Marking Six Years of Wasteland Exploration (Gamescom) - Fallout 76 Interview with creative director Jonathan Rush

Audio transcriptions

"Hello everyone, I'm Alex here with Gamereactor.
I'm here with Jon, we're checking out some, well we're talking some Fallout 76.
Jon, first of all though, how's your Gamescom?
You've said that people have been flocking to Fallout 76 on the show floor."

"How does it feel to sort of see that in person when, you know, after sort of, a lot of the time sometimes it's just online, whereas now you can see sort of, in real life, the amount of people queuing up and the amount of people wanting to get stuck in?
Oh it's great, I love seeing everybody's enthusiasm for the game, I love seeing their enthusiasm for the new update, and I love Gamescom, it's been a great experience so far."

"Yeah, and Fallout 76, just to get sort of stuck into a bit more of the game itself, it has been around for a while now, when you think about sort of live service games in general, sometimes some go for short life cycles, but Fallout 76 has seen continued and continued success."

"What do you think your sort of secret is to see it sort of snowballing, as it seems to just gain more and more momentum over time?
Sure, I think the secret is for us to continue staying true to the Fallout roots, right, and to listen to community feedback."

"I've said it before, I'll say it again, I'll say it many times, the Bethesda Game Studios community is the best community in gaming.
They give great feedback, they're very devoted and passionate fans, so listening to that feedback and working in parallel with them will ensure that we can keep this game going for as long as we want."

"The Bethesda community, as you said, they are very, very passionate, and we've seen that in ESO as well, where ESO, I believe, either earlier this year or late last year, was referenced as sort of like one of the most successful but quietest sort of live service games out there."

"Do you see sort of Fallout 76 in a similar light, where there's this really, really strong passion there, and it just keeps going, and it just finds this success?
Yeah, I think as more folks become familiar with the Fallout franchise, whether through trying the game, right, through Game Pass, or from having seen the show, I think it's just going to embolden folks to keep coming in to experience more of that Fallout story."

"And you guys have built massively this year with sort of Skyline Valley, and there's also the Ghoul coming next year, and you build with these huge efforts with Fallout 76, and on paper, sometimes someone coming to Fallout brand new maybe might think, well, the Wasteland doesn't sound like that exciting of an environment if it's a nuclear landscape, but you guys have managed to make it this effortlessly sort of exciting environment with places, and even like building on that, as I said, with Skyline Valley."

"How do you sort of come up with those ideas to make sure that it's not just a nuclear wasteland, it's more of like a nuclear wasteland, if it was almost fun to be in one, if that's possible?
That's a great question."

"So a couple parts to this.
I've always viewed our Appalachia map as the main character for the game, right?
And the main character for our game has stories for players to experience and learn the history of that character, and it also offers opportunities for our players to hop in and tell their own stories through their camp building or through questing, adventuring, or what have you."

"When I look at our map, I see it as almost like a theme park, to your point of it being fun, in which it has very distinct thematic areas, but all under the similar kind of theme of a Fallout universe."

"So when getting into something like Skyline Valley, we're wanting to expand the map, we needed to find a theme that was different from the others, but still felt very Fallout."

"So yeah, it's great.
The map, you hop in, there's things going off all the time, events and things to do, so it's a pretty lively wasteland, for sure."

"And it's also populated with horrible creatures that want to kill you at the same time.
It's not just fun in Fallout.
It is an apocalypse, but it's got that sense of wildness to it with the creatures that you guys have made."

"Skyline Valley introduces the evil turkeys that we've seen, and how do you sort of...
It's that Fallout sweet spot, right?
That Fallout sweet spot of really kind of dark themes with levity and humour right in the middle, and that's Fallout."

"And sort of going on that with the creature designs, is that what you approach that with?
Sort of that there's the darkness that they will rip you to shreds, but there's a bit of levity as well, because they're almost comical creatures to think about, like a giant turkey coming to get you."

"Yeah, I think with the creatures specifically, the levity just kind of happens on its own, because what we're doing is we're kind of putting ourselves in the situation, OK, if this is a native creature to this region, what would it look like if it was exposed to radiation or what have you?
So that's kind of our best guess at what might happen to a turkey if exposed to radiation."

"And in the end, it just kind of looks funny, but like you said, they're dangerous, so, yeah.
And so when you bring in something like, as I say, Skyline Valley is this huge undertaking, it's this huge effort, when do you decide that the time is right to bring something so massive to Fallout 76?
Yeah, so Skyline Valley, we wanted to..."

"We had a story we wanted to tell.
We wanted to kind of explore the dark secrets of Vault 63, which are very dark and mysterious in tone, so we wanted to reflect that in the region itself, which is very dark and mysterious, and also give players a chance, more places to build their camps."

"So, yeah, for future updates, any opportunities that we have to continue telling our own story like we did in Skyline Valley, while giving players the opportunity to tell their own is certainly welcome."

"So region expansions or map mutations has certainly been talked about and is on the table.
Is there ever sort of a bit of trepidation, maybe, among the Fallout 76 team, because there's such, as you say, such Fallout lore just in general, about when you're creating those stories, are we stepping on any toes, are we doing anything maybe that might be saved for future, or do you sort of just forge ahead and make sure that, you know, this is Fallout, this is what we're putting on the map, basically?
That's a great question."

"So 76, I think, has the luxury of being the furthest back in the timeline, right?
So if you have that here and you have the show out here and the other Fallout games in between, we have like a couple hundred years of story and content to play with."

"So as we're kind of brainstorming what the bigger beats are for a story or for a quest or any new content we're adding in, a number of our designers are very steeped in the lore of Fallout and will point out if there's any conflict, no, that hasn't been invented yet, or no, that's going to spoil this down the road."

"But it still affords us an amazing amount of space and flexibility to play with things like Skyline Valley and The Lost, right?
The Lost Faction."

"Why didn't anybody know about this before?
Well, they were lost. It's in their name.
So yeah, we've got a lot to play with.
So they basically act as your historians, then the sort of lore keepers around the office?
Yeah, exactly."

"You talked about the Fallout TV series there.
How do you sort of view that as sort of building on the Fallout universe?
And do you see sort of, we've seen a lot of players flock to Fallout.
Do you think that's going to help introduce people to Fallout 76?
And how do you sort of view the game as accommodating to newcomers even though they've also been players for years and years and years?
Yeah, so I think what the show has done is, so first off, the story, the tone of the show, it's like just dead on with Fallout."

"And so whether you are familiar with Fallout and have played some of the Fallout games before or were brand new to the series through the show, people that get to the end of that show and want more story like that are going to come to 76 and Fallout 4 and Fallout 3."

"So it's definitely done a great job in casting or kind of brightening the light on Fallout and introducing it to more people.
The way that we kind of cater the game to newer players, we've got plans, had discussions for future content in that line."

"But stuff that we've done in kind of more recent patches is we've given players the chance to leave the vault at level 20.
They can choose from one of five different presets to sort of make that initial experience in the wasteland a bit easier, a bit more user-friendly."

"We've also placed a lot more points of interest around the vault that introduce new characters to the factions in the world a lot sooner so that they're not just kind of left exploring aimlessly.
There's also a new dungeon right by the vault too, which gives them their first taste at some fun combat."

"So yeah, future plans, further combat rebalancing, perk card rebalancing is all on the table.
And for seasoned players, the feedback that I've seen with seasoned players online and what we've taken away is they want more challenges."

"They want things that are harder.
They want stuff that's going to kick their ass and they want the next step up in power, right?
So a lot of our future roadmap content, like the Gleaming Depths, which was teased a little earlier this year, is certainly aimed towards that."

"And how do you view that from a balanced perspective, sort of bringing in those things that are going to kick seasoned players' asses, but it's also going to maybe sort of be something that a new player might want to see because it's going to be a challenge, but one that will also draw the eye of every player?
Yeah, so a new player certainly has a ton to do in the game."

"I mean, they come in the game.
There's hundreds of hours of story content already there.
You know, they've got Scorch Beast Queen, they've got Earl, they've got the Storm Goliaths."

"As they naturally work their way through those parts of the story and gain power for their character, they all become powerful enough to start seeking out groups to delve into the Gleaming Depths for that next step."

"So I don't recommend going in there.
If you're level 50, which is technically the start of our endgame when you start fighting the Scorch Beast Queen, I don't recommend it.
You're more than welcome, but maybe come back when you're like around level 200 or so with a few friends."

"And something as well that we're going to see soon in the future content roadmap, as you said, is, as we've touched upon before, I think Playable Ghouls, which is a franchise first for you guys as well."

"What sort of led to that decision and how is it going to change the way players will play their character?
Yeah, so Ghouls was...
We talked about Playable Ghouls for quite a while, and what we were looking for was an opportunity to make it a really meaningful gameplay choice, not just a visual change."

"So where we were noticing player feedback and player trends, it seemed like a really good time to bring in an option for our later game players.
The one requirement for being a Ghoul is that you have to be level 50 or above."

"And so to bring in Ghouls and to kind of pose an alternate way to play through endgame content.
So one of the big things that differentiates a Ghoul from a human is that Ghouls are not adversely affected by radiation."

"As a matter of fact, it helps them.
Like if I'm a Ghoul and I've taken damage and I start scooping up some radiated water, it actually heals me, right?
And if I find other radiation sources, I can actually absorb radiation and use that in various ways through the 32 new Ghoul-specific perk cards that are going to be coming out with the update."

"Ghouls also don't...
They're not affected by hunger and thirst.
They have no hunger and thirst meter, but they'll have a feral meter, which they need to keep a close watch on, which could very much skew gameplay as well."

"So when you have a character that's completely immune to radiation and don't have to wear power armor anymore, that frees up a whole bunch of perk points that you can use for all sorts of other stuff, which is a new play style all on its own."

"But when you add the 32 new perk cards on top of that, it's dozens of new play styles.
So it'll be really interesting to see how our players use those and how they pick up on what the stark differences between a human and a Ghoul are and how that factors into how they want to handle tougher challenges like the Gleaming Depths."

"With something like the Ghoul, as you said, it sounds like there's a lot of benefits to it, but there are also drawbacks as well to make sure that it's not just, well, I should be a Ghoul because otherwise I'm playing sort of unoptimally."

"Yeah, there's definitely a balance.
Humans will have their positives and negatives.
Ghouls will have their positives and negatives.
There's a balance."

"It'll depend on how, as a player, you want to experience the content.
That'll determine which path you take.
Brilliant, and just one more question for you.
As we sort of have seen this year, Fallout has been huge."

"Even necessarily without the launch of a brand new game, we've seen loads of players in Fallout 76, loads of new players in Fallout 4.
There's been the launch of that expansion-sized mod, Fallout London, the TV show."

"How do you view the future of Fallout after such a successful year?
The future of Fallout?
The future's never been brighter.
Yeah."

"I think 76, we've got the great thing about Bethesda Game Studios is we're made of developers who have no shortage of fantastic ideas, whether that be for 76 or any future games in the Fallout franchise.
But as far as 76 is concerned, we've got plans for way down the road, and it just gets more and more exciting."

"Perfect. John, thank you so much for your time.
Thank you."