Huge Fallout 76 Update 1.0.85 Kicks Off Season 14

Bethesda launches Fallout 76‘s Season 14 Fight for Freedom with a massive new patch. Fallout 76‘s Update 1.0.85 went live August 22 on all platforms and included both new content and a variety of bug fixes and balance changes.

Fallout 76 launched in October 2018 to a less-than-stellar reception. Many Bethesda fans were also disappointed to see the studio investing time and money in a new MMO rather than the single-player games it is known for. However, several years of updates and new content brought significant improvements to Fallout 76, and the game currently has a “Mostly Positive” rating on Steam. The latest season, Fight for Freedom, lets players earn patriotic rewards as they accumulate SCORE during their adventures across post-apocalyptic Appalachia. Season 14 launched alongside Fallout 76‘s Patch 1.0.85.

RELATED: Xbox Giving Gamers New Way to Customize Their Consoles

Fallout 76’s new update is 11.4 GB on Xbox, 10.9 GB on PlayStation, 11.5 GB for PC players who use the Microsoft Store, and 2.6 GB via Steam. The patch adds two new Perks called Arms Keeper and Stable Tools, which reduce the weight of Rifles and Improve Automatic Melee Weapon durability. Meanwhile, the Season 14 content includes a new character, the New Presidential Power Armor Skin, and New CAMP Objects. The update also changes the interface and several events and locations.

Fallout 76 players can now unlock Grandma Junko by reaching rank 43 in Fight For Freedom. The Japanese grandmother is pretty sure she’s looking for her grandkids, though her memory isn’t quite what it used to be. However, she’s more than happy to whip up some traditional recipes at the player’s CAMP. Meanwhile, one of the newest Fallout 76 CAMP objects is the Autominer Collectron, which automatically mines Ore. Additionally, players can decorate their CAMP like the commander-in-chief with the new Oval Office Rug and Wallpaper.

Version 1.0.85’s balance changes include reducing the difficulty of enemy encounters in Summersville and Morgantown Airport and adding additional Health and ammo to those locations. Players will also notice fewer attacks on their CAMP and adjustments to the Health, resistance, and weapon damage for common enemies that players face in Fallout 76. Legendary Creatures are losing their Health Regeneration Mutation but now have 60% more Health. Bethesda also changed how Fallout 76 calculates Electricity Resistance, Acid Resistance, and Radiation Resistance.

Several events received bug fixes, while Fallout 76‘s Meat Week event received several new items. In addition, the latest patch finally lets players use Free-cam in Photo Mode. Other miscellaneous improvements include changes to multiple quests and locations and renaming over 600 CAMP items to better explain what they are. Anyone in a charitable mood can also leave items for new players by putting them in the Donation Box outside Vault 76.

Fallout 76 Version 1.0.85.0 Patch Notes

Check the download sizes below for today’s patch on your platform of choice:

• PC (Steam): 2.6 GB
• PC (Microsoft Store): 11.5 GB
• PlayStation: 10.9 GB
• Xbox: 11.4 GB

Update Highlights

Perk Changes & Additions

We’ve made adjustments to the level requirements for various existing Perk cards to make them more accessible for lower level characters and added the ability to open multiple Perk card packs at once!

New Perks!

We’ve added two new Perk cards; Arms Keeper and Stable Tools!

• Arms Keeper: Reduces the weight of Rifles. (25% / 50% / 75% per Perk card rank.)
• Stable Tools: Automatic melee weapon durability bonus. (10% / 25% / 40% per Perk card rank.)

Season 14: Fight for Freedom

United we stand, marching towards America’s bright future! This Patriotic season includes new C.A.M.P. items, armor skins and more!

• New Ally: Grandma Junko is on a mission to find her grandchildren… she thinks. While her memory isn’t what it used to be, she can still cook up a good old-fashioned home-cooked meal for you.
• Presidential Power Armor Skins: Who needs Secret Service when you have Power Armor?
• Oval Office: Create your own base of operations with the Oval Office Rug and Wallpaper.
• Autominer Collectron: This new Collectron does all the mining for you, hunting for Ore!

Upcoming Birthday Event!

We’re celebrating five years of Fallout 76 on November 14th! Join us by completing unique Birthday Party Challenges every day in your Birthday Suit to unlock new festive rewards!

Birthday Party Challenge Event will run from November 7 to November 21.

Design Changes and Improvements

Balance

• Encounters: We’ve reduced enemy difficulty and added more healing items and ammo to Summersville and Morgantown Airport.
• Encounters: We’ve reduced the frequency of NPC attacks on player C.A.M.P.s.
• Encounters : Legendary creatures no longer mutate at 50% Health to have Health regeneration, but instead have 60% increased Health.
• Encounters : We’ve made various changes to health, resistances, and weapon damage for the following creatures: Super Mutant, Protectron, Mole Rat, Mr.Handy/Gutsy, Feral Ghoul, Scorched, Glowing One, Assaultron, Mirelurk King, Mirelurk Crab, Cave Cricket, Radscorpion, Angler, Floater Flamer, Floater Freezer, Floater Gnasher, Mutant Hound, Liberator, and Mirelurk Hunter.
• Resistances: Protection from Acid, Electricity, and Radiation have been corrected to more accurately target the specific type of damage dealt.

Events

• Meat Week: We’ve added a host of new rewards to Meat Week and Grahm’s vendor pool. These rewards include new C.A.M.P. décor, Plushies, and more

General

• Free-cam: You can now use Free-cam while in Photomode!
• Crafting : Fixed an issue with loose mods not applying in the default modification view
• Quests : Invisible Ties now points to Momma Dolce’s instead of Vault 76 to find Liberators.

Items

• Build Mode: We’ve renamed over 600 C.A.M.P. items for greater clarity while building.
• Donation Box: Outside of Vault 76 there is now a donation box where you can leave presents for new players!
• Plans: Players now have more default recipes for more options while building their first C.A.M.P.
• Power Armor: We’ve added Level 10 versions of T-45 and Raider Power Armor.

World

• Gilman Lumber Mill: Adjustments to the Gilman Lumber Mill location.
• Vault 76: Replaced the Liberator bots outside Vault 76 with Ghouls.
• Vault 76: New players will no longer receive an un-named radio station with information on Nuka-World on Tour upon leaving the Vault.

Workbench Changes

• All workbench listings now use alphabetical sorting, and item names are standardized across all lists.
• The “Show Unlockable” button now shows recipes you can learn through a plan, scrapping, or can purchase in the Atomic Shop.
• 1-star legendary mods no longer show up under “Random Legendary Mods”. 2- and 3-star mods now display correctly under “Current Mods” when inspecting an item.
• Improved the learned mod counter.

UI

• Daily Ops: Players will no longer receive Daily Ops notifications until Level 50.
• Fanfare : We’ve reduced the number of pop-ups that appear when leaving Vault 76 for the first time.
• Perks : We’ve added a “new” filter when viewing Perk Cards.

Bug Fixes & Improvements

Art & Animation

• Art : Various fixes to C.A.M.P. items that has incorrect textures and or destroyed states.
• Décor: Adjusted the lighting on the DEFCON sign numbers to be more consistent.
• VFX: Various fixes to C.A.M.P. items that continued to play sound effects after being destroyed.

C.A.M.P. & Shelters

• Building: The Blue Ridge Truck Trailer is now located in the Misc Tab.
• Décor: Players can no longer disarm Bone Chimes in another player’s C.A.M.P.
• Décor: The Gulper Rug is now easier to place.
• Displays: Atomic Shop headwear can now be placed in display cases.
• Displays: Ice Tongs can now be displayed.
• Displays: The Free States Underarmor no longer clips into the Female Mannequin’s chest and wrists.

Challenges

• Dailies: Blood Eagle Ghouls now count towards the Kill Blood Eagles daily challenge.
• Dailies: Fixed various Challenges to defeat an enemy with a specific weapon that would progress when defeating an enemy with a throwable weapon instead.
• Dailies: Weapons that have been modded to deal fire damage now correctly count towards the Deal Fire Damage challenge.

Daily Ops

• Contextual Ammo: Fusion Cells now correctly receive contextual ammo drops.
• Rewards: Plans that have not been learned by the Player now have priority in dropping as a reward over Plans the player has already learned.

Enemies

• General: Fixed an issue preventing players from V.A.T.S targeting extra-large creatures at the correct distance.
• General: Addressed an issue that allowed combat groups to persist over long distances.
• Imposter Sheepsquatch: Fixed an issue causing the Imposter Sheepsquatch’s Area of Effect attacks dealing damage to players who are not within its range.

Environment

• Hazards: Fixed a location of Toxic Water that was not producing radiation damage.
• Interiors: Nuke effects will no longer appear indoors.

Events & Expeditions

• Expeditions: Players can no longer become stuck inside the Vertibird after completing an Expedition.
• Hunter Hunted: This event has been disabled and the radio station will no longer appear on the Pip-Boy.
• Local Looting: Fixed an issue causing players to be unable to loot Acidic Gulper Venom using the Nearby Corpses menu during Moonshine Jamboree.
• Moonshine Jamboree: Gulpers will no longer get stuck behind the Field Stall.
• Moonshine Jamboree: Fixed an issue where players can fail the event when depositing venom in the final few seconds of Wave 4.
• Moonshine Jamboree: Fixed an instance where Players could become stuck in dialogue with Moonshiner Ned.
• Most Wanted: Robots in the Most Wanted event no longer spawn at a single point and become locked inside the outhouse.
• Mutated Public Events: Mutated Party Packs rewarded from completing a Mutated Public Event now grants healing salves after all recipes are known.
• Spin the Wheel: Destroying the Vim-nata Machine now correctly advances the event in a timely manner.

Gameplay

• Fast Travel: Fixed an issue that could sometimes prevent players from Fast Travelling.
• Fast Travel: Fixed an instance where players are shown incorrect Fast Travel information when hovering over map markers.

Items

• Aid : Rad Scorpion Omelet and Tasty Rad Scorpion Omelet now cure Formula P.
• Armor: The Berserker Legendary effect is now correctly giving a damage boost when no resistances are active.
• Armor: The Unyielding Legendary effect once again provides additional bonuses when low on health.
• Armor Mods: The Girded armor mod will no longer disappear from the players recipe list when replaced by another mod.
• Plans: Weapons and Armor the player knows the plans to craft can now once again drop as Legendary items after defeating a Legendary enemy.
• Plans: Players that learned the Domestic Kitchen Tables plan can once again build them.

Localization

• General: Various localization fixes in all languages.

Perks

• Armor: Brotherhood Recon and Metal armor chest piece Ultra-Light Build mods now require the Armorer perk.
• Cannibal: The Carnivore Mutation now works with the Cannibal Perk.
• Grenadier: The Grenadier Perk now applies to Gauss weapons.
• Good with Salt: The description now accurately states that effects of the Refrigerated Backpack mod do not stack with the Good with Salt perk.
• Gun Fu: We’ve significantly increased the damage bonus with Gun fu on all ranks.
• Ninja: The Ninja Perk now accurately states its effects.
• Ninja: Sneak Attacks with Melee Weapons do an additional 30/60/90% Sneak Attack Damage.
• Taking One for the Team: Fixed an edge case in which Taking One for the Team would not apply correctly when multiple party members are hit at the same time.

Power Armor

• Excavator : Uranium Deposits now correctly grant a +3 yield when harvesting.
• Mods : Pneumatic mod descriptions changed to “Reduce Incoming Stagger by 25%” from “Reduce Incoming Stagger”.
• Mods: Tesla Bracers now display their added damage in the Pip-boy Stats correctly.
• Mods: The Blood Cleansing mod for the Power Armor Torso now correctly reduces the chance of becoming addicted to chems.
• Rewards: Players will no longer receive Legendary Power Armor rewards from Events and Creatures until Level 20.

Stability

• Buried Treasure: Fixed a crash that could occur during the Buried Treasure quest line.

User Interface

• Events: When viewing the Eviction Notice Event from the map, the quest icon will no longer obscure some of the description text.
• Dynamic Names: Applying mods to the Military Fatigues now update their name with the correct prefix.
• Dynamic Names: Applying the Ogua Shell Backpack skin to a Backpack now correctly changes its name.
• Fanfare : Fixed an issue where several non-legendary descriptions appeared in the UI when picking up legendary Power Armor.
• Menus : The Fire Mode stat now shows in the transfer menu.
• Pip-Boy: The Pip-Boy Auto Scroll Display Setting now correctly switches to “OFF” when restoring default settings.
• Scrap All: Fixed an issue preventing players from using the “Scrap All” function at workbenches if they have a quest item from Ward in their inventory.
• Trade: Fixed an issue where the highlighted item in the Trade menu can change while setting the price.

Weapons

• Damage: We’ve adjusted the way Plasma gun mods deal physical and energy damage to be more in line with each other. The result is a slight boost in physical damage and a slight decrease in energy damage.
• Laser Guns: The Sniper Rifle barrel for laser guns now correctly uses a Charging fire mode.
• Legendary Effects: The Basher, +50% V.A.T.S chance, and Nocturnal Legendary effects are now working correctly.
• Melee: Players can no longer attack with auto-melee weapons and sprint at the same time in 3rd person.
• Mods: The Prime Capacitor and Prime Receiver mods for the Plasma Gun, Enclave Plasma Gun, Plasma Caster, and Gatling Plasma no longer incorrectly deal additional energy damage above the amount also added to physical damage.
• Power Attacks: Fixed an issue causing melee Power Attacks to sometimes not register as a Power Attack.
• Salvaged Assaultron Head: The fire mode for the Salvaged Assaultron Head now correctly states it has a charging fire mode.
• Shotguns: Gauss Shotguns obtained prior to the Once in a Blue Moon update now adhere to the balance changes.

Fallout 76 is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

MORE: How Deathclaws Have Changed Throughout the Fallout Franchise

Source: Bethesda