I've learned the secret to endless riches in Fallout 76

The post-apocalyptic wasteland of the Fallout franchise is a dire place, littered with environmental storytelling skeletons, irradiated swamps, and giant monsters. If you’re a fool, you may look at such an environment and think there are no opportunities to flex upon your friends. You’re dead wrong — I’ve figured out how to exploit the apocalypse for infinite riches, and all it took is one weird trick the haters and losers don’t want you to know about.

I’m playing Fallout 76 again with the gang. One of the best things about having a steady circle of online friends is that once in a while, we all descend upon a game like a pack of locusts, and work away at it until we have consumed everything the game has to offer. I’m a veteran of the game, having played since its infamously rough launch. 

Fallout 76 is a controversial game, but one I’ve enjoyed over the years. The game’s Events, little scenarios that spawn across the map and offer unique rewards, encourage social play. The building system is fairly robust and fun. It’s one of the few online games that allows for more than four friends to play together. It’s incredibly janky, but in a way I find charming, making me think of much humbler and lower budget projects. “But Cass,” you might say. “Bethesda is a big company and Todd Howard could surely shell out enough to implement features like text chat.” Hypothetical reader, I must admit – you got my ass there. A game held together with tape and a dream is objectively not great. But with Fallout 76, the jankiness works.

I play Abigail Havelock, the daughter of a suburban housewife who is reinforcing order across the wasteland with a strict Homeowner’s Association. I wear expensive pre-war clothes, chug wine instead of water, and punch anyone who gets in my way with a heavy mechanical gauntlet. My friends have found their own roles to play as well: a Vault-born adventurer, a cowboy bounty hunter, a Brotherhood of Steel initiate, and a Mothman cultist. It’s a fun assortment of characters, but since me and my buddy Jake are the only ones who have plumbed the endgame, we’re taking a leadership role for the rest, helping to build up CAMPs and running through difficult quests.