Fallout 76 is releasing its largest update in five years this December with Fallout 76: Burning Springs, a chunky free update from developer Bethesda Game Studios that tasks players with exploring a new region – post-nuclear Ohio – with new characters and factions. But most importantly, Burning Springs also comes with the addition of one (1) Walton Goggins as The Ghoul, reprising his role from Amazon's Fallout TV series on Prime Video.
Alongside The Ghoul, Fallout 76: Burning Springs introduces an intelligent Super Mutant called the Rust King for players to work with in Ohio in addition to all sorts of new locations, events, challenges, and gear. There's even a "local menace," the Rad Hog, that can become a pet.
"We wanted to expand the map again," says Jon Rush, creative director on Fallout 76, when asked why take the game to Ohio of all places. "We like to create updates that allow us to tell the next chapter in our story of Appalachia, but also give our players, all of you out there, the opportunity to continue telling more of your own stories, both in the places you adventured and then the things that you've built."
"So when we decided to do another regional expansion which kind of satisfies all those criteria," he continues, "we were looking at the map, and we looked towards the east, and we start to skirt towards, like, the Capital Wasteland stuff. And so we were looking towards the west and realized, 'Oh, we're right up against Ohio,' and not much has been done in that region in Fallout lore… So why not?"
Goin' out west
The Ghoul, specifically, is part of a new series of bounty hunting missions all over Burning Springs. He's not a playable character or companion, however, so let that dream go. Instead, players can pick up new bounties from The Ghoul at The Last Resort in Highway Town to find new targets.
According to Rush, adding The Ghoul to Burning Springs came about "really organic" due to the nature of what the developers were trying to do. "Desert, deathclaws, and raiders; that's the tone," he says. "What's going to be the hallmark feature for that new region or that update? And so that was bounty hunting, right? That makes sense."
"In kind of a barren wasteland like that, there's going to be a lot of nefarious folks running around," he continues. "And so having a bounty hunting system would be a great add for players, something fun to do. It's also a feature that we had discussed doing for a little while as well, and we were just looking for the right time."
"Who better to host a bounty hunting feature than The Ghoul, right? Not just a ghoul, it's The Ghoul from the show," Rush adds. "So we started talking about that, and Walton Goggins is a big fan, of course, of the franchise. He's a big fan of the games, and so it kind of came up sort of organically, really quick, and we had folks on our side working on the script, good folks on their side working on the dialogue script, and sort of came together."
"The Ghoul existing in the 76 timeline makes sense, although what he's doing in Ohio – or what, I guess, used to be Ohio – is still to be determined"
Jon Rush, creative director on Fallout 76
But Rush also says that "The Ghoul actually came out once Walton Goggins took the script and really made it his own, made those adjustments." Goggins even brought out the fake teeth he wears as the character in the TV show, making it that much more authentic.
But wait, hold on, the Fallout TV show takes place out on the West Coast, right? How is it that The Ghoul's in Ohio?
"76 is really kind of furthest back in time, right? In the Fallout timeline," explains Rush. "And the show is the furthest forward in time, and that's where we were introduced to The Ghoul on the Amazon series. Lucky for us, The Ghoul has kind of preserved himself through ghoulification. So, The Ghoul existing in the 76 timeline makes sense, although what he's doing in Ohio – or what, I guess, used to be Ohio – is still to be determined. I'm not one to question The Ghoul; I'm just going to do what The Ghoul says."
Fallout 76: Burning Springs is set to release for PC, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PS4, and PS5 in December 2025. In the meantime, be sure to check out our ranking of the best Fallout games.
