Fallout 76 update hints at better ways to make a buck with "player vending"

If a lack of retail opportunities is what's getting between you and really investing in Fallout 76, the first 2019 news update from Bethesda may bring a little hope to your heart. Included in a list of future features it's working on are "new quests, weekly in-game events, new Vaults opening, a new PvP mode, Player Vending and much more."

Of course, players have already found ways to use the trading system to swap and sell items out in the wilds, but this hints at more satisfying ways to start your own retail empire than just hawking diluted stimpacks to the desperate. Tweaks to stash sizes or Cap limits would be a start, and it would definitely be nice to see a few more friendly faces in between all the super mutants and angry murderers. I'm hoping for a way for players to build retail locations, separate from bases, that they can stock with various product types. Finally Fallout 76 could make my dream of opening a opossum-based cuisine food truck a reality.

Bethesda's SVP of global marketing and communications Pete Hines addressed the issue of players as traders in an interview before the game's release, making it clear that consumerism will always be optional in the wasteland.

Article continues below

"Nothing says you have to trade or else because that's taking choice out of your hands. I've now dictated a system that you can't live without, but what if that's not how you want to play? What if you want to be a loner who just lives off the land and builds the stuff that he needs? Uses the workshops he finds in the wasteland? That should all be viable."

There's no heads up when any of these "future features" will make an appearance, and it sounds like the big update coming later this month will focus on "many of the issues" Bethesda has been hearing about from the community. I mean, the studio is probably pretty busy after accidentally breaking the whole nuke codes part of the game.

Welcome to 2019. Check out our official awards for the best games of 2018 you need to catch up on.