I don’t think anyone was expecting Fallout 5 to make an appearance at the recent Xbox Games Showcase, but Bethesda did give fans the next best thing: more content for Fallout 76. Perhaps the most exciting new addition is the option to play as a Ghoul, aka the mutated humans that roam the post-nuclear wastelands. This update won’t be coming till 2025, but Bethesda has already explained how playable Ghouls will work and the steps you need to take to become one.
Speaking with PCGamesN, producer Bill LaCoste revealed that the process for turning into a Ghoul is remarkably simple. All you need to do is complete a special quest that unlocks when you hit level 50. Presumably, any players who’ve already surpassed that level will immediately unlock the quest once the update goes live, so it’s not as if you’ll need to build a brand-new character from scratch.
LaCoste obviously refrained from sharing any exact details about the quest’s storyline or what it entails, but he did confirm that the Ghoul transformation isn’t permanent if you decide you don’t enjoy playing as one. There will be an option to swap back to being a regular human but, again, LaCoste didn’t reveal how this will be done. It’s good to know players can reverse their decision since becoming a Ghoul will affect gameplay too, granting access to unique abilities and perks. Plus, NPCs will react to your presence differently.
You’d think the inclusion of playable Ghouls was thanks to the success of the Fallout TV show, which featured a Ghoul named Cooper, played by Walter Goggins, as one of its main characters. However, LaCoste said fans had wanted to play as Ghouls already, and the popularity of Goggins’ character only vindicated the team’s decision to make that a reality: “We were talking about it before it became a big deal, before people saw Cooper in the TV show. … We had this in mind, making this a playable thing in the future, and when the TV show hit and people loved The Ghoul, we knew we’d made the right decision.”
It’s a shame that the update for playable Ghouls feels so far away. Sure, it’ll be out in 2025, but Bethesda has yet to narrow its release date down any further, meaning it could not arrive until near the end of 2025. Fortunately, Fallout 76 players have a new content update to sink their teeth into at the moment, with the Skyline Valley expansion arriving just yesterday on June 12. You can read the full patch notes for yourself, but its main additions include a new region to explore, a new questline, and a new Ghoul type called the Lost.
Bethesda will likely need to rely on Fallout 76 for a good while longer since the series has enjoyed a surge in popularity thanks to the TV show. In fact, Fallout 76 achieved a new concurrent player record on Steam shortly after the show’s premiere. Unfortunately for Bethesda and Microsoft, they don’t have a brand-new Fallout game ready to go to take further advantage of its expanded audience. Fallout 5 is no doubt still in pre-production, and isn’t expected to release till after The Elder Scrolls 6… and that game doesn’t have a release date either. As an ongoing online game, Bethesda can keep supporting Fallout 76 with updates and new content to keep fans satiated until it does have a new game to sell them.
