Fallout 76's next patch will improve the new-player experience

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As well as tweaking power armor and making some other changes.

(Image credit: Bethesda)

The next patch for Fallout 76 may not be adding NPCs (that's coming in fall), but it is apparently going to include a handful of significant changes. Enough that patch 11 has been delayed to mid-July to incorporate them all.

The highlights include revisions to make the new-player experience even more friendly. Characters below level 15 will enjoy higher disease resistance, and the cost in caps for fast travel will be reduced for those under level 25. Some of the Challenge rewards available to low-level characters are being improved, and the parts of the Ash Heap, Savage Divide, Toxic Valley regions that players encounter when they leave the starting area of The Forest for the first time will include toned-down encounters to smooth out the adjustment. "We'll have more details to share in the full patch notes", they say.

Other changes include improvements to the way power armor works. You'll be able to activate stealth boys while suited up, and there will be a toggle in the menu to disable the power armor HUD skin if you want to stick to the regular one.

Finally, the spoilage rate of food and drink is being reduced, item descriptions are being reworked, and the "scrap all junk" option will no longer scrap items you've bulked for storage. Oh, and punch bowls are returning so you can share booze with friends. Check out the full preview over at the Bethesda blog.

Jody Macgregor
Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.