Fallout 76 Roadmap and World Pets Preview

World Pets is a fun addition to Fallout 76, especially for players who have spent years filling their C.A.M.P. with pets and now get to bring them into the wasteland.

Fallout 76 has come a long way since its original launch, and Bethesda continues to build on Appalachia with new stories, map expansions, and features. The game has now received nearly 70 free updates; Bethesda used its latest presentation to preview what is coming next and how the wider Fallout ecosystem continues to support players. From Fallout Shelter surpassing 250 million downloads to Fallout 4 Creations generating more than $10 million in revenue share for community creators, the presentation highlighted just how much Bethesda has continued to invest in the franchise. RPGamer had the chance to get an early look at the upcoming Fallout 76 roadmap, including World Pets and several features planned for future updates.

The biggest new feature coming to the Winter update is World Pets, which finally lets C.A.M.P. pets accompany players beyond their homes and into the Appalachian wasteland. Dogs, cats, Radhogs, and Deathclaws can join their owners on adventures, fight enemies, and level up over time. Pets can also provide passive benefits, with different species offering different bonuses, giving players an incentive to bring a particular companion along depending on what they are doing. The feature is a considerable expansion of the existing C.A.M.P. pet system, which previously kept these animals confined to the player’s home.

A feline companion joins the fray.

Pets can be managed through a new section of the Pip-Boy, while the existing C.A.M.P. Pet Command Wheel has been expanded with commands such as Stay, Follow, Attack, and Defend. They also have their own furniture, and Bethesda plans to introduce more variants over time, including additional Deathclaw variants. Pets cannot permanently die, instead becoming downed when defeated, and other players can even help revive them. Bethesda also expects adding large numbers of pets at public events to have little effect on performance, something the team specifically addressed during the live Q&A.

World Pets will also tie into the continued expansion of Bounty Hunting. The system introduced with Burning Springs is expanding into Skyline Valley, where new contracts and rewards will be available. Marshall Canton, a Robobrain taking on the persona of an Old West lawman, will serve as the region’s new bounty host. Skyline Valley itself is also being refreshed with improved forests, terrain, and weather effects, giving players another reason to revisit the area.

The presentation also showed off Hideouts, another major addition coming to Fallout 76. These areas can be approached at different difficulty levels, meaning some should be manageable alone while others will be better suited to a group. The encounters are designed to be more substantial than standard exploration, and the team compared their difficulty and structure to raids. Players who have invested heavily in their gear should be able to tackle them alone; however, Hideouts offer some flexibility depending on the chosen difficulty and character build. The Drifter is also set to appear as a bounty hunter who can compete with players for rewards, adding another complication to these encounters.

A perfectly normal afternoon in Appalachia.

Looking further ahead, Bethesda has already confirmed Raven Rock as a major Fallout 76 expansion planned for 2027. The expansion will serve as a prequel story to Fallout 3, marking another major step outside the game’s familiar Appalachian setting. During the Q&A, Creative Director Jonathan Rush also discussed the team’s plans for future raids, confirming that the developers consider raids a complete feature and intend to add more, though he stopped short of revealing where the next one will take place.

The Q&A also touched on several smaller additions and future possibilities. Raven Rock will feature a largely open-world region built around the Appalachian Mountains. Bethesda is also looking at opening previously inaccessible buildings, improving Shelter features such as HDR, shadows, and resizing, and continuing to expand C.A.M.P. customization. Some ideas, such as allowing existing C.A.M.P. companions to travel into the world or adding pet battles, are not currently on the roadmap, though the team did not rule them out completely.

World Pets is a fun addition to Fallout 76, especially for players who have spent years filling their C.A.M.P. with pets and now get to bring them into the wasteland. It is only one part of what Bethesda has planned, with Bounty Hunting expanding into new areas, Hideouts offering another challenge for players to tackle, and Raven Rock providing a much larger expansion down the road. After nearly eight years of updates, Fallout 76 clearly still has plenty of life left in it, and this latest roadmap shows that Bethesda is continuing to find new ways to expand the game.