Fallout 76’s Skyline Valley update certainly isn’t short on sights and sounds to tempt you from the comfort of its six-year-old map of Appalachia. Located on the southern edges of the Savage Divide that runs through the center of the map, the newly added Shenandoah region has a giant ominous vortex swirling in the sky to begin with, and as it approaches, the air itself begins to take on a distinct very red-looking shade bad. Lightning streaks continuously through the clouds, and as it descends into the valley proper, the earth is cracked and torn apart by wild-looking earthquakes. It’s your classic doomsday hellscape if I’m being honest, but after spending two hours bombarding the new story quest last week, it’s not what sticks out the most in my mind.
Instead, it’s a small bunker that belongs to a shy man named Kevin. You meet Kevin at the Shenandoah Visitor Center, where the poor sod has not only been locked out of his makeshift underground home, but has also managed to let in a few Mothman cultists at the same time. Oh, Kevin. However, by dealing with said cultists and returning the lost key to Kevin, he’ll direct you to his humble abode, where you’ll attach a replacement part for a weather machine you’re trying to fix. That impressive vortex of doom I mentioned earlier is caused by an errant, dilapidated weather station, you see, and working alongside the (equally impressive) denizens of Vault 63 (more on them in a second) to retrieve it that. back under control is a big part of the main story of this update.
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But back to Kevin. When you arrive at Kevin’s bunker, you’re greeted with a pitiful scene. Unlike you and the other residents of the Vault, it’s clear that Kevin has been alone during this ugly apocalypse, and the lack of human interaction he’s had is immediately apparent. On the wall, he has modeled his ‘Galerie de Kevin’ of framed painted animal portraits he has created. A dead-skinned squirrel lies rotting on the table next to him, bloodstains scattered everywhere while a small cluster of flies hover over a bucket of needles and guts. To your right is a mounted bear’s head, its jaw holding an unopened bottle of whiskey, clearly in hand for a well-timed kick during Kevin’s mixed food preparation sessions.
Elsewhere on the wall, he has filled it with posters of motivational slogans, which you can assume he must repeat to himself every night as he snuggles his teddy bear in his tiny bed. A netless basketball net and a dart board reveal what Kevin must try and do to entertain himself when the TV in the center of the room isn’t showing a steady stream of snowy static. I can just see him now, settling down on his couch while holding yet another bottle of beer that he will inevitably throw on the floor along with dozens of other oddballs on the show, all while chatting with the two clothes pattern dummies set. both sides of his eye. Their brightly colored sunglasses and party hat accessories give his two pals a real good time vibe, and you know Kevin’s just waiting for the right opportunity to crack that big leg of meat who cooled it in the refrigerator.
It’s almost an absurd level of detail for a place where most people will probably spend all of 60 seconds while they grab their gizmo and run away. But it was that pretty sad scratch on the Gallery poster that made me stop and beat old Kevin, because as a place, his bunker stood in almost perfect contrast to the impending situation in Vault 63, which would almost become like a second home. for you during the campaign.
Vault 63 is definitely a much larger structure than the 76 of the same name that you come across early in the game, but you quickly learn that its construction left a lot to be desired. In classic Vault-Tec fashion, this was another vault that didn’t go anywhere according to plan, and its unfortunate Vault Dwellers ended up being exposed to all the radiation outside, turning every last one of them into Ghouls. A teaser, perhaps, for the playable Ghoul you’ll you can transform into yourself early next year, but not everyone in Vault 63 was so lucky. They may have called themselves ‘The Lost’, but you’ll meet dozens of others roaming the surface who have truly emerged from their former humanity, foaming at the mouth and gasping like the electrified cousins of their enemies. burned of the main map.
The Overseer of Vault 63 looks like he’s on the verge of losing himself as well. Framed by glowing purple veins and scars, Hugo Stolz’s stark white, blind eyes certainly make a great first impression, and as you continue to perform various tasks for him (and his grumpy security chief James Oberlin ), it is clear that he is completely obsessed. on the idea of self and change. At one point he brings up the paradox of the ship of Theseus, for example, which asks whether an object can really be called the same object when each of its individual components has been replaced by something else. His train of thought often wanders down other philosophical avenues, too, and it was refreshing to see such a nuanced and considered discussion of these topics within a game where you can take out comically overgrown rats and cockroaches with a gun. great laser. (I’m not kidding, the main weapon I had as part of my preview build was called, and I quote, ‘Bloodied Rip Daring Multi-Shot Slow-Burning Cremator’, and it did exactly what it said on the tin) .
I’m eager to learn more about Hugo’s relationship with his daughter Audrey, too, who is desperately working to fix the weather machine – a place where interior corridors, laser safety nets, flashing siren lights constantly red and strange buckets of rotting flesh definitely have it. “Crazy Lab” written all over it. She’s an obnoxious and charming addition to Skyline Valley’s lavish ensemble, muttering about how having another “useful mission” might come in handy for her. She clearly has an affair with the leader of that aforementioned cult Mothman, who was also terrorizing poor Kevin, adding even more stress to her already fractured relationship with her Overseer father.
Alas, my demo time ended before I could learn more about them, but as a step toward getting you well and truly immersed in this newfound heart of Appalachia, I have to admit that I pulled well and truly – and much more effectively, I might add, than the flood of story quests you’re now presented with at the start of Fallout 76. Yes, the meat and potatoes of what you’re doing is still very in that ‘go to this target marker, talk to this character, return to another target marker model that Bethesda’s Fallout games have made a name for. But the set and dressing of the characters around it is much more interesting and enticing to me than anything else I’ve played in 76 so far. I’m not a six-year-old forever, by any means. Rather, I’m one of the many millions who have slowed their way to 76 after the Fallout TV show aired earlier in the year, so I’m still relatively early in my Appalachia adventures. But after seeing a glimpse of Skyline Valley, I’m eager to rush over there to see how the rest of its story unfolds.
Admittedly, I can’t say I’m as blown away by the other new additions being added to Skyline Valley. His new horde wave pool event “Dangerous Pastimes” is pretty fun when you have a great bloody and gutsy cremator with lots of slow-burning shots to cut down on any losses that come blazing towards the electric relay that you are protecting in a burning pile of ashes. with a single shot, but the event I attended didn’t hold much lasting appeal for me. Ditto for the upcoming Mile Post Zero update coming later this year, which will add cattle tracking missions for its Brahmin caravan traders within the new Shenandoah region. Avid base builders may covet the special Brahmin-themed goodies you’ll get for completing them (including your own two-headed cow, no less), but that’s another side of Fallout 76 which, so far at least, has left me a little cold.
Still, I’m finding this to be a good thing about Fallout 76, as even for fair-weather gamers like me (and especially those who only want to play like this was a great sequel to Fallout 4), there’s something to enjoy and get caught here. It’s come a long way since its somewhat disastrous beginning, and in 2024, it has that everyman quality that appeals to whatever Fallout gamer you are – and Skyline Valley in particular looks like it’s really doubling down on those pillars. story-driven tentacles that made me pick up the curtain on this Fallout online game in the first place. I can’t say for sure yet if Hugo, Audrey, or indeed Kevin, can rival Fallout 4’s Nick Valentine for best Fallout companion right now, but I have a sneaking suspicion that at least one of them can to spit his aloofness. And with Skyline Valley arriving for free in Fallout 76 later today, I’ll try to get there to find out.