Fallout 76 Unveils the Stunning “Ghoul” Update That Transforms the Game Experience

Before we mistakenly jumped the timeline to 2025 and further, let’s rewind back to mid-April. This was when Craig — then a youthful, more emotionally authentic version of himself — joined millions of ‘kink-shamed’ TV enthusiasts binge-watching Amazon Prime’s Fallout adaptation. Why mention kink shaming? Well, it might pertain to Craig’s father? But more importantly, it’s when we all became captivated by Walton Goggins’ portrayal of Cooper Howard, an irradiated bounty-hunting corpse. Yes! That’s definitely Craig’s dad; we’re into ghouls – get over it!

Recently, at the unlikely Fallout-themed Bethesda headquarters in London, UK, we were invited to experience MMORPG Fallout 76 and its forthcoming Ghoul DLC – which left us feeling less constrained in our kinks and quite optimistic about Fallout 76, along with our adoration for the ghouls.

Let’s begin by discussing what we truly got to experience in November. After a brief presentation from Bethesda’s Creative Director Jon Speed and Production Director Bill Lacoste, we settled in with a PC alpha version of Fallout 76, playing as a ghoul for about two full hours. This marked the first time a ghoul has been playable in the history of Fallout games, let’s note! Throughout our session, we engaged in the “ghoulification” questline before being set free to explore the Appalachian wastelands at our undead hearts’ desire.

Our initial hour focused on the “Leap of Faith” quest – the first step in our mission to completely abandon skincare routines and embrace being a ghoul. This quest allowed Bethesda to showcase some of the most compelling voice acting we’ve encountered in Fallout 76 thus far. If you remember the NPC drought back in 2018, you’ll understand why having NPCs to interact with, especially ones that ‘speak naturally,’ is a huge deal. Although we weren’t die-hard Fallout 76 fans going into this preview (more like casual enthusiasts), the quest to help a scavenger named Leamon escape a lethal dose of “rough rads” stirred up a bit of that Fallout 3 nostalgia.

This same quest guided us to Beautiful Hills, a new location nestled in the northeastern Appalachian mountains. Once a nuclear missile launch site, it now serves as home to a community of ghouls known as the “Revenants.” Without revealing too much, let’s just say that if life gives you Leamons, you might as well embrace the ghoul lifestyle. After all, the entire reason we took a train to London was to bid farewell to our smooth skin, score that magical inhaler, and awaken with a craving for radiation – plus 32 ghoul-themed perk cards to customize our irradiated flesh suits.

Playing as a ghoul genuinely felt fantastic. While Bethesda hinted at both benefits and drawbacks of “ghoulifying” in Fallout 76 (and it appears that the change may be permanent), we mostly noticed the positive aspects. For one, you can completely customize your ghoul with a variety of unique faces, hairstyles, and radiation becomes your best friend – no need for Rad-Away, as ghouls are 100% resistant to radiation damage, and it even heals you. Survival becomes a vault-load easier as well – no need to scavenge for food and water when you can drink from any rad-soaked pond and feast on the corpses of your foes. Seriously, where’s the downside in any of that? Even Bethesda’s supposed downside felt like a perk – a feral meter replaces hunger and thirst, which depletes over time but can be managed with chems. Let it drop too low, and you’ll suffer reduced accuracy and hit chances. But go fully feral, and your ghoul transforms into a berserker with devastating melee skills!

Our main critique of this is that while you’re in this feral state, your character emits an overwhelming amount of green glow. And we’re not the only ones who find ghouls hard to stomach. Non-ghoul-friendly factions like the Brotherhood of Steel will shoot a ghoul on sight. We won’t spoil too much here other than it made us chuckle, but when you visit Jaye Vo in Beautiful Hills, she’ll provide you with a ‘disguise’ so that talking to these factions won’t leave you riddled with bullets.

Building up radiation, or ‘Glow’ as Bethesda refers to it, becomes a strategic advantage for surviving skirmishes as well. When your glow meter fills up and you start radiating that peculiar green hue, your ghoul gains an additional health bar that enemies must deplete before they can inflict any real damage on you. Yet another pro to add to the growing list – “to ghoul or not to ghoul.”

Additionally, alongside all this glowing goodness, as mentioned earlier, you have an extra 32 ghoul-themed perk cards at your disposal. To clarify, leveling up in Fallout 76 unlocks perk cards.