As we wait for potential news on remasters of Fallout 3, 4 or New Vegas, Fallout 76 is absorbing some fanfare on the back of Amazon's Fallout TV show. It's a good thing Bethesda's put a lot of energy into improving the RPG over the years – and according to the lead devs, more depth is on the way.
"We have had a couple of successful literal expansions of the map, you know, making the play space bigger," Jon Rush, creative director on Fallout 76, told PCGamesN. "For this next year, I really want our gaze to shift from the outskirts to inwards - make the game thicker."
The last couple of expansions, Skyline Valley and Burning Springs, have focused on introducing more landmass to explore. The former gave players the eponymous region in Virginia, in a southerly direction of the map, whereas the latter took us on a trip to Ohio. I can think of no finer parts of the wasteland for a road trip.
Now the devs want to deepen what you can actually find in any of the areas you decide to hang out in. "New systems or new ways to engage with existing content, those are all very much on the menu for this year," Rush adds.
There's a melding of creative desires and technical needs here, as the sci-fi RPG can't support constant growth without the occasional reprieve.
"There are technical considerations that have to be taken into account there, so we can't just continue making the map bigger and bigger," Rush explains. "There is a lot of space left on the existing map in the game that is unused, that maybe down the road we could open up if it supports the stories that we want to tell."
Todd Howard's been saying it's the Fallout game he wants people to try if the Amazon show has them curious, and it seems like this'll be a good year to get stuck in. If nothing else, you can wander some irradiated farmland in the midwest, and what could be better than that?
