I have to give the Fallout 76 team some major credit, despite the rocky start, and what seemed like an MMO destined to be shunned by its core fanbase, has really overcome the odds. I think that is also a testament to the dedication the team has to not only the Fallout universe itself, but to their fanbase. They have been adding content for eight years now, diving in deep with the fanbase, really listening to the wants and needs, and that has turned it into the success you see now.

While I didn’t get my hands on Fallout 76: Infestations myself during Summer Game Fest, I did get a behind the scenes gameplay demo before Summer Game Fest. And then I was able to sit with Jon Rush and Bill LaCoste and talk to them a bit more about the update and the things I noticed with what they showed. While the update is now currently live, and some of you may be playing it already, I’ll give you my impressions of what I saw and some of the insights of things they may be looking at adjusting.

Zones will appear on your map, but you will need to find where the infestation is within them. Currently 5 zones can be active at a time in a single server.

During out behind the scenes preview we watched a stream where Bill LaCoste was playing with Jon Rush, Carl McKevitt, and Fahad Khan going through some Infestations. Lucky for us, Bill is an absolute pro gamer and gave us quite the show. It was great seeing all the aftermath of the fights by the time he got around to finding the boss… joking aside, they were all having fun and that’s the point, right? The idea of Fallout 76: Infestations is to have fun with your friends and have randomly generated battles happen you can jump into. I loved how Jon put it: “We want it to feel like smoking cigars with your buddies. You’re all exploring, hanging out, and one pops up and you go clear it and get great rewards. Currently, though, it feels like chain smoking a pack of cigarettes, they are popping up too frequently and we are looking to constantly balance that.”

There was one thing I did notice as well in the demo as were playing, was that the bosses were being taken down way too quickly. I love the ideas behind these fights, stronger and smarter bosses, they use strategies like high ground or pinch points in buildings. However, it seemed like it didn’t matter the location or the boss, the guys where absolutely shredding them. Then when the rest of the server players would join in it would go even faster. There was a point where I think Carl straight punched one of the bosses to death.

“Behold the Underminer! I am always beneath you, but nothing is beneath me! I hereby declare war on peace and happiness! Soon all will tremble before me!”

So naturally, I had to grill them a bit about that when I talked to them. Unfortunately, my recording got a bit messed up or corrupted so I don’t have direct quotes, so I will need to paraphrase a bit here. However, their response was a bit of levity and acknowledgement. They were getting feedback that the bosses were too hard at one point, so they ended up dialing back the total health, but now in recently playtests, it’s a bit too easy.

My concern is you don’t want to turn them into just tank bullet sponge enemies, because no one wants to just shoot the same enemies for thirty minutes straight, and they both agreed. I followed up asking them about the smarter AI and maybe they can use that to make situations harder or use more waves of enemies. They both wanted to chime in on this. Jon loves the way they run their live service and how fast they can push and test things in their live servers and get real feedback. They absolutely play with how much they can push the AI and see behaviors of enemies and players in order to adjust and make things better.

Do Super Mutant’s negotiate?

Bill then comes in elaborating more on what I said about not wanting bullet sponge enemies, and he agrees. It’s important to them to find that balance of engaging fights, and how they do that as well is with mixing up enemy types and elites enemies. Enemy behavior is important for these fights because they want these bosses to be smarter than your average enemies. Bill gives me a few of his favorite examples: grabbing a rocket launcher and going up to a balcony with only one way up forcing you to fight your way up to him. Hunkering down in a basement with a long hallway funneling players into a tunnel of death. Certain locations that they appear in will also be harder than others as well.

While I apologize for not having my full interview with quotes here for you guys, this was the gist of things I wanted to talk to them about with what I saw with the update. Obviously, there is a ton more to this update than just the Infestations, which you can check out on their official page. You may have also heard them tease about bringing your CAMP Pets along with you on your adventures, well that’s definitely happening. Jon was very happy to tell me about that: “Imagine a world where you can take your cats, dogs, Radhogs, and DEATHCLAWS with you on an adventure! Not only with you, but fight with you, level up, and grow with you!?” That sounds great, and I’m sure fans everywhere are going to absolutely love having that!

A Deathclaw CAMP Pet? Yes please!

Fallout 76: Infestations is shaping up to be a huge update for the long running game, and one that players will surely want to return to the game for. Plenty of new four star items to get for returning players, and for new players, they say its never been a better time to get into Fallout 76. Also, the current gen upgrades will be coming soon for the Xbox Series X|S and PS5/Pro versions, so stay tuned for that as well!

*All assets provided by the publisher