Fallout 76's Skyline Valley update expands the map into new beautiful areas, but I'm just happy to have more cults to fight and weird stories to uncover

GamesRPGFalloutFallout 76Fallout 76’s Skyline Valley update expands the map into new beautiful areas, but I’m just happy to have more cults to fight and weird stories to uncoverWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Bethesda)

Power armour standing in front of a vault door

Instead of releasing an expedition like the last couple of Atlantic City updates, Skyline Valley expands the map, diving into the south to uncover new quests, points of interest, and violent inhabitants. And boy, did I have my work cut out for me during my hands-on as somehow I managed to encounter every single cult under the sun.

(Image credit: Bethesda)

Character looking at the sky

Amidst the 20 new places of interest to explore and 12 new quests to complete, there’s a story for you to journey through. The epicenter of the strange storm that has engulfed the Shenandoah Valley leads to Vault 63, and here lies Hugo Stoltz, his family, and his army of ghoulish employees called lost engineers, all of whom aren’t very happy to see you and wield electric batons and guns. But to get to the bottom of this strange ecological disaster, you’ll either have to befriend or betray Hugo and solve the mystery for yourself.

It certainly seems like a cool story to latch onto for this update, but that’s far from the only exciting aspect of Skyline Valley. I opted to spend a lot of time in my hands-on session doing what I always do: exploring the map and digging deep into any small tidbits of information I could find, whether that be from following strange trails or hacking terminals. My travels took me to the spooky Dark Hollow Manor, the historical Rapidan Camp, and a communist brainwashing site at Camp Liberty, as well as pretty much every other point of interest on the map.

Rocking up to Camp Liberty, I expected to find a couple of old derelict huts and maybe some good loot, but instead, I stumbled upon a classified experiment. Full of mostly female members, everyone was acting as if they were in the heart of communist Russia, with old Soviet uniforms and ushanka hats. I was only planning on passing through but then one of the recruits called me a capitalist pig and began shooting at me, so I decided to take a quick detour.

(Image credit: Bethesda)

Vault 63’s door lying in rubble

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Wandering down the dimly lit cave system alongside eerie music was enough to make me a little cautious despite my high level.

Fighting these worshipers wasn’t too difficult as I’ll admit I did have some incredibly overpowered weapons but it was still surprisingly creepy. Wandering down the dimly lit cave system alongside eerie music was enough to make me a little cautious despite my high level. It wasn’t big enough to get lost in but the various levels did get a bit confusing. I’d follow the path down into the cave killing cultists as I went, and suddenly I’d be standing above the area I’d just come from. But my clueless exploring was rewarded at the end with a comfortable bone chair and a couple of cool shotguns.

I had a great time exploring Shenandoah Valley, and slowly discovering a bit more about this new map expansion. It feels like a deliberate move in the right direction with all the new quirky locations plus an interesting story which expands on what we already know about Vault Tech as well as Vault 63. Skyline Valley is also the start of some more exciting developments for Fallout 76, not only will we be able toplay as a ghoul, but Bethesda is also adding escort missions so you can join members of the Blue Ridge Caravan party while they run routes through Shenandoah. There’s actually a great deal to look forward to, and I’m excited to see what else the team has to offer.

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OG Fallout lead Tim Cain dusts off a trove of old development photos dating back to 1994 to show ‘what development looked like in the ’90s’Fallout’s original designer is fine with the direction of the modern games: ‘They’re both what they are, and a ton of people like it’

Fallout developer Tim Cain seated at computer wearing brown paper bag on head in the ’90s

OG Fallout lead Tim Cain dusts off a trove of old development photos dating back to 1994 to show ‘what development looked like in the ’90s’

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