Fallout 76’s “Wastelanders” update was revealed at E3 2019 and was expected to launch in October of that year but is now expected to release sometime in the first quarter of 2020. “Wastelanders” is expected to bring in non-enemy NPCs, companions, dialogue, and new story. Bethesda had an open application for PC players of Fallout 76 to test the “Wastelanders” update, which was closed on January 14th. Bethesda intends to open up a small private test server and allow a select few of the invited players to try it out on January 17th. Bethesda is only allowing a few hundred PC players in to test “Wastelanders,” not everyone that has applied.
Bethesda is requiring that invited players to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) barring them from recording, streaming, or discussing any of the content they see before they can play in the server. Bethesda has also warned that the test server is in development and that bugs are to be expected. They have asked that test players report any bugs or issues that they run into. Any player progress that is made in the test server will be wiped when the server closes down. Progress made in the server is intended to hold over until it closes but if testing runs into issues, Bethesda claims they may roll back the server to fix the bugs.
Bethesda plans to keep the private test server open, allowing anyone that was invited to join at anytime until it is permanently shut down at an undisclosed date. This is different from Bethesda’s approach to the beta of the launch version of Fallout 76, which scheduled small windows of time for testers to play the game. After evaluating the success of the test server and fixing various bugs with invited testers, Bethesda plans on opening the public test server which they are currently developing. It is unknown if the progress made in the public test server will carrier over on the official release of “Wastelanders.”
Fallout 76 is available on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.