Bethesda rolls out $100/year subscription for Fallout 76 with private servers

Enlarge / Since this subscription service is based in the Fallout universe, it's radiation that has made the mascot's hand so crazy, not greed, we swear. (credit: Bethesda)

As the video game Fallout 76 approaches its first anniversary this November, its makers at Bethesda have routinely promised its online playerbase a way to pay for private servers. That promised service finally got a name (and a price) on Wednesday: Fallout 1st will become available for existing Fallout 76 players on November 1 for either $99.99/year or $12.99/month.

The service's headline feature is "private worlds," though these don't quite operate the same way you might expect from a paid, private-server service like Minecraft Realms. Instead of having one person pay to operate a specific, always-online server, a paying member will be able to create a private Fallout 76 instance, then invite up to seven other players (including non-subscribers) to join that instance. For that gameplay instance to persist, however, at least one of its players must be a paying Fallout 1st member; as soon as all subscribers log out, the instance will disconnect.

It's unclear whether Fallout 1st instances will hold onto progress in the cloud. We'd like to know whether JonSub can log in, play Fallout 76 in a private instance for a while, then invite JaneSub to play, leave the instance, and come back in a few days and still see the fruits of JaneSub's progress in that shared instance.

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