Fallout 76 getting a new PvP mode early next year

In addition to today's Fallout 76 hotfix, which patched a few small but important issues, Bethesda gave us peek into what's coming in 2019. An extremely tiny peek.

"Our sights are set for future updates," reads a post on Bethesda's site. "In mid-January, we will be releasing another patch that contains many fixes, including fixes for the Lever-Action Rifle reload animation, some perk cards, and we’re dealing some crowd control at the Whitespring by implementing a fix for the robots duplicating on the resort grounds."

I'm completely familiar with that last issue.

"We’re also hard at work on a new mode where you can work together, or not, without PVP restrictions," the post continues. "We’re already having fun playing it at the office and we’re hopeful to roll it out to all of you sometime in the first quarter of the year."

That's not a lot of detail, but the only PvP restriction I can currently think of is that in order to instigate real PvP, the player you're attacking has to fight back. If they don't, they won't take full damage from your attacks, and if you continue to attack them you'll eventually get a bounty. If they drop that 'shoot back' requirement, that means your first attack on another player would deal full damage, allowing the opportunity for stealth attacks and ambushes. This would probably ruin the game for some, so I suspect it'd be a mode you need to opt into. Or, if I really get my wish, a choice to play on true PvP or PvE-only servers.

It will be interesting to see if the stakes are raised a bit more in this new PvP mode by allowing players to take more than just junk from the players they kill. I somehow doubt you'd be able to strip someone of all their gear, but it'd be nice to defeat a player and get more out of it than scrap metal, clipboards, and desk fans. We'll find out sometime in 2019.