The Enclave are one of Fallout 76's factions, Bethesda confirms

Perennial Fallout baddies The Enclave—who featured heavily in both Fallout 2 and 3—will return as one of the factions in Fallout 76, Bethesda has confirmed.

The developer tweeted the below image, giving some backstory for the faction and revealing that they have a "secret bunker" hidden somewhere in Appalachia, where the game is set.

Just before the bombs fell, US leadership re-located to a remote Oil Rig off the coast of San Francisco. The Enclave’s mission – to re-establish governmental control of America from key locations, like a secret bunker hidden somewhere deep in Appalachia... #Fallout76 pic.twitter.com/ISnqcVwheEOctober 21, 2018

Fallout 76 has no human NPCs, so it's not yet fully clear what role factions will play. You'd suspect that players will be able to join factions, gaining access to their weapons and armour—and The Enclave has plenty of cool tech, so I can see it being a popular choice.

Over the past few days, Bethesda has also revealed the Responders faction—who "help each other…no matter the cost"—and the Free States, a group of doomsday preppers.

Fallout 76 is due out on November 14, and a beta will start on October 30 on PC. Read Chris's hands-on with the game here.

Thanks, PCGamesN.

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.