Fallout 76 “equalises the damage somewhat” when fighting higher level players in PvP

As soon as you hit level 5 after a couple of hours in Fallout 76, you’re free to partake in some friendly (or not) PvP.

If you come up against a power armour-wearing badass when you’re a low level you don’t need to panic, though. Fallout 76 levels the playing field a little bit to make for fairer fights.

“Gear plays a big part, but we do equalise the damage somewhat,” production editor Chris Mayer explained during a recent roundtable. “Perks come into it as well. A higher level player will have many more perks to choose from.”

In my hands-on session, my team and I decided to have a pop at a level 50 Bethesda Game Studios developer. We were all level 5 and 6, but we beat them quite easily, sniping them out of the air as they tried to escape the battle with the rocket boots on their power armour.

“It’s not like a high level player shows up and whips everyone’s ass,” Bethesda vice president of marketing Pete Hines added.

I wondered if this level playing field would be sustainable after a month or so, when everyone is running around with high level weapons such as the mini nuke-firing fat man launcher.

“You’re still bound by your inventory and weight limits,” project lead Jeff Gardiner explained. “The fat man is heavy and the shells are very heavy. You’re not hoarding like in Fallout 4, so that’s also a factor.

“Remember this is a survival game. During playtesting, you know your character is going to go away in three hours so you’re going to use all your stimpacks and shoot all your ammo. But when you’re playing for real, you make a lot of different decisions. I have one fat man shell - do I really want to use it to kill this guy, or do I want to save it for the scorchbeast?”

Fallout 76 is out on November 14. While you wait, here’s everything we know about Fallout 76.