Fallout 76's Main Story, Explained (2024)

A prequel to the Fallout game series was always going to be a tough thing to deliver. The game would be going back centuries before the modern society of Fallout was truly established. As a result, new lore would be added, explaining how some of the factions fans know and love today came to be, and providing greater context for how the world slowly started to piece together something resembling civilization. The true triumph here, though, is that the game explores a world that is still coming to grips with the realities and threats presented by this post-apocalyptic world.

For newcomers though, Fallout 76 can seem a little daunting considering how many expansions it has gotten to further develop the history of the Wasteland. Fortunately, the base storyline of the game is pretty straightforward: a vault dweller ventures out into the wastes and encounters an enemy that poses an existential threat to not only them but the rest of humanity as well. It is a classic tale of good versus evil that also uses the world's shaky foundation as an excellent launching point for the game's plot.

• Vault 76 was designed with two missions.
• The first was to help repopulate the human race.
• The second was to take control of multiple nuclear silos.

Fallout 76 takes place approximately twenty-five years after the Great War, meaning the world is still fresh off the heels of the catastrophic day civilization was destroyed in nuclear fire. The vault the players will originate from, Vault 76, was unique in that it had two purposes when it was constructed. The first was to release its occupants out into the Wasteland twenty or so years after the Great War. This would be done to help repopulate the area the game takes place in, Appalachia, and ensure the continuation of the human race. The second reason was far more surprising, and perhaps borderline impossible.

The Overseer of the Vault had been tasked with a secret mission to assume control over three functioning nuclear silos located within Appalachia. The goal was for Vault-Tec and Vault-Tec alone to secure the sites and ensure that no one else ever used them. This was a mission that was borderline impossible, not only due to the Overseer's relative inexperience as a leader but also due to the high-level security protocols sealing off the silos from anyone who might be foolhardy enough to try and utilize even more nuclear weapons in the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse.

This is where the player character comes in. Naturally, they will be the ones to gain access to these nuclear silos, but their reasons for doing so are actually necessary due to the circ*mstances they will find themselves in. The player's first attempt to make contact with survivors from the surface is met with failure. Instead, they discover that their first point of contact was attacked by strange enemies that would later be revealed as an existential crisis for the surviving human population.

The Threat of the Scorchbeasts

• An enemy of this game is the Scorchbeast.
• They are giant, mutated bats that spread a disease that links its victims to a hivemind.
• The player must locate and destroy the Scorchbeast Nest.

The player quickly discovers strange beings known as the Scorched, mutated humans that have contracted the deadly Scorch Plague. This insidious disease causes humans to undergo horrific physical alterations. Their skin begins to develop painful legions that smell of ash and eventually burst, even developing strange crystalline protrusions all over their body. The physical changes are not what makes this disease so dangerous though. The true threat of the Scorched is posed by their masters: the Scorchbeasts.

Unlike previous games, Fallout 76 takes advantage of how little the survivors are aware of the dangers surrounding them thanks to all the fallout mutating the plant and animal life around them. The Scorchbeasts are the best representation of this. They are bats that have been mutated into massive monsters capable of spreading the Scorch Plague across the land. Once someone is infected and transformed, they lose all individual will, as the Plague connects its victims to a hivemind, controlled by a Scorchbeast Queen, the biggest and most dangerous member of these creatures.

The player character quickly realizes that the Scorchbeasts, as an uncontrollable force of nature, will quickly begin to spread their plague beyond the confines of Appalachia, threatening the already dwindling members of the human race still living. The only way to stop the Scorchbeasts was to eliminate the Queen, and to do that they would need to locate the Scorchbeast Nest. This is a task easier said than done, as there was no way to track down its location without significant help.

To that end, the player character needed to create a radar system capable of tracking the viral signature of the Scorchbeasts, but the range of this technology was severely limited, preventing them from finding the Nest without traversing all of Appalachia. In order to boost its power, the player must make alliances with other factions of the Wasteland such as the Brotherhood of Steel and other quirky characters, such as the Miss Nanny robot, Rose, who is trying to rebuild Raider gangs.

Unleashing Apocalyptic Power on the Scorchbeasts

• The player makes an alliance with the Enclave A.I. MODUS.
• After helping it, they locate the nest and gain access to a silo.
• They then destroy the nest and the Queen inside of it.

Finding the nest was only step one. To truly destroy it, and ensure the power of the Scorchbeasts army was broken forever, the player would need to gain access to one of the nuclear silos they had been sent into the Wasteland to locate. Fortunately, over the course of their missions working with the Brotherhood of Steel, they gained the attention of the Enclave, a corrupt cabal composed of the United States Government's last remaining members. This sinister faction was led by the A.I. MODUS, which proceeds to make a deal with the player. In exchange for helping it connect to various isolated computer networks, thus allowing it to establish contact with an orbital platform, MODUS would not only help boost the radar system's range, but also provide the location and access to the necessary nuclear silo.

Once the player has fulfilled their end of the bargain, MODUS performs the agreed-upon tasks. It increases the radar's power, thus exposing that the Scorchbeast Nest is located not too far from where the Brotherhood of Steel first attempted to contain the threat years ago. With the coordinates of the nest in hand, the player accesses one of the nuclear silos and proceeds to launch a missile at the nest. While it sounds like this is the ending of the story, the threat of the Scorchbeasts is too great to be left to chance, and so the player enters the now irradiated area to confirm that the Queen is dead.

Once inside, the player discovers a laboratory, suggesting that the Scorchbeasts were artificially made, before being attacked by the Scorchbeast Queen. After a vicious fight, the player emerges victorious, destroying the hivemind of the Scorchbeasts and ensuring that humanity has a fighting chance. They then return to the other residents of Vault 76, ready to help begin rebuilding civilization in the Wasteland.

Fallout 76's main campaign masterfully utilizes early survivors' lack of knowledge of the Wasteland against them and is an excellent addition to the franchise. At this point in history, people are still adapting to the new reality, and as such are more vulnerable to the threats of mutated life. While human ingenuity and resolve ultimately triumph over the wild rampage of the Scorchbeasts, the plot also leaves many loose threads to be explored in later expansions, such as why MODUS wanted to connect to an orbital platform, or how the Scorchbeasts really came into existence. Overall, Fallout 76 does an amazing job of hooking players with an enticing story, but also leaving room for future campaigns to expand the lore of Fallout even further.

Fallout

The Fallout franchise, a hallmark of post-apocalyptic gaming, transports players to a retro-futuristic world devastated by nuclear war. Set in an alternate history where advanced technology and 1950s culture collide, the series begins in the year 2077, when nuclear bombs devastate the Earth. Survivors emerge from massive underground bunkers called Vaults to navigate the harsh wastelands, filled with mutants, raiders, and remnants of pre-war society.

Each game in the series, from the original Fallout to the latest installment, presents a unique narrative centered around themes of survival, exploration, and moral ambiguity. Players often assume the role of a Vault Dweller or Wastelander, making crucial decisions that shape the fate of various factions and settlements. With its open-world design, intricate storytelling, and deep role-playing mechanics, Fallout has captivated audiences, offering a rich blend of action, strategy, and atmospheric storytelling that examines the enduring human spirit amidst desolation.

Created by

Tim Cain , Leonard Boyarsky

First TV Show

Fallout

First Episode Air Date

April 10, 2024

Cast

Ella Purnell , Aaron Moten , Kyle MacLachlan , Moises Arias , Xelia Mendes-Jones , Walton Goggins

Video Game(s)

Fallout 2 , Fallout 3 , Fallout 4 , Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel , Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel , Fallout: New Vegas , Fallout Shelter

Genre

RPG , Action RPG , Tactical RPG , Management , Simulation , Survival