Fallout 76 has reached 25 million players, Bethesda's official Fallout account announced on X (formerly Twitter) on October 23rd.
The milestone was posted for Fallout Day alongside a short video. "Soon #Fallout76 will be turning eight years old and today we celebrate reaching 25 Million Appalachian Vault Dwellers. Thank you all for playing!" the post read. It did not say how players were counted or give a breakdown by platform.
Eight years in Appalachia
Bethesda Game Studios, the team behind Skyrim and Fallout 4, revealed Fallout 76 as an online prequel to the series where every surviving human is a real person. It launched on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC on November 14th 2018, which puts its eighth anniversary a few weeks away.
The game is set 25 years after the bombs fall, with players emerging from a Vault into post-nuclear America. Bethesda's official game page describes it as an open-world multiplayer addition to the Fallout story. Its current fall content is "The Slasher", an event that runs over several weeks and has players hunting for clues, digging up unmarked graves and fighting off fanatics.
What's next for Fallout 76
Bethesda laid out its plans up to summer 2027 in a Letter from the Directors published on September 30th by Creative Director Jon Rush and Production Director Bill LaCoste. The next update, World Pets, is due in December. It lets C.A.M.P. Pets follow players around the map, level up and fight alongside them, and adds bounty hunting in Skyline Valley.
In spring, Hideouts will add tougher bounty encampments that the directors described as a stepping stone between the early endgame and Raids. They come with a new 'Marked' difficulty and a rival bounty hunter called The Drifter. Later in 2027, the map will expand towards the Capital Wasteland with Raven Rock, a story set almost 200 years before the events of Fallout 3. The letter also listed planned work on Seasonal Events, rendering, weather, the new player experience and fishing.
