Fallout 76 hotfix removes top players from the map in survival mode

(Image credit: Bethesda)

Fallout 76 is going through a rough patch thanks to its last, um, patch. On the plus side, a hotfix arrived today that made a few bug fixes, balance changes, and UI tweaks. Perhaps most importantly, the hotfix made a pretty significant change to Fallout 76's survival mode.

Survival mode is played separately from adventure mode, and on survival servers there's no messing around with a harmless introductory attack to signal that you want to fight another player. It's just all-out PvP, which was great unless you happened to be great at PvP—because the locations of the top three survival mode players were always shown on the map for everyone else to see.

I get the idea—it was done to encourage PvP, and on Fallout's big map it's not exactly common to run into other players. But it's also something of a punishment for being good, because it shows everyone else exactly where you are, which just ain't fair. The hoxfix today keeps the leaderboards, so you know which players are the best, but removes the icons showing their locations on the map. There will probably be far fewer skirmishes in survival mode now, but at least the best players won't have their locations being broadcast anymore.

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.