Fallout 76's Wastelanders Expansion: Here's When The Update Goes Live

Update: Wastelanders is now live, and you can read the full patch notes for all the new additions and bug fixes.

Fallout 76's Wastelanders expansion is coming soon, finally introducing NPCs to a world that was previously only occupied by monsters and other human players (some of whom were figurative monsters). That update will come with a few hours of downtime, and ZeniMax has described just how long you can expect it to last.

According to a post on the official forums, downtime will start at 3 AM ET on April 14, and the studio expects the maintenance to last until 8 AM ET. Official patch notes will be available once the downtime begins.

Fallout 76 got off to a rocky start (and fairly poor reviews, including GameSpot's Fallout 76 review) due to a variety of technical bugs and quality-of-life issues. The company has put time into addressing many of the technical aspects, but from the start, the decision to forgo the usual NPC style of mission-giver has led to complaints that the world feels too sparse. The Wastelanders update addresses that by finally adding a more traditional Fallout mission structure and campaign.

From our hands-on experience, the change is for the better in some important ways--though it's bound to come with some additional technical hurdles as well. For example, Bethesda acknowledged that due to some adjustments being made to the game world, you may need to move your camp.

Wastelanders Release Time (Expected)

• 8 AM ET
• 5 AM PT
• 1 PM BST
• 10 PM AET