What you need to know
- Ghoul player characters are coming to Fallout 76.
- Players will unlock the ability to Ghoulify themselves from level 50.
- The update will be available in early 2025.
- The Skyline Valley map expansion also got a new trailer and will launch on 12 June 2024.
Years of continuous nuclear bombardment has taken their toll on our great adventurers in Fallout 76, and they will soon have the option to play as a Ghoul. Announced at today's Xbox Showcase, Bethesda revealed this exciting new way to play in Appalachia — launching in early 2025. Skyline Valley, the game's first ever map expansion, is also coming on12 June, we have a full trailer here:
What does this mean?
The ability to play as a Ghoul will unlock at level 50, in which the player will be presented with a quest to kick off the process. Those of us who are a little more...attached to our smooth skin avatars may wonder, why would I want to turn into a Ghoul? As part of the update, the team has made an effort to incentivize the player to want to get Ghoulified.
Should they choose to become ghouls, they're granted innate abilities such as unique radiation benefits to a players advantage. Additionally Ghouls will be able to customize their experience in Fallout 76 with dozens new of ghoul-specific PERK points.
You can tailor your Ghoul's look, but be warned, it will affect your interactions with certain factions. If you don't like your new found Ghoul lifestyle, you'll be about to change back. More details about this will be provided closer to the launch.
Get ready for 1000's of Cooper Howards
I'm sure this news will be met with much excitement from game and tv show fans alike, as we've already seen a bunch of people recreating Cooper Howard, the Fallout TV show's Ghoul, in Fallout 4. Ghoul fever has swept the gaming community, even leading our own Richard Devine to write an investigation into why Ghouls have no noses. I expect when this update drops we'll see a lot of Appalachia cowboy Ghouls, and frankly I can't wait.
It's not clear if this Ghoul update was always planned or a result of the show's popularity. Still, recently, I had the pleasure of visiting Zenimax and chatting to the developers about Fallout 76 and its upcoming map expansion, Skyline Valley. During my time with the developers, I mentioned the show "making Ghouls cool," to which they said, "They've always been cool! And that's probably why they chose to put them in the show."
