Fallout 76: Wastelanders Video Shows What Happens When You Nuke NPCs

Fallout 76’s big Wastelanders update being out now means players can finally interact with a bunch of NPCs populating the game instead of relying on their friends and other human characters to make the environment feel more alive. It also means players can drop a nuke on those NPCs if they choose to do so, though it might not have quite the destructive effect that players are hoping for. At least one Falllout 76 player has already dropped a post-Wastelanders nuke on some of the NPCs to show others what it looks like and how the characters adapt to being nuked.

The YouTube account Rattler uploaded a video showing them setting off a nuke with the intent of hitting a place called “Foundation.” For those unfamiliar, that’s the place that the NPC faction known as the Settlers has decided to call home now that they’ve returned to the West Virginian wasteland to set up shop. The video starts with the player setting off the nuke and watching from afar as the big mushroom cloud explosion appears over the area where Foundation is located.

After paying the settlement a visit once the nuking was completed, the player found that things really didn’t change all that much. For the most part, life continued as normal for the Settlers after they were nuked. A grimy tint covered the area since it’d been nuked, and the NPCs responded by putting on their own protective suits before going about their business as usual. From the normal acts like sweeping the ground and the casual conversations seen in the video, the NPCs didn’t seem to mind being nuked much and never accused the player of doing anything.

It might be underwhelming for those who were expecting mass destruction at the site of the nuke where the NPCs lived, but for those who’ve been keeping up with Wastelanders news, the results shouldn’t be too surprising. Bethesda previously explained what would happen when you dropped these nukes and said it wasn’t the first time these NPCs had encountered such problems.

“You can definitely still launch nukes in Wastelanders,” Bethesda said. “This isn’t the Raiders’ or the Settlers’ first rodeo, either. They will jump into their own hazmat suits to protect themselves from radiation.”

Fallout games have always had things like essential NPCs that couldn’t be killed because they’d ruin parts of the games’ stories if they were gone, so think of these faction precautions as a nuke-sized example of that.