ‘76 Leads Tease The Fans Are Getting Something They’ve Been Clamoring For

Fallout ’76 has been going strong for eight years, with the online take on the classic RPG series giving players plenty of opportunities to make the wastelands their own. Still, the game has never necessarily felt complete, which is partly by design. Fallout ’76, with its frequent updates and content expansions, has always felt like it is in conversation with players and growing in response to their reactions to the game.

That’s very much by design, according to two of the creative leads on the game. Fallout ’76 Production Director Bill Acosta and Creative Director John Rush sat down with ComicBook at Summer Game Fest to discuss the state of the game and what fans can expect going forward. This includes animal companions, one of the things fans have been most eagerly awaiting for their own adventures.

What can you tease is coming down the pipeline for Fallout ’76 fans?

Josh Rush: We’ve got plans for years down the road. The stuff that’s coming is going to blow a player’s mind.

Bill Acosta: There’s actually going to be a big tech upgrade, so we’re going to be delivering to players native Series S/X builds, as well as builds for PlayStation Five and PlayStation Five Pro. Players will be able to take the next leap into the current gen. It also allows us to actually optimize for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, which supports better stability and better performance on those platforms, but then takes the current gen into more of a current gen style and look, so we’ll be able to do a lot of upgrades there too.

JR: Then this December, your camp pet will become your companion and can follow you in the world to fight alongside you and adventure alongside you. It can explore alongside you, fish with you, and go on bounty hunts with you. You name it: Deathclaw, hog, dog, cat. You can level them up, you can name them. It’s what players have been asking for, and it’s what we want to give them.

The rest of our interview with Josh and Bill continues below, where we discuss the impact of Prime Video’s Fallout TV series on the game, the importance of player feedback, and how their own love for the game informs development.

Looking at the previous games, the TV show adaptation, and even previous seasons of Fallout ’76 content, what have been the biggest lessons that informed the team’s approach to the game?

JR: The show has been great for us. The best thing about the show is the team working on it. They are true Fallout fans themselves. Even before taking on the show, they had played the games and had a deep understanding of the lore. What we’ve seen from people watching the show is that many of them go, ‘Wow, this is such a great story. Where can I get more?’ Perhaps they haven’t been familiar with the games, but now they’re coming into Fallout 3 and 4, New Vegas, ’76, Shelters. You get more of that awesome story. It’s what they want, and they get all of that in the games. There’s been more exposure because Fallout is in multiple media now. It’s emboldened us as developers to keep telling these kinds of stories. People love it.

What are the elements of the new update that you’re most excited for players to dive into?

BA: Infestations have been a lot of fun for me. We thought we were really good at the game, and apparently, we’re not as good as we thought we were [Laughing]. We’ve been balancing a lot of the infestation work and a lot of the more general game balancing. It’s all based on how we interact with it, how we think it needs to fit, and then the players come out, and they’re like, ‘I can’t get there because I’m dying too quickly.’ Okay, got it; We’ll tweak it. We spend a lot of time listening to the boards and going through Discord and Instagram. They love to ping John whenever something’s not working the way they want it

JR: Even that feedback is good. All feedback is good.

BA: There’s a core underlying thing, even from the people who are posting because they’re angry. There’s something in the game that made them want to give us feedback. We look at all the feedback and figure out what they were all asking for and what they want. That’s what we take to the drawing board. We’ve got a great community that is not shy about giving feedback. We listen to all of it to make sure the experience is what players want.

How much of an impact does the larger playerbase have on your approach to new content?

JR: We put out new features to get as many new people as we can, but we’re really focused on the current players and what they want. I’ll use the “Gleaming Depths” as an example. At the time, the feedback we were getting was from players who wanted a bigger challenge. That’s what birthed the “Gleaming Depths” raids and the introduction of the four-star legendaries. Now we’re getting feedback that says people want more ways to get those four-star legendary creatures. So we had an update where we revisited a lot of the existing events and activities in the game and added stuff.

Now there’s a chance Bigfoot will show up, and sometimes Bigfoot will drop a four-star legendary… Finding ways to give players a greater challenge is what it’s all about. For another example, there are 40-ish unique locations in the game where an infestation can spawn at any time. It gives players that challenge and a chance to get those four-star rewards. It’s never specific things but larger, more impactful notes that we apply to the road map so we can satisfy the players.

BA: Sometimes you’ll be playing a game and wonder if the people making it actually play it. John and I do play with our community. There are people who see us jump online and join our server, go on a raid with us. They see our levels, they see the hours we’ve put into the game, they know we’re playing it with them. Some of the inspiration comes from playing it ourselves and realizing, “That was not the greatest experience today. There was something missing from this.’ Then we’ll talk about it, and we’ll try to find solutions for those things. That’s what makes Fallout ’76 unique.

Fallout ’76 is now available on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.