Fallout 76’s latest patch brings back old bugs

The latest patch for Fallout 76 has come a cropper, sadly, because as well as applying various bug fixes, it also resurrects some bugs that had previously been stamped out by Bethesda.

Players have taken to Reddit on numerous threads to complain about returning gremlins in the works. These include 'classics' like the bobby pin bug, where an item’s weight is far too heavy, thereby leading to some folks finding themselves encumbered (effectively slowing down the player's speed).

Also, the fusion core spawn rate at workshops is way too slow – at a tenth of the speed it should be, in fact – alongside other bugs reportedly popping up, including, worst of all, item duping.

Some denizens of Reddit have accused the developers of experiencing some kind of version control disaster, basing the current patch on older code somehow, which is why numerous bugs have crept back in. We’ll have to wait for the official word from Bethesda on exactly what went wrong, though.

So far, the feedback from Bethesda has consisted of a community manager chiming in on a Reddit thread (spotted by PC Gamer) to say that the devs have been alerted, and are looking into these issues.

Weighty matters

On the PC, the patch in question was 500MB in size, and made a number of adjustments, with various nerfs and game balancing changes, and a cap on the maximum carry weight.

Fallout 76 got off to a very rocky start after launch, and things haven’t run much more smoothly since, so Bethesda can really do without incidents like this. Much of the previous criticism of the game has revolved around the sheer amount of bugs present, and the accusation that the MMO is easy to hack on the PC (which Bethesda firmly denied).

Most recently, Bethesda has had to deny rumors that the game was going free-to-play, and was caught out when players discovered a secret ‘developer room’ from which they stole as yet unreleased items.

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).