Fallout fans have wanted to play as a ghoul in the main Fallout games for years. In early 2025, they’ll be able to realize that rather grim fantasy via an update to Fallout 76.
This won’t technically be a first for the Fallout franchise, as Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel will allow players to play as a ghoul named Cain, one of six playable characters in the 2004 PlayStation 2 and Xbox spin-off. And in 2001’s Fallout Tactics, characters in multiplayer can be from any of the six races in the game, including ghoul. But this is certainly a first for the mainline Fallout games, which until now have forced players to create human characters before launching them into the wasteland.
In the Fallout universe, ghosts are former humans who are so severely affected by radiation that they become unrecognizable and gain certain abilities, including immunity to radiation sickness. Some ghosts lose what little humanity remains and become feral ghosts, attacking the player and other wasteland creatures on the spot.
In a recent interview with IGN, Fallout 76 creative director Jonathan Rush said that, as you might expect, ghoul players shouldn’t worry too much about radiation. In fact, radiation cures you like a ghoul.
“If you get hurt and get some radiation, go drink some dirty water and you’ll heal,” Rush explained. “Radiation will also be positioned to have other very notable benefits, further highlighted by the dozens of ghoul-specific perk cards we’ll be adding.”
This is quite a departure for Fallout and indeed the way players are trained to behave in the games. In Fallout, players strive to protect themselves from radiation and take medications that mitigate its effects. One of the benefits of wearing Fallout’s iconic Power Armor is that it provides the player with additional radiation protection. But as a ghoul, it’s in your best interest not to wear Power Armor because you want as much radiation exposure as possible.
Rush said we hope this will encourage a playstyle we’ve never seen before in Fallout. “A player not wearing Power Armor has just freed up a bunch of extra points that they can use in a bunch of different other ways,” Rush said, “which in itself is a very different playstyle. And when you put all the extras on top, it becomes cool.”
But don’t think you can immediately start playing Fallout 76 as a ghoul: it’s a level 50 requirement.
The addition of playing as a ghoul comes after the breakout success of the Fallout TV show, which stars Walton Goggins as The Ghoul, an imposing wasteland veteran who has emerged as perhaps the most popular character in the Prime Video series .
Rush said the development team had been talking about ghosts “for a while” but wanted to “take the time to figure out what it meant to play as a ghost and how that would fit, and how we’ve seen players play 76.” So this update won’t necessarily capitalize on the Fallout TV show’s popularity, but it will obviously benefit from it.
“It felt like the right time because we have a lot of in-game players level 50+ who may want to experience different ways to play through more difficult in-game content,” Rush added.
An intriguing element of the Fallout TV show – which, remember, takes place after all the Fallout games and is considered canon – is that ghosts must regularly consume a strange yellow substance to avoid the inevitable wild turn. We see The Ghoul struggle with his dependence on this mysterious drug as he goes about his business of death.
So the inevitable question is: Will Fallout 76 players who become a ghoul similarly have to regularly consume a drug to avoid becoming a feral ghoul? “Possibly…” Rush teased.
In the near term, Fallout 76 will expand its Appalachia map with the release of the Skyline Valley expansion on June 12.
For more, check out everything announced at Xbox Games Showcase 2024.
Wesley is the UK news editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.