Players have found a mysterious destroyed house in Fallout 76, which apparently gets destroyed by an atomic bomb every time they log in. They wondered what it did to deserve this fate – and came up with a technically rather simple solution.
What kind of bombs and houses are these? In the northwest of the map, a bit northeast of the WV Lumber Co, there is a house that appears to be bombarded every time players log in. Two players on reddit discovered it while searching for something curious.
They noticed that a mushroom cloud appeared in the distance – which is actually the sign of a recently detonated atomic bomb. However, there was neither an alarm nor a red zone indicating its strike.
After a short server hop, they found that there was again an explosion at the exact same spot. Again without any marking. They followed the direction and found a destroyed house there.
According to fo76map.com, an interactive map for Fallout 76, there is an unmarked “Point of Interest” at exactly that location called “Nuke Mesh Depot”.
The Invisible Atomic Bomb of Fallout 76
What is the purpose of the bomb? Some players report that this bomb would always appear there when they log in. One of the reddit users, who is allegedly a game developer, explained in the comments what the bomb is for.
For developers, it would be easier to load a graphic like the explosion of an atomic bomb and its mushroom cloud directly upon logging into the game and then store it invisibly somewhere. When it would be needed, they could simply move it.
Another example of this is the only NPC in Fallout 76 with his room full of loot. This technique is also used in other games, with two classics from Bethesda themselves mentioned as examples:
- The merchants in Skyrim have invisible boxes beneath their feet to function
- The metro in Fallout 3 is just a kind of NPC with a “train hat” or with a “skin” that constantly runs along the tracks
Why can we see the bomb then? That it is really about the graphic can also be inferred from the name. “Mesh” is the technical term for 3D models of an object in a game. “Nuke Mesh Depot” is thus the “storage” for the model of an atomic bomb.
Why the bomb is visible, however, and is not simply stored underground, invisible to everyone, is still a mystery to the players. Bethesda itself has not commented on this yet.
Maybe the developers just wanted to create another creepy place:
