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The Fallout 76 of today is a far cry from the sparsely populated wasteland it was at launch. In the six years since Bethesda’s open-world multiplayer survival RPG launched to a decidedly lukewarm response, the team has worked hard to transform it into a vibrant playground for post-apocalyptic shenanigans. With the Milepost Zero update currently in testing on the PTS, PCGamesN sat down with lead producer Bill LaCoste and creative director Jon Rush to talk about how its new caravans are just the addition it needs.
I didn’t expect to fall so hard into Fallout 76 when I finally gave it a chance a couple of years ago, but at this point there’s so much to do that it has risen to become one of the best survival games on PC. Rather than sink into the downbeat drudgery that has long defined the series, 76 has now embraced the enthusiastic multiplayer spirit of its community and offers all manner of ways to build, create, and share in activities with your fellow Wastelanders. Does it lose some of that haunting atmosphere in doing so? Perhaps, but it’s so much more fun for it that I’d say the trade-off is worthwhile.
These days, hop onto a Fallout 76 server and you’ll likely find players grouping up en masse to tackle its various public events, jumping into daily ops to put their best builds to the test, or hopping between each other’s bases to check out the vast range of camp creations and see if there are any good deals to be snatched up from the player-run shops. Of course, for all the activities, there’s often a fair bit of downtime between them, and once you’ve done your crafting it can feel like you’re stuck waiting for the next thing to do.
Enter the new caravan questline coming with Milepost Zero. Unlocked at level 20, you’ll now be able to run your own outpost. This acts as an instanced zone you can go into that can be upgraded and decorated to your liking as you progress through the story. As it grows, you’ll be able to install vendors that can sell you all manner of weapons and items, including some that we haven’t seen anywhere else, such as the new V63 Laser Carbine.
With your outpost up and running, you’ll be able to run caravan routes, which you can then escort through the wasteland. This typically takes about five to ten minutes, with various difficulty levels depending on what you want to achieve. Along with running your own, there’s also the opportunity to jump in and help other players out with theirs. That makes it the perfect way to fill the downtime between other activities.
“When I play the game, I notice what I’m doing – and what a lot of other players are doing – is going from event to event to event,” Rush tells me. “We’re watching our pop-up in the lower left – what’s coming up? Okay, I’ll go there, and I’ll see the same folks going to the event to do it. And so what caravans do is act as an event you can do in between those as you’re waiting. Or if you want to get your friends together and farm it, you can do that as well.”
“The caravanning keeps the action from going event, wait, event, wait, event – it just keeps it more snappy,” Rush explains. “And the beauty of it is that you can hop in on somebody else’s that’s already running and you can still get rewards if it’s successful, or you can go make your own and try to get folks to join you. It’s really cool, I like the dynamic and what it does for our players as they’re going through their daily schedule.”
Of course, like most gamers, Fallout 76 players are notoriously drawn towards the most efficient option available to them. Is that something that the team had to factor in when designing caravans? “Our players are very data-driven,” LaCoste responds. “A lot of the times they have what we call TTL, which is “time to legendary” or the time to a reward, and they put down charts of every single quest, every single mission, to see how long it takes to get to the end with your loadout.
“It’s great to see that,” he continues, “but yeah, we are aware of these things. It’s something our players are certainly taking note of, and we do as well when we’re designing these things – to make sure that the time that’s actually being spent on events is applicable to the reward that you’re actually receiving.”
Additionally, Milepost Zero offers some extra new blood to pass your spare time with the addition of a ‘best builds’ feature. This allows you to submit your camp to a public vote, with the most highly rated offerings pulled into everyone’s worlds to let you see what the most creative players are making. These will be clearly marked as such, so you’ll be able to quickly jump over and marvel at what’s there, or take some notes for your own camp.
There’s also another pretty dramatic overhaul to look forward to in Milepost Zero with the introduction of a new Fallout 76 legendary crafting system – stay tuned to PCGamesN for more thoughts from LaCoste and Rush on that as well.
In the meantime, we’ve got the best games like Fallout to keep even the hardiest apocalypse enjoyers busy while we wait for any hint of a glimpse at the Fallout 5 release date.
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