Fallout 76 Betas Begin This October

With Fallout 76 coming in just a few short months, it’s no small wonder Bethesda is gearing up to roll out their private beta for the latest entry in their long-running series. Instead of just one beta as was previously expected, however, there’s going to be an entire wave of several betas with varying amounts of participants drawn from a pool of valid pre-orders.

Multiplayer survival in an early access landscape

For those of you behind on the times, we covered everything known about Fallout 76 back when news first broke, but there’s been enough new information making the news rounds that it’s worth re-acquainting yourself with the newest title’s latest news. For starters, the upcoming beta isn’t just going to be a single event as was previously thought. Instead, there will be several stages of betas that will presumably start small and eventually grow in size.

Anyone who pre-orders the game will be given beta access, though not everyone will be able to play during the same betas. Most modern betas tend to be little more than emergency bug tests combined with server stress tests, so don’t be too surprised if your game crashes or if you lose character progress when the game goes live.

Though the October beta date has proven true, Bethesda still hasn’t released a solid day as of yet. More information has been teased for QuakeCon. Bethesda will be presenting information on Doom Eternal on August 10th, but information regarding Fallout 76 is being held off until the 11th during its own special panel. It’s a fairly safe bet to expect a more specific launch date, but the focus of the panel will be on the game’s mechanics, especially its character creation and perk system. Afterwards, a Q&A segment should clear up any lingering questions left before the release.

Since we last reported on 76, we’ve learnt a few new tidbits about the game’s systems. Though player versus player combat will still be included, word of anti-griefing systems has been brought up to dissuade fears of being harassed and repeatedly killed by other players in your public sessions. Killing players won’t let you loot their gear or cause any experience penalties as of the time of this writing and the newly introduced system of launching nuclear warheads at the wasteland isn’t made for player combat.

Instead, it spawns a special irradiated zone where rare materials and monsters spawn, which means dropping it on another player’s base would basically mean handing them handfuls of quality loot.

If you’re interested in the beta or have already pre-ordered you should make sure you’ve followed the beta sign-up protocol to ensure you get your slot during one of the beta periods. Just to reiterate, you’ll get to try it before its official launch date as long as you pre-order, but you may not get in as early as other players.

In the meantime, we’ll be watching for more updates on Fallout 76 as its release date closes in, especially if QuakeCon leads to any major developments. Stay tuned!