In a few days we will know what kind of game Fallout 76 is. However, the title and the teaser trailer already give us some information about the lore and the scenario.
What we know about Fallout 76
A prequel? The teaser trailer for Fallout 76 gives us a hint that the new story apparently begins on October 27, 2102. At least, this date is visible on the Pip Boy that the Vault dweller wears in the trailer. This would mean that Fallout 76 even takes place before Fallout 1, which is set in the year 2161.
Vault 76 as a location or starting point. The Vault dweller in the trailer wears a suit with the number 76 on the back. This number indicates in the series games which bunker the person lives in. So, it is Vault 76. This bunker has been mentioned in previous games and has a special significance in the story:
- Vault 76 was built between the years 2065 and 2069 under the supervision of Vault-Tec manager Giles Wolstencroft
- The bunker became operational in 2076, on the 300th anniversary of the United States Declaration of Independence
- Vault 76 was supposed to reopen in 2097, about 20 years after the inhabitants were sealed inside
- The bunker was designed as a control bunker, to be a baseline for comparison with other experimental vaults
- A total of 500 people lived in the bunker
- During the construction of Vault 76, workers were abducted by aliens, as learned in the Fallout 3 add-on “Mothership Zeta”
- The inhabitants of the bunker were tasked with rebuilding the world after the nuclear war
- In the Citadel computer from Fallout 3, you can find further clues, such as that Vault 76 is located in the area around Washington D.C.
- The teaser trailer plays John Denver’s song Country Roads, which mentions West Virginia, fitting with the area
- Fallout 76 could therefore take place in Virginia with Washington D.C. as a larger city. Vault 76 would then be located somewhere there
2097 or 2102? Vault 76 was supposed to open in 2097, but in the teaser we see the year 2102. It also seems that the vault in the trailer is abandoned. What could this mean for the story?
- The Vault opened as planned in 2097 and we ourselves enter five years later, as the inhabitants have already begun to rebuild the world
- The Vault was opened as planned but then raided. Perhaps we play as someone who was awakened from cryostasis later and has to continue the work of others
- We are not playing a Vault dweller at all but a looter who finds the opened and already looted vault and may be persuaded to start rebuilding
Officially, we only know so far that Fallout 76 is coming and that it has something to do with Vault 76. Rumors suggest an online survival game focused on base building, which would align with the task of the Vault 76 inhabitants to rebuild the world after the nuclear war. But this has not been officially confirmed yet. At E3, Bethesda will present Fallout 76 in detail.
