Fallout 76’s newest update takes players to post-war Pittsburgh. The upcoming expansion titled “Expeditions: The Pitt” presents a familiar scene for longtime fans of the franchise as the location was included in Fallout 3’s expansion pack of the same name.
This opens plenty of gameplay and narrative possibilities for Fallout 76 as it could draw on elements that were established in the Fallout 3 DLC. Granted, the two games took place around 175 years apart. However, based on the Expeditions: The Pitt story trailer, it seems the area is still in a somewhat similar state. As such, Fallout 76 can delve into elements from Fallout 3’s The Pitt DLC to add to the lore of the location.
Some Background on The Pitt DLC of Fallout 3
The Pitt add-on for Fallout 3 is the game’s second official DLC after Operation: Anchorage. In this expansion pack, the player travels to a post-apocalyptic version of Pittsburgh that’s been taken over by raiders, and the infamous Pitt is a central hub where slaves are put to work producing steel.
The Lone Wanderer of Fallout 3 enters the Pitt disguised as a slave and is quickly roped into a plan orchestrated by the other slaves. They’re tasked with acquiring a cure for a mysterious disease plaguing the wastelanders in the Pitt — raider and slave alike. The disease is known as the Troglodyte Degeneration Contagion (TDC), and it’s affected most of, if not all, the population of the Pitt.
The TDC causes its victims to lose their minds, regressing into feral versions of themselves known as Wildmen. Should the disease persist, the infected then change into the mutated creatures called Trogs — arguably one of the creepiest monsters in the Fallout franchise. Outside the confines of the Pitt’s central hub, there are plenty of Trogs lurking around, which is why the slaves are desperate for the cure.
This is the general premise of Fallout 3’s The Pitt, and though it seems straightforward, the player is presented with some morally ambiguous choices throughout the Fallout DLC. As for Fallout 76, it can draw on some of the Pitt’s unique elements and use them to provide a unique experience to its online players.
The State of the Pitt in Fallout 76
One such element Fallout 76 can pull from is the novel setting. The story trailer proves this is the case with the shots of the industrial landscapes and smoke-filled skies. And despite being over a hundred years in the past, it appears raiders are still the ruling group in the Pitt. In Fallout 76, it’s a group known as “the Fanatics” who are a “rad-worshipping” bunch. It’s unclear whether the Fanatics make use of slaves the way the raiders in Fallout 3 do. Though, either way, it would be interesting to see what sets them apart from other raider factions.
Aside from this, Fallout 76 can take the map of Fallout 3’s The Pitt DLC, then expand and tweak it to fit the earlier timeline. The trailer already shows scenes of factory grounds and extensive subterranean passages, but there’s more potential for verticality. Maybe let players scale factory roofs and travel across the map through a series of high-up ledges, just like in the old Pitt DLC. This allows players to get a fuller look at post-war Pittsburgh prior to the events of Fallout 3.
However, there’s more to the Pitt than its industrial setting and raider gangs. While every known location in Fallout’s post-apocalyptic world is irradiated, the state of Pittsburgh is a little different from the Appalachian wasteland — it’s worse. Before the Great War in the Fallout universe, the area of Pittsburgh had plenty of working factories, pumping out pollution and harmful chemicals into the environment. When the bombs dropped, the radiation supposedly mixed in with the toxic compounds, resulting in the TDC.
The TDC Prior to Fallout 3
Given this, Fallout 76 could showcase what the TDC was like in its early stages. The story trailer shows that there are already Trogs congregating in the location’s subterranean levels. However, the Fallout NPCs present don’t seem to have the skin lesions that appear on infected individuals. Perhaps, then, this event takes place during a time when the disease hasn’t spread across the local population yet.
It's also possible that the Fanatics already know of the mysterious disease. Since they’re described as “rad-worshipping,” they might be glorifying the Trogs as they’re essentially a product of the area’s specific form of radiation. Fallout 76’s Expeditions: The Pitt update might even showcase how the TDC epidemic began at the hands of these raiders. In fact, the Fanatics could very well be the earliest Wildmen of the Pittsburgh area.
Overall, the setup is an excellent opportunity to explore what exactly the TDC is and where it came from. Fallout 3’s iteration of the Pitt never delved into the specifics of how the disease came to be, so this is a gap Fallout 76 can close. It could show how the locals of the time reacted to the TDC’s destructive effects or even provide an answer to why people like Marie from Fallout 3 were immune to the disease. In short, there are plenty of questions that Fallout 76’s Expeditions: The Pitt can answer.
All that said, players will have to wait and see what the new update has in store. Expeditions: The Pitt of Fallout 76 is coming in September 2022 and is recommended for players Level 50 or above. According to Bethesda’s announcement, the expansion will have new NPCs to interact with, radiant Missions, and even legendary items up for grabs. Hopefully, the update has some substance and decent storytelling outside the repeatable quests. After all, plenty of Fallout fans are excited for the return of the Pitt. It’s high time for the developer to up the quality of Fallout 76’s updates, especially as Fallout’s 25th anniversary draws near.
Fallout 76 is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One, with Expeditions: The Pitt releasing in September 2022.
