Fallout 76has been on a hot streak lately. Since the premiere of Amazon Prime’s live-actionFalloutseries last year, the multiplayer take on the long-running post-apocalyptic franchise has seen a surge in players. 2024 was a solid time forFallout 76players, but 2025 has raised the bar with its lineup of new content.
Back in the spring,Fallout 76saw one of its biggest shake-ups yet with the arrival of the Ghoul Within update. Due to the popularity of Walton Goggins as The Ghoul in theFalloutTV show,Fallout 76finally embraced playable Ghouls. That isn’t where the big content drops stopped, though. Just recently,Fallout 76released its summer update, Gone Fission, finally bringing fishing to the wastelands of Appalachia.Fallout 76is now the strongest it has ever been, and while that’s great, it also gives Bethesda the difficult challenge of one-upping these updates later in the year.
Fallout 76’s One-Two Punch of Content Leaves the Rest of 2025 With High Expectations to Meet
The Rest of Fallout 76’s Year is Already Being Teased
During an interview at Summer Game Fest,Fallout 76lead producer Bill LaCoste and creative director Jon Rush had some exciting things to say about what waits on the horizon for players later this year. The duo claimed thatFallout 76is going to get even bigger updates down the road, but they were quite tight-lipped about what this future content entails.
While many of the details are still being kept under wraps, the upcoming fall update was at least confirmed to be focused around building. LaCoste and Rush hinted at an overhaul of the CAMP system, but the most intriguing news is the planned winter update.Fallout 76’s winter update could potentially be “one of the biggest, most impactful patches” to ever come to the title. Considering that it’s only summer, it will probably be a while before the team behindFallout 76offer more insight, but such bold claims definitely point to something compelling. Over the years,Fallout 76has finally found its voice, and its winter update potentially being a turning point for the multiplayer adventure makes one wonder exactly what such a massive update could hold.
Rush and LaCoste held back from revealing an official release date forFallout 76’s winter update, but it’s set to arrive sometime in December. Season 2 of theFalloutshow is also slated to premiere during the same month, giving franchise fans a double dose of content to be on the lookout for.
Can Fallout 76’s Winter Update Stand Up to the Hype?
Based on the Summer Game Fest interview, Rush and LaCoste seem quite confident in what is planned to come toFallout 76at the end of the year, but that still doesn’t guarantee it can meet the expectations already set byGhoul Within and Gone Fission.
Of course, only time will tell, and even ifFallout 76’s winter update doesn’t reach that high bar, that won’t stop it from being a solid year for the spin-off. Fishing may seem like a small update compared to becoming a Ghoul, butGone Fission has added an extra layer of depthto the game’s survival experience.
Gone Fission introduces three types of bait: Common, Improved, and Superb. As their names imply, higher tiers of bait increase one’s chances of getting a good catch.
As the year continues, Bethesda is bound to shed some more light on what to expect fromFallout 76. It was just recently confirmed thatBethesda will be present at Gamescom in August, and while many are expectingStarfieldto be the main topic of discussion, it could also be a strong stage to make some freshFallout 76announcements, too.
Fallout 76
WHERE TO PLAY
Bethesda Game Studios, the award-winning creators of Skyrim and Fallout 4, welcome you to Fallout 76. Twenty-five years after the bombs fell, you and your fellow Vault Dwellers—chosen from the nation’s best and brightest – emerge into post-nuclear America on Reclamation Day, 2102. Play solo or join together as you explore, quest, build, and triumph against the wasteland’s greatest threats. Explore a vast wasteland, devastated by nuclear war, in this open-world multiplayer addition to the Fallout story. Experience the largest, most dynamic world ever created in the legendary Fallout universe. Expand southward to Skyline Valley – a brand-new region of Appalachia. Investigate the cause of the electric storm circling overhead and unveil the mystery around Vault 63 and its dwellers, including a shocking new Ghoul type – The Lost.
