Fallout 76 has now been officially unveiled by Bethesda at their E3 presentation yesterday. Among the many features described by Todd Howard was one particularly destructive one; there are a number of nuclear missile silos scattered across Fallout 76’s world map. Not only can these silos be accessed, but they contain nuclear missiles which can be fired anywhere on the map.
The Nuclear Silos
These nuclear missiles will not be easy to access. Each missile requires a launch code which can only be acquired in fragments. These fragments appear to be scattered across the wasteland, and may require multiple players working cooperatively to acquire. Once you have assembled a full code, you can descend into one of the silos and launch a missile somewhere on the map. It’s unknown exactly how nuclear missiles will interact with the map; the trailer appeared to show an area struck by a missile to have been transformed into a heavily irradiated fallout zone filled with dangerous enemies and valuable resources. However, it was unclear if this is a permanent transformation or just temporary. At present, it is also unknown whether codes are re-usable or whether a new code must be found for each missile launch.
The trailer also seemed to suggest that the missiles could be used to kill other players in the world. If so, it’s unclear what would stop them being used for griefing. Todd Howard stated in a later interview that Bethesda did not want to enable griefing and was considering several ways to restrict player interactions. However, he would not say that solo players could not encounter other players out in the wasteland. The game’s building mechanics appeared to show that bases were destructible, and could be attacked. If so, it’s as yet unknown what will happen if a nuclear missile is fired at one, although the bases did appear to be portable via a central crafting device.