The Ghoul Update is coming in March 2025
In November 2024, I had the great opportunity to take part in an exclusive Fallout 76 event in London. Bethesda Germany invited me to fly to London with some other content creators. And it was great!
I met a lot of interesting YouTubers, content creators as well as gaming journalists and the Bethesda team was very open and helpful. The entire Bethesda office in London was redecorated as a vault, we saw exclusive trailers about the Ghoul Update (announced for March 2025), were able to play the alpha version of the Ghoul Update, had a ghoul attending and I was even able to unexpectedly have an interview with Jon Rush! If you haven't read it yet, you can find the interview here: Fallout 76: Interview with Jonathan Rush in London 2024
All participants even got a goodie bag with the Ultrazit Terror hand puppet (which I already used in some videos), a Fallout shirt (which Jon Rush and Bill LaCoste personally signed for me), some ghoul stickers, a ghoul pin and Ultrazit candy.
I had a great time there and would do it again anytime!
The "playable Ghoul"
Until now, it was not possible to take on the role of a ghoul in Fallout 76 or other Fallout games. This will change in March 2025. With the upcoming update, you can turn your character into a ghoul, with all the advantages and disadvantages that entails.
At the event in London, we were the first exclusive group to play the Ghoul Update in the alpha version. From December 20, 2024, the PTS will also be online again, where you can already play the new version on the PC. Nuka Knights is of course also back on the PTS and will test the gameplay as well as look for interesting new features under the hood via datamining.
A quest turns you into a ghoul
You can turn your existing character into a ghoul. To do this, you can complete a new ghoulification quest. This quest first takes you to the Whitespring Resort, where you meet Lehman. He was attacked by bandits and has contracted a serious radiation sickness. Now he is looking for a doctor or specialist who can help him.
New locations in the northeast of Appalachia
The quest now takes you further up to the northeast of Appalachia. There are new places and a new outpost. At the outpost you won't find a doctor or specialist at first, but there is an elevator. This elevator takes you to a bunker that looks very familiar to us. It looks like a nuclear missile launch silo. And here you will also find a radiation specialist.
Lehman is so badly irradiated, however, that there is only one way out. The only way to save him is to turn him into a ghoul. He agrees.
After this experience, our player is not feeling very well either, and we also turn to the doc to get ourselves back on our feet. He offers to heal us too... on the house. For this process, the specialist has an inhaler ready that turns us into a ghoul.
The new Ghoul Look
From now on we are a ghoul and the first thing we can do is choose our appearance. There are numerous hairstyles, features, scars and skin types available. You can decide whether you want to be a male or female ghoul.
Ghoul characteristics & differences
There are some differences between humans and the playable ghouls.
A ghoul has/is:
- No thirst
- No hunger
- Immune to radiation
- Radiation fills its "feral meter"
- Feral meter fills up above the life bar when it is full
- When the feral meter is full, the ghoul "glows" and is particularly strong
- Numerous new perk cards and some new legendary perks specifically for ghouls
- Mutations are still available as usual (as currently known)
Ghoul strength by "glow" (feral meter)
The ghoul's special ability is to absorb radiation and use it to increase its own power. When a ghoul "glows", i.e. its feral meter is full and it glows green, it is particularly strong. Many new ghoul perks are tailored precisely to this ability and increase it enormously.
At the same time, this ability means that the ghoul always has full health. Bloodied builds will therefore not work with the ghoul. And Unyielding Armor cannot be used advantageously in this way either. We will test on the PTS whether Overeaters can be used.
Based on my experience playing the alpha version, I was able to observe that the "glow" is not dependent on a specific timer, but is consumed depending on use. It seemed as if the points of the feral meter were consumed by hitting the opponents. We will also test this in more detail on the PTS.
Since we as ghouls obviously always want to absorb a lot of radiation, we now also have to make sure that our armor has low radiation resistance and that we absorb a lot of radiation in combat, for example. So it would actually make sense for a ghoul to fight the Queen in the nuke zone, instead of next to it as before. Likewise, it probably won't make much sense to play a ghoul with power armor.
New Ghoul Perk Cards
Is it possible to go back from Ghoul to human?
Yes, it will also be possible to transform from a ghoul back into a human. However, we have not yet been told how exactly this will work. It is possible that the radiation specialist will also have an inhaler ready for this purpose.
Ghoul Update Release Date
The release date for the Ghoul Update is currently planned for March 2025. This is what the community calendar currently says. The Ghoul Update will also be released at the same time as the new Season 20. Based on the length of the previous seasons, the date for the update is probably March 4th, 2025 or March 11th, 2025. However, since the Mutated Events Week is still running on March 4th, our estimate is March 11th, 2025. This is just an estimate and requires an official announcement to confirm. As soon as the official date is known, it will be announced at Nuka Knights.
Your feedback
What do you think of the new ghoul character? I'm looking forward to the PTS tests and am very excited about the many new builds that will be possible with this new player type.
Also take a look at the video below this post, where you'll see a few more scenes.
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