QuakeCon 2018: Fallout 76 Panel Reveals SPECIAL Card System, Anti-Griefing Feature

QuakeCon celebrates more than just Quake, oddly enough. The multi-day event will also be privy to a new reveal and Q&A for the upcoming post-apocalyptic RPG, Fallout 76.

During Friday's Keynote presentation by Bethesda Game Studios, development director Chris Meyer, project lead Jeff Gardiner and game director Todd Howard sat down to talk about Fallout 76, while formally announcing some new features to expect.

The first announcement was in relation to the new SPECIAL system. The series diverges from the norm with a new card-based perk system. Instead of choosing a single perk to have forever when leveling up, players will instead choose from a selection of perk cards to activate. This allows players to have a diverse skill set that can change to suit their needs. Players can also apply these perk cards to their teammates. The higher you're SPECIAL stat, the wider and more powerful perk cards you can use.

The game company also revealed one of their ideas for preventing player on player griefing. Todd Howard describes this feature as we turn the assholes into interesting content. When a player kills another player, the killer will be marked as a wanted murderer. This will tag this player with a cap bounty for whoever can take them out first. The number of caps will be taken out of the target's cap stash and will scale to their level. Players will be notified of a wanted murderer in their mini map at all times, while the murderer won't see other players on the map, or even know if they've been tagged. Additionally, if the murdered player returns and takes revenge on their killer, they will get double the reward value.

The only concern I have with this system is if a player attacks someone else, but the victim successfully defends themselves. Would that target the person acting in self-defense as a target? I could absolutely imagine players instigating others to kill them to force a murderer status on them.

You can watch the Fallout 76 session, complete with Q&A at the video linked below.

Fallout 76 releases on PlayStation 4, Windows PC and Xbox One on November 14 with a pre-order exclusive multiplayer beta coming in October.