Fallout 76 is set to receive its biggest update ever in the form of Burning Springs, a Fallout 3 and New Vegas-inspired expansion that takes players to Ohio for a brand-new story featuring the tyrannical Rust King.
While Fallout 76 developers are proud of how far the game has come and have numerous years of updates already planned behind-the-scenes, the team admits that they cannot add everything that fans request, especially when it comes to some major technical overhauls.
Speaking in a round-table interview ahead of the announcement of Burning Springs, creative director John Rush and production director Bill Lacoste confirmed that the long-requested addition of cross-play and cross-progression to Fallout 76 is simply impossible to add at this point in development.
When asked if there were any plans for “cross play and cross save” across multiple platforms, the team explained “not at this time”. However, it seems that the technology might not ever come as its such a “huge technical hurdle for the game”.
“There are balances there we have to take into account, especially this late in the game, are just much more difficult for us to pull off.”
Fallout 76 production director Bill Lacoste
“We do get asked about this a lot, it’s something we talk about internally a lot, but it is just a huge technical hurdle,” Lacoste explained. “Especially 7 years into the development of the game. Those are, basically, things you have to determine at the very beginning when you start making the game.”
Essentially, bringing cross-play and cross-progression to Fallout 76 would be a massive drain on resourced that the MMO-lite game needs to create future content and retain players. “Right now, the technical hurdle outweighs the need for content”.
Fallout 76 creative director John Rush explained that the team at Bethesda have not forgotten the fan support for the features, and the team often looks for any easy path to make cross-play work. Unfortunately, the game was built in a way that makes adding the technology after the fact extremely difficult.
“We do discuss it, we actually discuss it frequently, looking for any sort of paths or solutions,” Rush explained. “So, it’s not forgotten, it’s not a hard no, but it’s definitely not a yes.”
“These things are never a hard no,” Lacoste added. “Just there are balances there we have to take into account, especially this late in the game, are just much more difficult for us to pull off.”
Fallout 76 Burning Springs launches on Xbox One, Xbox Series, PS4, PS5 and PC this December.
