Interview: How the Fallout TV show transformed Fallout 76

A lot of the onboarding was done by our wonderful community who was recognizing all these, you know, fresh vault dwellers emerging from Vault 76 and setting up camps outside of that and giving them free stuff and showing them things. We have to be mindful not to kind of step on toes as far as lore goes. And we've had a couple trips up here and there over the years. [music] Hello and welcome to the game business show with me, Christopher Ding. Last week was the finale of the second season of the Fallout TV show, and I absolutely loved it. And you may remember that late last year, I had the privilege of interviewing Bethesda Studios boss and Fallout executive producer Todd Howard about what he and his teams have been doing to capitalize on the TV show and drive more people into playing the Fallout games. And I thought it was a genuinely fascinating conversation. Now, since that piece, Bethesda has got in touch again and offered me the chance to dive a bit deeper on the subject with the team behind the online game Fallout

76. Now, Fallout 76 has done all sorts of activity around the TV show that helped attract over a million new players to the game just last month. Now, I did this interview just before the Fallout finale, so don't worry, there's no spoilers here. So, check out my chat with Fallout 76 creative director John Rush and production director Bill Lacost. Hello, Bill. And hello, John. Welcome to the show.
Hello. Thank you.
Well,
well, it's been a fun start to the year, I guess, being involved in the Fallout franchise. Do you get a heads up? Do you know what's happening in the TV series before it happens? How how involved do you get to be?
Oh, kind of. Sort of. We get an inkling. Um, we get an inkling. We don't like for instance, the the the last episode's about to come out this week. I don't know what's going to happen. I have no idea. Um, Bill might know something. He's probably just not telling me. But uh but yeah, we really we really don't know.
Yeah, I put on ear muffs. I I don't want to hear anything about it to be honest. Yeah,
I'm I'm certainly very much enjoying

this series. Let's start with this series because and let's go back to the first series. Obviously, I've seen the numbers. You had an enormous number of players flood in back in April 2024. How prepared were you for that?
Not. Well, we were as far as like bringing in a bunch of players. Yes. Um, we knew the show was going to be good. We knew the show was going to be great. We didn't anticipate that many players coming in. So, as far as the content that released around the time of the show, we had stuff like the Ghoul Duster or the backpack that kind of looked like Lucy's, you know.
Mhm. So, um, outside of what we already had in in in 76, kind of the same Fallout storytelling that that folks were experiencing from the show, uh, that was about as prepared as as as we were contentwise. Where season two, you know, even before season 1 stopped airing, we were already preparing plans for the content around that came out around the season two time frame, which

ended up being Burning Springs.
Oh, wow.
Right. which was much more ended up being much more tonally in sync with what folks were seeing in the show. And of course with the inclusion of Waltton Gargan's ghoul character that was that was very much the cherry on top.
Yeah, we'll come to that cuz it it is a really cool thing. I think in a way and I mean this I know I'm sounds like I'm blowing smoke but I genuinely mean it. I think Fallout has led the way in terms of how the industry and how other people with IP bringing their games to films and cinema, how they should react and how they can make the most of it. Because I think not just obviously Fallout 76, the whole franchise has done a masterful job of that. But obviously you saw a lot of new I guess you must have seen a lot of new people come on board, right? It wasn't just lapsed players or anything. You saw a whole group of noviceses maybe who never even played a game before. That's what Todd said to me back in December. Were you ready for, you know, on boarding those sort of people? Was there any challenges around that going back to the first season? Well, we're always making kind of small adjustments to the game here

and there to to systems or or features that make it a bit easier for players, new players to kind of hop in or make it easier for players that are just coming back maybe after a little while to to hop back in. But honestly, it's I'd say a lot of the onboarding uh was done by our wonderful community who was recognizing all these, you know, fresh vault dwellers emerging from Vault 76 and setting up camps outside of that and giving them free stuff and showing them things and look at what I built. And uh so it was it was it was very much a concerted effort between us and our community welcoming this new influx of brand new players and returning players alike. That's lovely. I did read that you've got quite a lovely community which I which I I know I'm sure other all games do, but I I guess with Fallout with it being the sort of game it is, I'm surprised to hear that they're they're such a a friendly bunch of folks.
And so were we [laughter]

before we released the game. We were like, "Oh, it's, you know, post-apocalyptic. It's Fallout. Let's let them, you know, they're going to all want to kill one another." It's complete opposite. The complete opposite. It's been great to see that. Um, I've never never experienced a community as as great as the Bethesda Game Studios community.
Oh, that's lovely. So, you talked about how you were planning season 2 all the way back from season 1 for the TV show. Was there anything that you changed? You had to think, right, okay, with season two, I mean, nobody expects season two to do to have the same impact as season one. That's not what is seen across any game really. But um were there any things that you had to do approach differently as a result of what you learned from season 1 to season 2? If I'm making any sense there it Yeah, that makes sense. Not really. Um just because, you know, we take a lot of solace in the wonderful storytelling uh that the show creators are kind of exhibiting. You know, they're also big fans of the IP and the games. And so for us that really emboldens us to continue

on with what we do and that is tell great uh Fallout stories. So it's considerations or honestly making the content for Burning Springs was kind of its its its own thing, but it was the content leading up to it which was sort of thickening the experience for players in the game already for things that kind of already existed or adding slightly new things like fishing. Bill's heard me say this. Hey, anywhere you can swim, you can fish, right? And so that kind of refreshes the whole map for existing players and for new players that come in, they're going to, you know, really want to explore all these waterways or revisiting existing uh systems and features like our camp building, right? like with the camp revamp update where we've improved the UI to help facilitate all the thousands of things that players can build with and we lifted the build rules so they could build what was in their mind's eye so much easier. So those were really the preparatory things that we wanted to

have nailed down before getting that additional influx of players from the next season of of the Fallout show.
Oh wow. Bill, I feel conscious that I want to get you involved in this as well. Uh the um the
Sorry, I'm being an anter. Oh, no. It's perfectly fine. John has the same responses that I would have anyway. You know, like like he said in the last question, you know, we we didn't immediately come out of the season 2 and the show go, "Okay, oh, what do we what are we going to do for this year, you know, to make this better for the for the next release." It's all this stuff was already in the road map. We we found a lot of ways that we could continue to improve the quality of life for players and the systems that they engage with. And like John said, you know, relaxing the build rules. you know, we wanted to make sure that all of our different groups of players had something to continue to build towards as we got towards the end of the year for that big release of Burning Springs. So, a lot of the work that we put into the year was simply just things that we would normally do on a yearly basis anyway, which is to continue to add content and support each and every group that that continues to to engage with the with the game. I will come back to fishing by the

way some I I find that fascinating as well. But I'll go back to Burning Springs. I mean, obviously the ghouls in it and that's all really cool and it's nice, but is there anything you learned from it because it's been it's been nearly where exactly two months since you um since it uh since it debuted. What have you learned from that expansion?
I think what we've or at least what I've learned from that is that we continue to make really good content, especially when it comes to the events and the side quests because that's what people are engaging in and you know, we haven't seen any dip there whatsoever. So, the types of content that we create and the our ability to expand into a new region and create a number of POIs that are engaging for people and exciting for people to go visit, uh, as well as features within that region that support what we're doing, you know, as a as a full game, uh, I think is amazing. I think we've done just a a really really good job there of of presenting folks an area to keep engaging with the game the way they normally wanted to engage with the game. And that was great. We had tons of engagement on bounty hunting.

still continue to have huge engagements on bounty hunting. We still have people grinding for all of the Abrao briefcases, you know. So, uh and then also engaging every time one of those uh new events pops up, they're they're immediately right there and and ready to go. So, yeah, that that's been a really good one thing that we expected, but also a good surprise, too, to see that people are still engaged with all that same content. So, one of my um best friends, not in the games industry at all, he's a huge Fallout 76 obsessive. And when I told him that I was, you know, he he he doesn't really necessarily engage with what I do as a living, but when I saw saw I spoke to Todd Howard last month, he said, I watched that episode, you should ask these five or six questions and I'm I'm not going to I'm not going to do that. Um, but he sort of is the one that's told me because I I played Fallout 76 at the start, but it was a troubled launch and and he's the one that sort of told me it's it's it's he loves it, right? So, very much an advocate. Um, this wasn't the next question I was going to ask, but do you still get people like me that go back to that 2018, is it 2018, was I get that year right?
Mhm.

Launch and and is there still that sort of friction really from from people uh who remember that that troubled start?
I don't know if it's so much a friction or more of a surprise really for the folks that come back. Um, you know, this is a game that we've always believed in and have been diligently supporting and updating over all those years. Every six weeks or so, here's a new patch. I think what they discover is that what we've been doing in the interim is continuing to tell the story, the fallout story of our Appalachia. Um, and folks that were in for the launch and for a little bit after that really got to only experience kind of the first chapter, right, which was setting the stage. It was introducing new players to the new main character being Appalachia and familiarizing yourself with Appalachia through learning about the people that used to live there through their holotapes and their notes, their bodily remains, things they've left behind in their houses. Um but then organically as

as I think it kind of would um people started to gain interest and come into this Appalachin area and and and and folks got to experience the next chapter and Wastelanders and so on and so forth. So yeah, I wouldn't really say friction. I would say it's really more genuine surprise um and and folks find that there's really hundreds of hours of of wonderful Fallout content for them to explore uh down them country roads. I think uh what's also amazing here too was that anytime someone starts a thread, you know, and mentions anything about 2018, our fans are we we don't we we love reading all the feedback anyway that comes in. But our fans immediately jump in and go, "Oh, you obvious obviously haven't played since 2018, have you?" And they're like, "Well, no, not really." And then they come in and jump in. They're like, "Oh, wait. This game has completely changed." It's like, "Yes, it has." And you know I talk about it quite a bit about you know what we had to do from the very beginning to maintain you know the game to where it is now today which was one had to start building trust again with the community

you know and and part of that started with improving the the server connectivity so people could actually get in and play you know and then start establishing a timeline that they could rely on us to deliver on also with good content and know that every single one of those updates also came with a bunch of Qo and fixes that actually made their lives better in the game. And once they started seeing that, especially after Wastelanders, um, every 12 weeks, actually every 6 weeks really, they can rely on us to drop something that's got content in it. And and knowing that that's coming on those days and being reliable for the past 6 years is one of those ways that we've just continued to build a good rapport with our community. And plus, they know both John and I are are players ourselves and play on our own time. So, we're invested in this game from a player perspective, too. But we read Reddit. We read uh all the stuff in Discord. We have a star board that talks about a lot of the main things that people actually care about and they know full well we're reading it and making uh progress towards those things every year. So
yeah,
so it took a lot of work, but you know,

one of my big live online games I used to Well, I don't play as much time anymore. I've got a very young child, but um when I used to do it a lot, Sea of Thieves was one of my things. Even now I see people go, "Don't you mean Sea of No content?" I mean, no, the game's got the opposite problem now. It's just too much in it. Right. And um but it's because it was that first few months that was the uh and I guess you you only get a first impression once, right? So I guess that's that that's where that comes from. But you good news is because of the TV show and everything, you've been able to really make another first impression, which is a very rare um a very nice thing to have, I guess. Um how has the second season impacted this game? I know you won't be able to give me numbers, but how has what's what have you seen? What's happened?
John, you're me.
Go for it, man. Yeah, it's uh it's been super positive for us. Like I said, our engagement in not only the region, but in the game as a whole has has increased again. We have a a a good number of players who've come back. And these are like brand new players. They're also reacquired players who we have a we have a a group of players who come in, they check out the big stuff, and then they kind of drift off a little bit, then we

release something big, they come back and play again. And so they're very reliable, and they've been here since since launch as well. So yeah, it's been really good to see that. And and players are just super engaged with with what we've been delivering on.
It's interesting. something John used to talking about story there. I might be being naive with this question, but is it difficult to uh uh is there is there an element to make sure that you have to be careful not to contradict anything that happens in other places?
Sure. There are definitely its own challenges, right? Because we're we're playing with lore that's been explored in Fallout 1, two, three, New Vegas 4, and now the show, right? Yeah. Um, but with those challenges, there are also at least a hundred times more opportunities. Opportunities to since we're so far back in the timeline, hundreds of years, to tell our own stories in a region that's never been explored in a past Fallout mentioned, but never explicitly explored. So yes, we have to be mindful not to kind of step on toes as far as lore lore goes and we've had a couple trips up here and

there over the years, but uh on the whole we keep eyes on it. But what we try to do is at least kind of maybe tease loose connections to stuff that players have noticed in some of the other Fallout games. Like an example I always bring up, which is probably one of our more recent, is in our raids in Gleaming Depths, right? There's a trio of of uh power armor clad baddies in there and they look kind of like a certain person named Frank from Fallout 2. They look kind of like that. So maybe it's a prototype. I don't know. But it's a slight nod. So definitely more opportunities I would say than than challenges. But uh yeah, that's a good question.
Do you have a Bible? Do you have like some sort of really in Fallout Bible? Because you got so many different creatives have involved in this uh in this IP. The Bible exists here. It exists in the brains of others. And many of it exists in I'm pointing at them right down there. [laughter] Exists when it's it's it's spread out uh

pretty well. So that said, the creative process is very organic. Hey, do you remember when Brotherhood did this? Is that a contradiction to Oh, it is. What if they went this way instead? No. In Fallout 2, they did this. So, it's a it's it keeps the studios talking, you know, despite Bethesda being split between four different locations. We're based in Austin, Texas Pexus. Yeah. Um, it keeps the studios talking. It keeps the creative process very organic.
Now, you mentioned thicker earlier, John, and and I know that you both spoken about this in the past, which I I I'm getting to mean deeper, but actually doesn't necessarily mean that necessarily, but I sound in some ways. How do you balance the because you must have a slightly more casual TV audience, right? as well as I guess hardcore players that want that depth. I guess actually maybe my first question is what does thicker actually mean? Is it just is it adding more stuff into the game? How do you manage that when you probably bring in new people? I've asked three questions there. I apologize. [laughter]
No, it's fine. Uh thicker to me, and this is a really bad analogy. I I apologize. It is coming up on lunchtime. So, this is going to be a foodbased

analogy. Here we go. We're going to do a food based analogy. If uh 76 right now is a single patty super fatty patty burger, right? Making it thicker means ordering double. Now we've got a double we've got a double fatty patty burger. There's there's more. It doesn't it doesn't go beyond this shape. It goes thicker and there's more to bite into. So existing systems, existing features, they get updated. They get more reasons to uh uh engage in those. Like a really crude example could be something as simple as, "Hey, look, there's new stuff to do in fishing. There's more fish. There's different ways to catch them. There's new rewards." That's making it thicker. It's giving our player base more to do within within the bounds that they already play in. Updates like Skyline Valley, like Burning Springs, which ex which make the burger bigger, right, are always great because, you know, most Americans like bigger burgers. [laughter] uh you know it's sometimes it doesn't really support the kind of stories that

we want to tell and so we always want to look for ways to enrich our players existing experiences in the game. So when I say thicker uh that is what I'm I'm referring to and and a lot of our plans for this next calendar year involve enriching those experiences for players in the game. Our next patch which has been up on our public test server uh is a great example of that. It takes existing content in the game and makes it so much more rewarding and engaging. Um the players players have reacted really well to it. Um I think that was one of your questions.
The other one was linked to the fact that obviously you're bringing in new players as well. And I actually if this kind of rings the CFS challenge coming to see you coming to CFS now and it's going to be overwhelming with the amount of stuff you're doing particular if you're new to the game. Yeah.
And you also you bring in new people the TV shows bringing in millions of new people whenever it launches. Um, so I guess my question was, is that something you're mindful of or you're having to adapt to?
Oh, yes. Very mindful of that.
We frequently talk about the new player

experience, right, which is you waking up in the vault and going through the vault and emerging into the the wasteland for the first time. Uh, using your example of a lot of things to do in Sea of Thieves, like for a new player, same with our game. The more we add, the more there is for our new players to learn, right? So, a big challenge that we have with new players when they leave the vault is we don't want them to see pop-up pop-up pop-up pop-up pop-up, you know, and and get lost in all this messaging and and information. And so, we talk about ways to streamline that or what's really appropriate for them to be told like like right away. A recent example of that was, hey, we want people to we want players, new players to see the ghoul early. What's a what's a way we could do that without it being too intrusive? Okay, we'll put the ghoul outside of the vault, right? And so when you leave the vault, players will see the ghoul and likely talk to the ghoul and get the information there rather than leaving the vault and a pop-up coming up and saying, "Hey, bounty

hunting in this new region. Go there and giving you stuff to read." It's a more kind of elegant way to introduce them to content. U so we do that with new players very much in mind.
I'll ask about fishing now because I just spoke to the World of Warcraft team and they're adding they're adding housing into the game, right? which is which is cozy gameplay, right? It's it's make your own things and and decorate and design your own stuff, which I I it sounds to me like that's been part of Fallout 76 from the very beginning because obviously you got the camps and now you've added fishing, which is I guess cozy, [laughter] right? Has it surprised you? This is the sort of things that your fans are engaging with and are asking for.
Kind of. Well, you know what? Maybe not nowadays. Before launch, yes, it would have surprised me, I think. Um, but I think really what it comes down to is our players enjoy being able to tell their own stories [snorts] and being having having so much freedom in building such a wide arrange wide array of things they can

build in our game I think is a very effective way for them to tell their own stories and have other players experience those. So at launch I would have been surprised. nowadays. It sounds it sounds right. It's been, you know, over 7 years of us becoming familiar with our community and what they want. Here's a Fallout game. It's online for the first time. You know, it was I've used this example before. It's it was kind of like going on a blind date, right? Like, hi, we're we're a multiplayer online follow game. Nice to meet you. Oh, hello. We're your community. And it's years of getting to know one another and and seeing what one another is like, what they expect. Oh.
So, yeah, not not so much a surprise these days.
Yeah. I think the the one thing if I could real quick, Chris, is that there's a lot of depth to our fishing game that I think is is part of the the genius behind it because it reinforces so many other parts of the game itself. You know, we have people just because there's fishing there, a whole bunch of camp builders and a lot of people around

the world built camps specifically to show off like a camp a fishing theme. You know, they build them near the water, near docks. And then because we have weather stations in our game that affect the area around your camp, those also play into the type of fish that you catch. So there's multiple different loops there to engage with and and other things that just reinforce itself. So you get recipes. You also complete dailies from from Captain Raymond. And you then start to upgrade your reel. So that makes the fishing a little bit easier. You can adjust whether it's the speed or it's the it's the range. There's so many things that go into it. Then we have all of our world challenges that buy into that as well as well as local legends. So there's just a lot to do within the simplicity of the mechanic itself. I think that's why players have really kind of uh taken a liking to it because also we have a monthly axelottle that we release. So people are always out trying to find the axelottle for each month and so that keeps them coming back and playing too. So yeah, you know, with the simplicity of of just casting, reeling, getting your fish, there's a ton of depth that goes in underneath it

as well that reinforces other parts of the game. You know, Christopher, you might not believe this, but some people when they fish up those cute axelottles actually eat them raw.
Oh, yeah. That sounds very Fallout. [laughter] Well, I'm very conscious of the time. I don't want to I don't want to take up too much your time. I was going to ask what your biggest challenges were, but I'm going to end with this one, I think, which is far more, which is what's your goal? What's your long What does What does success look like for Fallout 76? What's your vision for the future?
We've got plans for years and years and years down the road. Lots of exciting features. I can't wait to talk to our community about and disclose. Um, but what they what they all hinge around, and this would be the goal for the project, is are updates that allow us to continue telling our story of Appalachia and also updates that at the same time continue to enable our players to tell their own stories through the things that they build, through the places they explore with their friends. Um, so our

goal is to continue down that road and the next several years will directly reflect that.
Well, nice. I did realize when I was just randomly dropping other games like World of Warcraft and CFS that they're actually your sister. They're your friends now, right? You're all part of the same all part of the same family.
Same group.
Is there do you do much sharing? Is there not talking between you or is it you're all very siloed? There's been some and there's been some talking between uh Elder Scrolls Online group as well. Of course.
Of course. Yeah.
But yeah, here and there. I wouldn't say anything too regular or heavy, but but definitely some.
Yeah. Well, I'm sure that's interesting. Um well, thank you so much, Bill and John. I appreciate your time. I'm a big Fallout fan. I say I'm played 76 for a while, but I'm very much loving this series and it makes me want to go back into that universe and it's nice to hear you have such a lovely community. It's quite a
You don't always get that. So, it's very nice.
Not usually.
No, not always. [laughter]
Well, thank you for your time.

Yeah, thank you, Christopher. Appreciate it.
Thank you.
Well, that's it for today's episode of the Game Business Show. We will, of course, be back with more news, analysis, interviews, and insight. If you want to make sure you don't miss a single thing that we put out, then go to the game.com and stick in your email. You'll get a newsletter every single time we put out a new episode or do a new interview. But that's it for today. Thank you for tuning in and we will see you next time.