Fallout 76’s Production Director Talks Community Support and Making a Playable Ghoul

Fallout 76 has come an incredibly long way since its November 2018 release date. Through a consistent stream of updates, Fallout 76 has gained new NPCs, new questlines, new weapons, new Vault raids, an expansion to the map, and Expeditions that take players to some beloved far-off lands. In the recent Gleaming Depths update, players were given a brand new multi-stage raid to endure, along with the 4-Star Legendary gear that was rewarded alongside its completion.

But Fallout 76‘s journey is far from over. Game Rant recently had the chance to sit down with Fallout 76‘s production director Bill LaCoste, who’s been working on the multiplayer game since 2019. In the last five years, LaCoste and his team have added a lot to Fallout 76, and they’re on the cusp of adding a feature Fallout fans have wanted for years, the playable Ghoul. The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Fallout 76’s Developers Are Committed to Making The Player Ghoul More Than Just an Outfit

Q. What is the most defining feature of playing as a Ghoul?

A: I think it’s the Glow meter: using radiation to power up your Ghoul, and then using that Glow to enact other combat abilities. I really think that’s the biggest difference. Jon [Rush, Creative Director] also mentioned that there’s a Feral meter that replaces hunger and thirst, but you use Chems and radiated food to stave off the Feral meter. But there are many changes. There are perks too.

Q. You mentioned the Glow meter can give you abilities. What’s your favorite one?

A: The funny thing is that, because this is pre-alpha and this stuff just got added, we don’t really have any favorites yet. We have a lot of abilities that will increase melee damage, increase ranged damage, and increase your ability to regenerate Glow faster. Those are all really cool.

We’re in the process of building different loadouts now. We have our own personal characters – I have a Bloody character, for example – I have to change that up if I’m going to be a Ghoul. The fun part is going to be seeing not just what we come up with, but what the community comes up with. They’re very smart. They know the game inside out, sometimes better than us!

Right now, I don’t have a favorite, but I’m sure I’ll discover one along the way.

Q. Are there any Ghoul builds emerging during pre-alpha that already seem overpowered?

A: Not yet. As a team, we’re just getting into playing as a Ghoul ourselves. We’ll be testing this out across raids, across daily ops, but there are going to be a lot of instances where Ghouls have a distinct advantage. Whenever Rad Rumble shows up, Ghouls will be able to just run down, grab the ore, and take it back up, no problem. The same with some of the daily ops with toxic pools.

It’s an interesting situation to be in because we’re delivering such a brand-new system to everyone, including ourselves.

Q. Are you having a lot of fun trying everything out as a team, from a development perspective?

A: Absolutely. We’re excited about the future of Fallout 76 for a number of reasons, but the biggest reason we’re excited about this update is because we set out to deliver fans a player Ghoul system that actually lets them play as a Ghoul. We’ve got the Glow meter, we’ve got the Feral meter, we’ve got the new Perks. We didn’t want to even start with the idea of just saying “We can just give them an outfit and they can run around as a Ghoul.”

That would be a lame way to go about this. We really wanted to deliver the Ghoul experience and capture what it’s actually like to be a Ghoul in the wasteland. I think we’ve delivered on that really well.

Q. Do you have a favorite Fallout 76 community moment?

A: I would say anything the Chad: Fallout 76 podcast does with Ken [Kenneth Vigue] and his team, and Wreck It Renee and all the other streamers who gather together to do Fallout For Hope, which supports St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. The amount of support they raise and the fact they go into the game and build these floats along the roads is just one of the most amazing parts of our community. They do it every year, they do it on Fallout Day [October 23], and it’s just an amazing time for all of us to come together.

We’ve also met Ken, we’ve met Renee, we’ve met a few other streamers, and we get to engage with them in this event too. We’ll jump in there and watch how they’re playing. I think that’s one really special part of it.

Q. You’ve been working on Fallout 76 since just before Wastelanders. What’s your favorite update or expansion you’ve worked on since?

A: Wastelanders, to me, is one of the most pivotal moments in the game’s history. We’ve always said Appalachia is the main character of Fallout 76, and before Wastelanders, you were learning about the people that were before through terminals, messages, and holotapes. But with Wastelanders, you have an influx of life returning to it. Wastelanders set the stage for all the updates coming after it, and that one, for me, has always been the most pivotal one.

But I also think we’re coming up on the next major engagement with the player Ghoul. That’s going to be a major change to the system. Even Gleaming Depths is a pretty big change to the system. We’re doing a lot this year that’s adding new systems, new gameplay, and new elements that we haven’t done in that capacity for a while.

Diving Into The Production Director’s Personal History With Fallout

Q. What’s one thing you’re really proud of about your time working on Fallout 76?

A: A lot of the time I don’t look at it as what I’ve done, but what we’ve done as a team. I think that’s an important part of our group. We do it as a team, we do it together. We’re constantly playtesting together, constantly trying to figure out ways to improve the game and also improve our processes internally.

But I’ve worked on a ton of features. I’m proud of things like the public teams. That was one of the bigger things I first worked on. And area looting, things like that. I’ve had my hands on a lot of those different things. The thing I’m most proud of is truly the work we do as a team, all the improvements we’ve made as a team, listening to the feedback from fans and reviewers and executing on it.

Q. If you could work on any Bethesda project, old, new, or ongoing, what would you choose?

A: Absolutely Fallout. It’s absolutely my favorite. I remember buying Fallout 1 at Software Etc. It was an interesting time because you didn’t really know release dates. I just walked into the store, looked for what was new, and got hooked on Fallout 1. I did the same with Fallout 2, and playing Fallout 3 for the first time when it came out was so much of a monumental change.

We were in this full 3D world now that we could explore. That’s one of the things I’ve always loved about Bethesda games in general. Whether it was the Elder Scrolls games or Fallout games, you either came out of the cave or out of the Vault, and it was just like “Here you go.” The stepping-out moment. I think that’s very iconic for us and that’s one of my favorite parts. But yeah, Fallout for sure.

Q. Do you have a favorite Bethesda stepping-out moment?

A:Fallout 3. For me, it was the visuals. Stepping out, seeing the vista, and realizing I can go anywhere I want. That was an amazing point for me.