Fallout 76 Reveals Gleaming Depths Update Patch Notes

Key Takeaways

• Fallout 76 introduces the Gleaming Depths raid, a challenging endgame activity focusing on teamwork and unique boss mechanics.
• The update brings 4-Star Legendary items to enhance gameplay through powerful effects and customization options.
• C.A.M.P. Pets, Player Titles, and Season 19 content are also included, alongside improvements to Perk Cards, combat balance, and weapon adjustments.

Fallout 76 has revealed the Gleaming Depths update patch notes, delivering the most significant overhaul to its endgame experience yet. At the heart of this Fallout 76 update is The Gleaming Depths raid, a new endgame activity for teams of four seasoned Vault Dwellers. Players can also explore new 4-Star Legendary items, personalized Player Titles, and the addition of C.A.M.P. Pets to enhance their adventures.

Since its troubled launch in 2018, Fallout 76 has seen significant improvements, with Bethesda rolling out 20 major updates packed with new content. In recent weeks, the developers have been building anticipation for the game’s 21st major update, Gleaming Depths, which officially launched on December 3.

The centerpiece of this latest Fallout 76 update is the introduction of the Gleaming Depths raid, an endgame activity that requires a party of four highly skilled and well-equipped Vault Dwellers to cooperate and overcome unique boss mechanics. Unlike solo-friendly activities like Daily Ops, this raid emphasizes teamwork by assigning specific roles and demanding strategic communication. To support this, a new contextual Ping system has been added to mark targets and points of interest, helping those who prefer not to use voice communication. The raid stands out for its lack of time-gating, allowing players to complete it repeatedly without having to wait for resets. However, the challenge is heightened by the fact that players cannot be revived until the encounter is finished, adding an extra layer of difficulty.

The Fallout 76 update also introduces 4-Star Legendary items, expanding the Legendary Crafting system. These items enhance gameplay with powerful effects like health regeneration for critical hits or reduced V.A.T.S. action point costs. Players can earn these items through the Gleaming Depths raid and either trade loose mods or learn recipes by scrapping gear. However, once a mod is crafted onto an item, it becomes untradeable.

Additionally, the Fallout 76 Gleaming Depths update introduces the highly anticipated C.A.M.P. Pets, which lets players add a dog or cat to their settlements, complete with customization and interactive commands. Player Titles also debuted, offering a new way to personalize characters by earning and combining prefixes and suffixes through challenges, events, and quests. The update also kicks off Fallout 76 Season 19: The Scientific Forge, centered around the Enclave’s quest to rebuild America through scientific innovation, adding fresh thematic content to the game.

This is not all; the update also introduces the new Mutated Public Events playlist, featuring five events. Additionally, substantial changes have been made to Fallout 76‘s Perk Cards, combat balance, and weapon adjustments, alongside various visual and gameplay improvements.

Fallout 76 Gleaming Depths Update Patch Notes

Mutated Public Events Update

We have added five public events to the Mutated Public Events playlist.

These events are:

• Campfire Tales: Volatile and Toxic Blood Mutations
• Free Range: Resilient and Swift-Footed Mutations
• Project Paradise: Active Camouflage and Resilient Mutations
• Beasts of Burden: Freezing Touch and Reflective Mutations
• Safe and Sound: Swift-Focused and Danger Cloud Mutations

Perk Cards Balancing Update

The Gleaming Depths update releases with some substantial balancing changes to a handful of Perk Cards.

Our goal was to take generally underperforming perks and make them more interesting and easier to incorporate into your builds by removing some extra ranks, lowering the cost, and changing their effect to scale with the related primary stat.

• Adamantium Skeleton
  • Ranks reduced from 3 to 1
  • New effect: Limb Damage Reduction effect now scales with Endurance
• All Night Long
  • Ranks reduced from 3 to 1
  • Rank 1 Perk Point cost increased from 1 to 2
  • New effect: The positive effects of pre-war alcohol last twice as long
• Batteries Included
  • Ranks reduced from 3 to 2
  • Rank 1 now offers 45% weight reduction
  • Rank 2 now offers 90% weight reduction
• Bloodsucker
  • Ranks reduced from 3 to 1
  • Moved from Charisma to Endurance
  • Rank 1 gains the effects of the former Rank 3 effect
  • Healing bonus increased from 150% to 200%
  • Additional effect: Benefits now also apply to Cannibal
• Bullet Shield
  • Moved from Strength to Endurance
  • Added a 4th rank.
  • New effect: 5% chance per rank to Deflect ranged attacks for 6 seconds when firing a heavy weapon.
• Cannibal
  • Ranks reduced from 3 to 1
  • Increased the healing received and hunger restored at Rank 1
• Cap Collector
  • Ranks reduced from 3 to 1
  • Now applies to containers and corpses, not just Cap Stashes
  • New effect: The amount of Caps found scales with Luck
• Evasive
  • Ranks reduced from 3 to 1
  • New effect: Now increases Evade Chance based on Agility
• First Aid
  • Ranks reduced from 3 to 1
  • Now affects Stimpak Diffuser
  • New effect: Stimpak healing scales with Intelligence
• Four Leaf Clover
  • Ranks reduced from 3 to 1
  • New effect: Misses in VATS contribute to the Critical Meter based on Luck
• Hard Bargain
  • Ranks reduced from 3 to 1
  • Rank 1 now grants +7 Charisma while bartering with NPCs
• Iron Stomach
  • Now also increases Energy Resistance
• Junk Shield
  • Ranks reduced from 3 to 1
  • Now works while in Power Armor
  • Additional effect: Now also scales with Luck
• Lifegiver
  • Ranks reduced from 3 to 1
  • New effect: Improves HP gained from Endurance
• Lone Wanderer
  • Ranks reduced from 3 to 1
  • New effect: AP Regen and defense bonus based on Charisma
• Natural Resistance
  • No longer increases Energy Resistance
• Night Eyes
  • Removed requirement for the time of day
• Ordnance Express
  • Ranks reduced from 3 to 2
  • Rank 1 now offers 45% weight reduction
  • Rank 2 now offers 90% weight reduction
• Pharmacist
  • Ranks reduced from 3 to 1
  • New effect: Radiation healing scales with Intelligence
  • No longer required to craft Disease Cures or Water Filters
• Professional Drinker
  • Ranks reduced from 3 to 2
• Ricochet
  • Ranks reduced from 3 to 1
  • New effect: Now increases Deflect chance based on Luck. Deflect grants a chance to reflect 100% of the damage of ranged attacks back to the attacker and reduces the damage you take from the attack by 50%. Deflect chance receives a bonus while wearing Heavy Armor or Power Armor (+50% multiplier). While in Power Armor, the amount of damage reflected is doubled (200%).
• Serendipity
  • Ranks reduced from 3 to 1
  • New effect: Now increases Evade Chance while under 30% life, based on Luck. Evade provides a chance to avoid all incoming damage from direct attacks. Evade can happen once every second and the cooldown is now increased by armor. Please note, Evade cannot happen when over encumbered or while in Power Armor.
    • Armor increases Evade cooldown at the following rates:
    • Light Armor: +0.1 second per piece
    • Medium Armor: +0.2 seconds per piece
    • Heavy Armor: +0.4 seconds per piece
• Starched Genes
  • Ranks reduced from 2 to 1
  • Moved from Luck to Endurance
  • Rank 1 now provides the benefits of the former Rank 2
• Thru-Hiker
  • Ranks reduced from 3 to 2
  • Moved from Agility to Endurance
  • Rank 1 now offers 45% weight reduction
  • Rank 2 now offers 90% weight reduction

Adjustments to Explosion VFX

We’ve reduced the radius in which screen flash effects appear for a multitude of explosions throughout the game. This is purely a visual change and does not impact the radius in which damage is dealt.

A few of these have had sizeable reductions (especially Fatman and Fatman MIRV explosions). Please be sure to provide feedback on whether these changes are sufficient in reducing unwanted screen flashing, if there’s any additional explosions that we should adjust, or if some explosions no-longer feel impactful and satisfying to use.

Player Weapons

• Artillery Piece (Workshop)
• Auto Grenade Launcher / M79
• Baseball Grenade
• Broadsider
• Bug Grenade
• Cryo Arrow
• Cryo Grenade
• Cryo Mine
• Explosions (all types) from weapons using the Explosive legendary mod
• Fatman
• Fatman MIRV (from individual projectiles)
• Flaming Arrow
• Floater Flamer Grenade
• Floater Freezer Grenade
• Frag Grenade
• Grand Finale (Broadsider)
• Hack and Slash (Legendary Perk)
• Hellstorm Missile Launcher
• Hellstorm Missile Launcher Cryo Payload
• Hellstorm Missile Launcher Napalm Payload
• Hellstorm Missile Launcher Plasma Payload
• Missile Launcher
• Missile Turret
• Orbital Strike Beacon
• Plasma Grenade
• Pulse Grenade
• Troglocide

NPC Weapons and Environmental Effects

NPCs’ use of player weapons listed above will also be affected.

• Exploding Cars & other Civilian Vehicles
• Explosive Rounds from Turrets
• Floater Freezer Death
• Fusion Core Meltdown (Robots)
• Gas Canisters
• Invaders from Beyond UFO Missile Strikes
• Mole Rat Landminer
• Robot Death Explosion
• Scorched Exterminator Plasma Launcher
• Super Mutant Suicider Mini-Nuke
• Turret Death Explosion
• Various destructible objects such as machinery in Grafton Steel and The Foundry (The Pitt)
• Vertibird Death Explosion
• Vertibot Death Explosion

Combat Balance

The notes you see below are a continuation of the combat rebalancing work that we began during the Skyline Valley patch. This is an ongoing process we will continue to do combat rebalancing work into next year.

• The cooldown of evade effects now scales based on how much damage was avoided
• The durability of armor has been increased
• Slightly increased the chance to learn to craft weapon mods via scrapping
• Slightly increased the amount of Steel and Ballistic fiber that weapon-using enemies can drop
• Balance adjustments for Communist and Liberators
• Added additional information about Damage Types and Damage over Time effects to the Help menu
• Reduced the damage of the Auto Axe: 31 –> 24
• Adjusted the damage of the V63 Zweihaender: 85/45 –> 64/64

Armor

• Brotherhood Recon and Secret Service are now classified as Heavy Armor
• Civil Engineer, Arctic Marine, Marine Armor, and Trapper Armors are now classified as Medium Armor
• Covert Scout Armor, Solar Armor, Thorn Armor, Urban Scout Armor, Forest Scout Armor, and Wood Armors are now classified as Light Armor
• Botsmith armor is now classified as Heavy Armor

Weapons

We have made changes to Damage and AP Costs for many weapons which primarily focuses on improving cases where weapons don’t perform well enough to meet players’ expectations.

Damage Buffs

These values represent the weapon at its maximum level (45 or 50, depending on the weapon). Lower-level values have similar increases in damage. Damage for the following weapons has been increased:

• 10mm Pistol: 28 -> 31
• 44 [revolver]: 60 -> 72
• Black Powder Pistol: 176 -> 216
• Black Powder Rifle: 180 -> 217
• Bow: 90 -> 95
• Cold Shoulder: 115/75 -> 91/91
• Combat Shotgun: 90 -> 97
• Compound Bow: 100 -> 112
• Crossbow: 70 -> 111
• Double Barrel Shotgun: 115 -> 140
• Gauss Rifle: 140 -> 146
• Gauss Shotgun: 140 -> 187
• Harpoon Gun: 175 -> 195
• Hunting Rifle: 70 -> 100
• Lever Action Rifle: 75 -> 88
• Pepper Shaker: 60 -> 75
• Pipe Bolt-Action: 70 -> 94
• Pipe Gun: 26 -> 28
• Pipe Revolver 55 -> 70
• Pump Action Shotgun 95 -> 102
• Salvaged Assaultron Head: 50 -> 62
• Single Action Revolver 62 -> 82
• The Dragon: 225 -> 255
• Western Revolver: 65 -> 84
• Assaultron Blade: 40 –> 51
• Baseball Bat: 55 –> 69
• Baton: 40 –> 47
• Bear Arm: 50 –> 70
• Blade of Bastet: 52 –> 61
• Board: 50 –> 68
• Bone Club: 51 –> 60
• Bone Hammer: 80 –> 94
• Bowie Knife: 30 –> 35
• Boxing Glove: 34 –> 40
• Cattle Prod: 86 –> 113
• Chinese Officer Sword: 36 –> 42
• Combat Knife: 33 –> 44
• Cultist Blade: 41 –> 52
• Cultist Dagger: 32 –> 38
• Death Tambo: 45 –> 53
• Deathclaw Gauntlet: 55 –> 77
• Electro Enforcer: 35 –> 44
• Fire Axe: 72 –> 84
• Gauntlet: 50 –> 81
• Golf Club: 45 –> 57
• Grognak Axe: 85 –> 107
• Guitar Sword: 50 –> 59
• Hatchet: 40 –> 51
• Knuckles: 35 –> 50
• Lead Pipe: 39 –> 49
• Machete: 40 –> 51
• Meat Hook: 34 –> 40
• Mole Miner Gauntlet: 45 –> 64
• Multi-Purpose Axe: 69 –> 87
• Pickaxe: 60 –> 76
• Pitchfork: 47 –> 59
• Pipe Wrench: 30 –> 38
• Plasma Cutter: 26/68 –> 30/86
• Pole Hook: 71 –> 90
• Pool Cue: 46 –> 58
• Power Fist: 58 –> 81
• Revolutionary Sword: 44 –> 56
• Rolling pin: 28 –> 35
• Sheepsquatch Club: 60 –> 76
• Sheepsquatch Staff: 75 –> 95
• Shepherd’s Crook: 50 –> 63
• Shishkebab: 27 –> 34
• Shovel: 40 –> 54
• Sickle: 36 –> 45
• Ski Sword: 50 –> 63
• Sledgehammer: 71 –> 90
• Spear: 58 –> 68
• Super Sledge: 85 –> 107
• Switchblade: 30 –> 38
• Tenderizer: 75 –> 95
• Tire Iron: 29 –> 37
• Walking Cane: 42 –> 53
• War Drum: 78 –> 99
• War Glaive: 82 –> 104

Hellstorm Missile Launcher: – Projectile damage (all barrels): 120 -> 178 – (Hex Barrel damage is based on this and also will be increased proportionally) – Standard Barrel explosion damage: 80 -> 178 – Cryo Payload explosion cryo damage: 78 -> 107 – Napalm Payload explosion fire damage: 78 -> 107 – Fire Damage Over Time is unchanged. – Plasma Payload explosion energy damage: 78 -> 178

AP Cost Reductions

AP costs for the following weapons have been reduced:

• 10mm SMG: 28 -> 14
  • Dev Note: The Anchorage Ace no-longer gains an additional AP cost benefit beyond the Reflex Sight’s 15% reduction.
• .50 Cal Machine Gun: 30 -> 12
• Auto Grenade Launcher: 30 -> 18
• Broadsider: 40 -> 18
• Cremator: 30 -> 20
• Cryolator: 20 -> 10
• Fat Man: 60-> 40
• Flamer: 30 -> 10
• Gatling Gun: 30 -> 14
• Gatling Laser: 30 -> 8
• Gatling Plasma: 30 -> 14
• Gauss Minigun: 30 -> 14
• Harpoon Gun: 40 -> 18
• Hellstorm Missile Launcher: 45 -> 20
• Light Machine Gun: 32 -> 10
• M79 Grenade Launcher: 30 -> 16
• Minigun: 30 -> 8
• Missile Launcher: 45 -> 25
• Pepper Shaker: 30 -> 14
• Plasma Caster: 30 -> 18
• Ultracite Gatling Laser: 30 -> 10

Weapon Mod Adjustments

Adjusted the damage for the following Beta/Gamma laser mods:

• Laser Gun
  • Reduced DoT damage
  • Reduced fire damage
• Ultracite Laser Gun
  • Reduced DoT damage
  • Reduced fire damage
• Gatling Laser
  • Increased DoT damage
  • Reduced fire damage
• Ultracite Gatling Laser
  • Reduced DoT damage at level 35
  • Reduced fire damage
• Plasma Gun

While these weapons are still being evaluated for overall balance, these particular mods over-shot the current target for fire damage mods (especially when taking into account the recent adjustments to creature health and resistances) and are being brought in line with similar mods for other weapons. This allows for more consistency among weapons and mods when making future changes.

Human(ish) Creature & Weapon Balance

Creatures that previously used player weapons (Blood Eagles, Cultists, Lost, Mole Miners, Raiders, Scorched, and Super Mutants) will now use NPC versions of their weapons with balance adjustments to account for this change (see notes below).

When defeated these enemies will have a chance to drop the base version of their weapon alongside some junk items. When a weapon isn’t dropped, the enemy will instead drop more junk items that players can scrap to make up for the loss components you would receive from scrapping these weapons. Increases have also been made to the components earned from scrapping many junk items in the world, so now you will also have more components at your disposal.

We have also increased the rate at which you learn mods from scrapping weapons by 10% to account for the lower number of weapons you’ll find from these NPCs. This increase will not affect your chance to learn Legendary weapon mods.

• All creatures previously using player weapons (Blood Eagles, Cultists, Lost, Mole Miners, Raiders, Scorched, Super Mutants):
  • Weapon damage now scales to level 100.
    • Dev Note: This brings these enemy types in line with other creatures whose attacks already could scale to level 100.
  • Thrown grenades now scale with level.
    • Dev Note: This currently only applies to enemies using grenades. Damage from player grenades is unchanged.
  • Health, resistances, and damage now scale more smoothly from level 1 to level 100.
    • Dev Note: These creatures will generally be less threatening at mid-level (especially 35-75) but should be a bit tougher towards level 100. In some cases, at lower level, these creatures may be slightly weaker or stronger in order to ensure that they’re appropriately engaging even when first met.
  • Power Armor variants’ resistances now scale more appropriately at differing levels.
    • Dev Note: These creatures previously would gain a flat bonus from Power Armor at all levels and thus could be unexpectedly tough at low-to-mid level.
  • Resistances differentiated between Blood Eagles, Cultists, and Raiders.
  • Now rely more on health as the primary driver of survivability rather than resistances.
    • Dev Note: Resistances are being used to differentiate damage types rather than as a substitute for health. This has the side benefit of showing higher damage numbers when attacking these creatures which more closely match the weapons being used.
  • No-longer gains a variable amount of resistances based on randomized armor.

Creature Balance

The types of health, damage, and resistance adjustments mentioned in the creatures below have also been applied to other creatures as part of earlier updates:

• Floater Freezer
  • Slightly lowered the duration of the slow effect on the freezing breath attack.
  • Reduced the rate at which the slow effect accumulates for the freezing breath attack.
  • Reduced damage for the freezing breath attack.
  • Reduced the cryo damage for the blast/stare/shockwave attack (the one which also deals fusion core damage).
• Floater Flamer
  • Reduced damage for the fire breath attack.
• Floater gnasher
  • Reduced damage for the bite attack.
• Alien Invader
  • Reduced health
  • Reduced damage in Daily Ops.
• Lesser Devil
• Bloodbug
  • Reduced radiation damage at lower levels.
• Thrasher
  • Increased melee attack damage especially at higher levels.
  • Decreased Sonic Gobble attack damage at lower levels.
  • Now weakest to fire damage and resistant to radiation, energy, and poison damage
• Reduced the bonus damage on most creatures’ weak points from 2.0x to 1.5x.
• Health for body parts generally associated with benefits for crippling limbs has been reduced. In many cases, it should be much easier to cripple a creature’s limb before dealing enough damage to kill the creature.
• Damage to combat inhibitors for robots and turrets will result in less overall health damage to the robot, but the combat inhibitor can now be destroyed much earlier, before the robot/turret has lost most of its health.

Accessibility

When you enter the game for the first time, you’ll be presented with the Accessibility Menu that includes the new settings you see below. This will only appear once and if you need to change any of these settings in the future, go to Settings > Accessibility.

Speech-to-Text

• Turning Speech-to-Text ON will add a new message window to the UI that will transcribe all voice communication from other players in the area.
• Message Window Fade Time – Changes how long the message window stays on screen after the last message has been received.
• Message Window Visibility – Changes the transparency of the message window.

Screen Narration

• When the setting is ON, you’ll hear the audible description of emotes from other players in the area. For example: “[Player] wants to team up!”

UI Navigation

• Digital Input
  • Several screens relied completely on analog stick input and that has been addressed to allow keyboard control on PCs and d-pad control on consoles. This includes the Challenges, Scoreboard, Map, and Character Creation screens.
• Analog Input
  • Several screens didn’t support analog inputs to navigate the UI, so that analog functionality has been added to the Favorites Wheel and Social Panel.
• Single Key Presses
  • Fast Travel Countdown Cancel – Now allows a single button command to cancel the fast travel instead of clicking both the left and right analog sticks.
  • Social Menu – Allows a single button command to enter the Social Menu instead of having to hold CTRL-TAB on PC.