While Bethesda hasn’t confirmed when the big Fallout 76 beta will be running, we do know some key facts about it.
It was recently announced that the beta release will arrive first on Xbox One, before going live on PS4 and PC.
The studio team haven’t confirmed when they will be running the new server tests for Fallout 76, and it’s hard to pin down when they might run.
There’s the chance that Bethesda will run a beta test early on all platforms, followed by another closer to the final release date in November.
There’s also the chance that the Fallout 76 beta will be run just weeks before the final launch, to make it easier to spot bugs.
There’s been no announcement regarding an open beta, so the only way to join the servers tests is through pre-ordering the game.
This could change in the future but there are no guarantees Bethesda will need to do this.
What we do know is that the development team are ready for any kind of trolling behaviour from the first playtesters.
For anyone who has ever tried to enjoy an online game, there’s plenty of room for other players to ruin your fun.
The scope of this is based on just how much freedom players will have in the new online world.
Luckily for Fallout 76 fans, it appears Bethesda have some rules in place to limit the damage.
According to game director Todd Howard, other players will not be able to steal your gear after eliminating you.
However, it appears that if you do accept a challenge from another player in PvP, there will be consequences.
Here’s more from Howard, who tells Gamespot: “”Death isn’t supposed to be a super negative thing.
“You don’t lose your progression, you don’t lose all your stuff, somebody can’t kill you and then take everything in your inventory [and then you have to] start over.
“Think of PvP more like issuing a challenge to somebody as opposed to just, ‘no matter what I want to do to somebody, I can’.
“The game only lets that go so far before you can basically say, ‘I don’t want to participate in this challenge anymore.”
Howard adds: “When you see a person in the world, they’re a real person, and now you have to figure out [what role they play]…maybe they’re being super helpful, maybe they’re wandering the world as a trader and just trading with people, maybe they’re being a bad guy and they’re part of a raider group.”
So it appears that while there will be limitations on what can be done to other players, people will still be able to play as Raiders.
That suggests some kind of “raiding” aspect to the game, so it will be worth watching out for more news on the subject from Bethesda.
Fallout 76 is set to launch November 14, 2018, on PS4, Xbox One and PC.
