Fallout 76 has released the free Wastelanders update, which offers some major gameplay changes along with bug fixes and other tweaks. At the heart of the Wastelanders update is the addition of NPCs, but there's much more to it than adding human seekers, as detailed in the patch notes.
This update brings all versions of the game up to 1.3.0.23, and the download size for the update is pretty big - 70GB for PS4 and Xbox One , 54GB for PC with Bethesda Starter and 68GB for PC Solo has just been launched on Steam as well. If you started your game with the Bethesda launcher, you would have moved your progress and Atomic Shop items to Steam, but Atom balances and Fallout 1 memberships would not.
Wastelanders adds a new "main quest" focused on NPCs and factions, including momentary areas where only you and your multiplayer friends can affect the environment. You'll emulate between Settlers and Raiders to unlock new gear and missions . In addition, new repeatable quests, new companions and many quality of life improvements are introduced in the update.
You can check out the full patch notes below.
Fallout 76 Wastelanders (v1.3.0.23) Patch Notes
NPCs and Dialogue
A lot of new people have arrived in Appalachia looking for their fortune or just a safe place to live. These NPCs can be found everywhere. Some of them you can talk and you can have interactive conversations.
The mechanics of the dialogue are similar to Fallout 3 - you have several options, SPECIAL controls and options you can use contextually.
A single player response can have any number of options, if there are more options than fit on the screen you can scroll down to see them all.
Also, full conversations have been added to many of Fallout 76's original NPCs - characters like Rose, MODUS, and Grafton Mayor (and more) may contain dialogue.
A New Main Quest
The arrival of new people in Appalachia means there are many new adventures to be had. Wastelanders brings an entirely new story to Fallout 76 that you can uncover and explore as you complete new main quests.
Just outside of Vault 76, you can dive into the Wastelanders story and meet Lacey and Isela, who will guide you through the Wayward questline.
At level 20, the entire main quest is unlocked in Sutton. Raiders and Settlers - You'll meet the two largest groups in Appalachia.
During the Main Quest you will have to choose which faction to work with, but you can do quests for both factions for a while until you reach a point of no return.
The original Fallout 76 main quest is still available, but new touches of life await. With full dialogue with both new NPCs and existing NPCs.
Please Note: Some new CAMP no. regions have been added to regions around the world.
Your CAMP was in one of these areas and can no longer be deployed, you are notified to join a world and CAMP is free.
The Raiders
are the remnants who partially fled Appalachia to reclaim the lands they now rightly believe belong to them. They built a base of operations called Crater at Crashed Space Station.
Initially, if you encounter Raiders in the wild, they will become hostile and attack you. Even in Crater, expect a cold reception - their vendors won't take care of you and will bring the welcome wagon opposite.
Eventually, you'll learn more about them and you can make peace with them (and their friendship over time, if you will).
The Settlers
The Settlers is a collection of survivors gathered by some construction workers from the Washington DC area. When they heard it was land, they were caravanned to Appalachia and redesigned the existing structures in the Spruce Knob to establish the Foundation.
Settlers are happy to talk to you and trade right away. Like the Raiders, you can get to know the Settlers better over time and become their ally.
Ward will present a Daily Quest that can help you make a good impression with these newcomers.
To learn more about Settlers and Raiders, read our article on Wastelanders Factions.
Gold Bar and Faction Reputation
Wastelanders features some exciting new weapons, armor and other items. You can unlock these items with the new Gold Ingot system.
After completing the Main Quest, you will gain access to a new in-game currency, the Gold Bullion.
Gold Bar can be collected by exchanging Treasury Bills in Gold Press Machines up to the daily limit.
Treasure Notes can be earned from Wastelanders daily quests and by completing Public Events.
Gold Bar can also be purchased directly from a merchant on Wayward using Caps up to the Weekly limit.
There are three Gold Ingot Vendors: one in the Crater, one in the Foundation, and one in a location that you will unlock during the main story. Each vendor will offer you a different set of new Wastelanders items in exchange for Gold Bars.
Dispute Reputation
Some of the Wastelanders gear can only be used as you become better friends with Settlers and Raiders through the new Reputation System.
Gain fame with these factions by completing story quests for them, making in-game decisions, and doing daily quests for them.
Items you can get this way include items like the Gauss Shotgun or Gauss Minigun, CAMP Farmable Tiles, and even the delicious Appalachia treat—Pepperoni Rolls.
For more information, read our article on the Wastelanders Reputation System.
Allies
Another exciting addition to Wastelanders, Allies are NPCs you'll encounter around the world, who can move into your CAMP, protect it, and keep your company.
Allies also offer adventure opportunities with the daily quests they offer.
Two of the allies are unique. Both have mini-quest lines, romance opportunities, and offer the opportunity to really get to know some interesting characters.
When you reach level 10, attack the Ash Pile or Mire to meet them!
Find out more by reading our article on Allies in the Wastelanders.
Repeatable Events and Daily Quests
Event: Equestrian Shotgun
Equestrian Shotgun is a new event in the East Big Bend Tunnel. Join by talking to Vinny Costa near the tunnel entrance. He offers the event frequently, so consult him regularly if you want to help him.
Merchants from the Blue Ridge Caravan want to get through the Big Bend Tunnel with their goods, but huge Blood Eagles await, hoping for an easy score.
Successfully defend the Caravan as the traders pass through the Tunnel and you will be generously rewarded.
Public Event: Radiation Noise
The Radiation Rumble is a challenging new Public Event that will appear on the map at the Mount Emmett Disposal Site.
A group of Scavengers focused on mining the precious ore.
New Daily Missions
There are four new daily missions in Wastelanders: two from Raiders in the Crater, one from the Foundation's Settlers, and another one you'll discover as you play through the main story missions.
Raider newspapers alternate with either one you can use every day.
All four newspapers can be completed to earn Treasure Notes, XP, Caps and some loot.
Daily quests from Raiders and Settlers will also earn you a reputation for your efforts.
New Enemies
Founders
Floaters are returning creatures from previous Fallout games. They come in three variations: Flamer, Freezer, and Chomper.
They're not particularly difficult, but they can really change a battle when faced with their Super Mutant siblings.
Wendigo Colossus
The elusive Wendigo Colossus is a fearsome monstrosity said to rear its head only in areas struck by atomic fire.
They are seriously tough, and even a hearty adventurer will find it difficult to challenge a lone one. If you're planning to hunt down a Wendigo Colossus, bring lots of friends!
Blood Eagles
Bloodthirsty and ruthless, the Blood Eagles are a group of human delusions fueled by chimpanzees who treat the Wasteland as their personal playground.
The numbers are even more frightening. Bands of Blood Eagles have spread throughout Appalachia, so keep your weapons close and be prepared to defend yourself.
Moth Cult
No one knows exactly what these mysterious cultists are up to, but they have recently started living in a few existing locations in Appalachia.
If you encounter these cultists in the wild, stay vigilant. You can rest assured that they won't block you or anyone else. . . rituals.
Discover New and Updated Locations
We've created a host of new locations for you to explore, including the Watoga Underground, The Deep, The Wayward, the new Blood Eagle and Mothman Cultist camps, and more.
In addition, with the return of people to Appalachia, many have already made their mark on the world. Crashed Space Station, Spruce Knob, and WV Lumber Co. They have transformed many locations, such as, among others, to better suit their needs.
Art and Graphics
Day/Night Cycle: Extended from 8 to 13 hours during the day so you have more sunlight while questing, crafting and exploring. Dusk, dawn, and nighttime are shortened accordingly.
Lighting: We've made significant improvements to all aspects of our lighting and rendering systems to bring added realism and contrast to the game world.
General Updates
Vault 94: As stated in the previous announcement, Vault 94 and its Missions were closed with the release of Wastelanders.
Many item rewards that you can earn by completing Quests, including Strangler Heart Force Armor Blueprints, are now available through the Gold Bar system.
Nuclear Winter: Storm is now automatically narrowed by the number of players starting a Nuclear Winter Match. This should help players get to the fun of a match quicker and spend less time in matchmaking queues.
This change was first implemented in Update 16, but after community feedback it has reverted to auto-shrinking happening too often. We've since made improvements to this area and brought that change back with the Wastelanders update.
Quality of Life Improvements
Quest UI Updates
Quests received significant UI improvements in today's update. Here is a summary of the adjustments we made:
All your quest markers will now appear on the map.
Inactive quests appear as black map markers, and quests you're actively tracking display yellow markers you're already familiar with.
The main quests show the square markers, while the side, miscellaneous and daily quests show the diamond shaped markers.
Clicking a quest marker on the map displays a popup showing more details and a description of that quest.
There are three new options in this pop-up where you can choose to mark the task as active, make it your active task only, or show the task on your Pip-Boy.
When viewing a mission on your Pip-Boy, you can now choose to show that mission's location on the map.
There are new options you can toggle to customize which types of tasks are marked as active when you start them. You can find them in the Game Settings Menu.
More information about these changes can be found in this article on Fallout.com.
Additional Quality of Life Improvements
Legendary Enemies: A notification now appears and sound effects are played when a Legendary creature regains full health during battle.
Nuke Zones: It's no fun when you join a world and turn into an active Nuke Zone! From now on, if your home location has an active Nuke Zone, you will get a prompt giving you the option to leave the current world and search for another.
You will be protected from Radiation for a short time while you make your decision to stay or leave.
Hold: While viewing many pre-placed items in the world, you can press and hold your interaction button to quickly use these items without entering your Pip-Boy.
For example: You can hold down the interaction button to quickly equip the weapons you find and consume your favorite weapons, a help item, or learn a plan or recipe.
If you want, you can also press and hold the interaction button to add that item to your inventory.
Public Events: Descriptions of Public Events on the map now include a recommended player level.
Radio Host: A new arrival named Julia took to the airwaves to host Radio Appalachia. Adjust to catch tabs between pieces.
Search Benefits: Functions of “Search” Benefits such as Scrounger and Pharma Farma are now automatic. You no longer need to press a button to manually search containers for bonus consumables. You will receive a friendly Vault Boy notification when your perk activates.
Bug fixes
The Wastelanders update brings close to 1,000 fixes for bugs that previously impacted the main game, including those reported to us by the Fallout 76 community. Because this list is so long, we've highlighted a number of fixes that we think you may want to know or find interesting as you prepare to return to Appalachia.
CAMP. and Workshops
Automatic Scrapping: The following items are no longer automatically scrapped when using the All Junk Scrap button, as they are ingredients in recipes.
Bleached cranberry
Bloatfly Cloth
Bloodbug Hose
Cooking oil
Digested Goo
Mole Mouse Teeth
Mr Handy Fuel
Radscorpion Stinger
Stingwing Barb
Tick Blood Bladder
Billboards: reduced CAMP Budget cost of many Neon Billboards by 50%.
Lights: Mid-Century Disc Lamp now correctly downwards on fire.
Scrapping: Tinker's Workbench now spawns components when scrapped.
Scrapping: Urban and Forest Scout Armor pieces now generate components when scrapped.
Turrets: Addressed an issue that could prevent turrets from firing at enemies at close range.
combat
V.ATS.: Introduction to VATS firing an automatic weapon no longer causes the weapon to stop firing.
VATS.: Frag Mines can now be destroyed by shots fired in VATS.
Items
Auto Grenade Launcher: Heavy Barrel mod no longer incorrectly states that it increases damage.
Baseball Grenade: Now requires 2 Mushrooms in addition to its other components and no longer requires Baseball.
Baseballs are now automatically scrapped when using the Scrap All Junk button.
Baseball Grenade: Increased damage to align Baseball Grenades with other Grenades.
Bolt-Action Guns: Players no longer aim to aim after pressing the button to aim sights when placing a bullet in a bolt-action gun.
Buffout: Fixed an issue that caused Bufftats to count towards Buffout and Mentats related Challenges.
Cultist Blade: Damage increased so Cultist Blade will now be slightly stronger than Machete at all levels.
Disease Cure: Can now be sold to Caps for Vendors.
Eyebot Helmet: Military Circuit Board is now required instead of Assaultron Circuit Board to craft Eyebot Helmet.
Fusion Core: Fixed an issue that could consume a Fusion Core in the player's inventory when exiting the Power Armor.
Gatling Laser: Reloading the Gatling Laser early will not cause multiple Fusion Cores to load, which could prevent the player from firing other weapons.
Weapon Gathering: Firing a Gatling Laser or Gatling Plasma with a fully loaded Fusion Core no longer unloads the magazine after just a few shots or prevents the magazine from closing during reloading.
Handmade Rifle: Stinging Magazine mod no longer holds more ammo than intended and now has a 25 ammo capacity.
Harpoon Weapon: Legendary Harpoon Weapons can no longer falsely spawn with their Explosive attribute.
Legendary Armor: Solar and Thorn Armors can now spawn correctly with the Unyielding legendary attribute.
Legendary Weapons: +250 Damage Resistance when reloading the Legendary feature no longer causes the primary attribute of a legendary weapon to stop working.
Magazines: Tumblers Today Issue #2 now gives the player the ability to find extra Bobby Pins in Bobby Pin Boxes, and the effect's description has been updated to match.
Meat Hook: Now only benefits from unarmed Perks and is no longer incorrectly affected by one-handed melee Perks.
Molotov Cocktail: Now requires 2 Glasses to craft in addition to its other components and no longer requires a Beer Bottle.
Beer Bottles now automatically scrap all Junk when using the Scrap button.
Plasma Bomb: Explosion VFX are now closer to the Plasma Bomb's explosion radius.
Psychotats: Fixed an issue that caused Psychotates to count towards Buffout-related Challenges.
Rad-X Diluted: Description no longer states that it suppresses Mutations.
Liberated Head of Assaultron: Fixed an issue that caused the Freed Head of Assaultron to deal with sam
Scout Armor: The Jungle Scout Armor Mask can now be worn with other hats.
Shovel: Now gains ambidextrous melee perks.
Strangler Heart Power Armor: Acid attacks from players wearing Strangler Heart Power Armor no longer cause performance issues or crashes.
This fix resulted in multiple adjustments to Strangler Heart acid attacks and damage. You can learn more about these changes in depth by reading this article.
Strangler Heart Power Armor: The Power Armor Chassis equipped with Strangler Heart shards can no longer be dropped.
Tesla Rifle: Now correctly categorized as an Energy Weapon on Stalls instead of a Heavy Weapon.
Action Hero: Gold .50 Cal Dye from the Atom Store can now be applied to an Action Hero.
Ultracite Fusion Core: Can no longer be misused as Fusion Cores for Power Armor.
Ultracite Plasma Cartridge: Increased the amount of ammo created when producing Ultracite Plasma Cartridges by 60 to 120 to better accommodate other Ultracite ammo types.
Mutations
Carnivorous: Now doubles the benefits of consuming prepackaged meats like Cram and Salisbury Steak.
Swarm Mentality: Fixed an issue that prevented players with Swarm Intelligence from sharing Perks even though they had enough points in Charisma.
Perks
Butcher's Reward: Can now be properly triggered when searching for dead Hermit Crabs.
Crack Shot: Fixed the description to indicate that the Perk's perks apply when aiming at sights, not "while engaged".
Long Shot: Fixed the description stating that the Perk's perks apply when aiming at sights, not "when engaged".
Draft Chance: Gatling Plasma can now be correctly triggered when firing Gatling Laser and automatic weapons.
Draft Chance: Fixed an issue that prevented the fanfan from appearing on screen when Draw Chance Rank 2 was triggered.
Perk Sharing: Now only addresses a character's core Charisma. Bonus Charisma from Chems, Gear, Perks, and other effects are no longer included in the wrong Perk share.
Quests and Events
Always Awake: The quest timer has been reduced from 30 to 15 minutes and a 2-minute timer has been added to repair the Rover.
Copy a Slum: If the player completed it that day, it no longer restarts every time they log in.
Ecological Balance: Amy's Note now stays in the player's inventory after completing the quest.
Miscellaneous (Miscellaneous): Fixed the issue where the “Clear Flooded Barrier” misc was blocked. Quest to appear to players in the Flooded Garden Courtyard at Cranberry Bog if someone had already completed the mission on that Earth.
Miscellaneous: “Kill Wendigo while wearing a clown costume” misc. If the quest is completed, it will not reappear to the player each time they log in.
user interface
Compass: Position marks in the Compass now more consistently match their orientation in the game world.
Notifications: Fanfare and the list of earned rewards are now displayed correctly on the screen after completing the Daily Quest.
Notifications: The number of Caps earned after completing a task or activity is now displayed on the screen.
Pip-Boy: Fixed a visual issue that caused some Legendary Weapons to occasionally display incorrect attributes in Pip-Boy descriptions after signing out and back in.
Revive: Diluted and Super Stimpaks can now be used to revive downed players.
Settings: World Radios volume slider in the sound settings menu now correctly affects the Jukebox sound.
Social: Large friend lists optimized. Players should no longer experience hitchhiking in-game due to having a huge friend list.
Social: Entering an invalid or non-existent name in the Social Menu does not prevent the player from interacting with other in-game menus.
Sorting: Scraping an item no longer causes the player's inventory list to be reordered.
Vending and Trading: Players can now sell items for up to 30,000 Caps through Vending Machines or direct trading.
Workbenches: Pressing the exit confirmation button while leaving the Workbench will not immediately cause the player to re-enter the Workbench.