Appalachia is a tough place. Take it from me, someone that grew up just on the other side of the river from that home of all things Mothman: Point Pleasant, West Virginia. That said, I don’t think the new law of this post-apocalyptic land should be “finders keepers, losers weepers,” despite what the NPCs added in the Fallout 76 Wastelanders update seem to think. The free content update that dropped last week brought some classic Fallout flair to the much-maligned 2018 release, including the return of human NPCs. It appears that these AI-settlers have a case of sticky fingers, as reports come in that they steal weapons off player corpses and refuse to give back the goods.
This video uploaded to YouTube by one Dani Garcia highlights this pilfering phenomenon, with the player dying at the 1:00 minute mark, then an NPC popping up around 2:25 with the player’s plasma Gatling laser. Now, the Fallout games are known for strange bugs and glitches that more often than not enhance the experience of its open-world. However, it might be a stretch when the NPC in question has taken a legendary weapon gained from a raid encounter off your body and refuses to give it back.
Worse yet for the player from the video is that this particular NPC is unkillable due to being an essential NPC for this event quest, meaning it isn’t even as simple as offing the NPC and getting the gun back. This sort of thing isn’t new to the Fallout franchise, as similar things were prone to happen in Fallout 4 involving player equipment. However, never to this extent and the inability to get the item back has it all happened before.
Bethesda is aware of the issue and commented on Reddit, where the dev team often communicates with the community. While it sucks for players that lost something good, I can’t help but find this bug to be funny and somewhat apropos for a game about settlers coming into an area in search of treasure and wealth. So if you’re one of the many people returning to Appalachia–and you should, as the Wastelanders update is surprisingly good–just make sure to keep your wits about you and a hand on your favorite gun, lest someone like Mort comes along and swipes it.
