'Fallout 76' Screenshot: Leak Reveals River, Vegetation, and More

Bethesda’s big E3 2018 event is just a few days away, but we may be getting another (unofficial) look at ‘Fallout 76’ before then. Fans of the apocalyptic series have been poring over every bit of media they can find, and it may have finally paid off.

A recent documentary about Bethesda from Noclip offers a look inside the storied developer’s offices, and it may have accidentally revealed a little too much. Is this a leaked screenshot from Fallout 76 or just some random image of a Bethesda employee’s computer?

Over on the Fallout 76 subreddit, fans discussed the image in detail. To start, there’s that Mothman shirt being worn by Bethesda Game Studios lead artist Nate Purkeypile, which could be another hint about the game’s rumored West Virginia location. Mothman is a cryptid originated from West Virginia, much like the Jersey Devil from the great state of New Jersey. One user on the official Bethesda forums even speculated about a possible appearance for Mothman on May 31, six whole days before the Noclip documentary was released.

Redditors also pointed out the monitor to Purkeypile’s right, which some fans speculated might offer a look at Fallout 76’s development. One user even guessed it could be Bethesda’s GECK in action editing software.

Meanwhile, a thread on the Gaming Underground Network also revealed an unblurred photo of the monitor directly behind Purkeypile’s, which appears to show fully rendered shots of a Fallout game, possibly Fallout 76. Among them is an image of a person wearing what appears to be a vault jumpsuit standing in a stream and surrounded by lots of greenery.

Could that mean we’ll see lots of in Fallout 76? Some of the posters in the thread weren’t too happy about this possibility, arguing that plant life would be decimated for hundreds of years after the nuclear holocaust that sets off the events of the Fallout series, but that’s not quite true. Granted, we don’t have too many real-world examples of nuclear fallout, but plant life in Chernobyl was mostly fine after the nuclear disaster. Hundreds of trees survived the blast in Hiroshima and are still thriving to this day.

There were also numerous areas in Fallout canon that survived the Great War. Las Vegas (which became New Vegas) was left more or less intact thanks to its benefactor Robert House. Boston also emerged unscathed, though its surrounding suburbs weren’t as lucky.

Besides, I’m kind of sick of all the blasted wastelands. Old Fallout heads know that Fallout 2 portrayed a world in recovery, with fully developed communities like Vault City. Not everything has to be a barren ruin.