The Fallout 76 Backwoods update unleashes a very angry Bigfoot

The Fallout 76 Backwoods update is bringing cryptids to the forefront, and leading the charge is a face I almost struggle to believe we haven't seen in Appalachia before. Bigfoot is one of many new 'party crashers' that will be adding more chaos to Fallout 76's public events, as Bethesda aims to make its open world feel more dangerous and rewarding than ever. To get a bit more insight into what to look out for in the Backwoods, I attended a preview roundtable with creative director Jon Rush, production director Bill LaCoste, senior systems designer Kevin Wienecke, and live producer Keaton Bracy.

"The idea for Bigfoot actually originally came from playing Campfire Tales at night and finishing that and thinking, 'God, it'd be so cool if Bigfoot just came out and smashed my face,'" Rush recalls. It's surprising he's never reared his head in the open-world game before. Rush acknowledges that Fallout 76 is "kind of steeped in cryptids, and we're in a forest. So it seems like Bigfoot maybe didn't appreciate what folks were doing in his forest, disturbing his slumber."

Bigfoot is one of the many new 'party crashers' that can now appear when a public event concludes. These particularly dangerous foes are separate from the main objective, so you're free to choose whether you take them on after completing your goal. They're tough, with a tight time limit to take them down, but the rewards will be worth it. Three-star guests will drop a pair of three-star items, while the four-star Bigfoot guarantees a four-star legendary - the first time these have been obtainable outside of the Gleaming Depths raid.

Wienecke explains that Bigfoot's four-star drop pool is "a reduced set" compared to what you'll find in the raid, but he does have an exclusive prize of his own: the 'Thrill Seeker's mod.' There's no quest associated with him; Wienecke says the team "wanted it to be a spontaneous thing, and we thought that was better served without the overhead of an actual quest." However, an increased spawn rate and a Bigfoot-specific hourly playlist during the first week will mean you'll struggle to miss him at launch.

While Bigfoot can show up in multiple places, other cryptids are specific to different public events, with the goal of having each be "thematic" to the activity they're invading. Past the launch-week boost, they won't be super common, but you should see at least one per hour. Alongside this, there's a wider push to make these open-world group tasks feel more thrilling and less like busywork. Bethesda now makes a distinction between smaller 'activities' designed for around one to four people, and the more grand-scale 'public events.'

Lots of events with a tendency to drag on have been tightened up, such as Moonshine Jamboree and the Wild West-themed Most Wanted. Expect NPC patrols to move faster, timers to be shortened, and new enemy types dropped in, such as ranged Floaters to counteract the power of rooftop camping. The level of the hostile forces can now scale to more closely match the ranks of the players involved, ramping up to a cap of 125.

All events and activities now have global loot tables that they pull from, and the potential rewards are being boosted to match the extra challenge. "We want to make sure that things like caps and player experience are always going to be attractive to you," Wienecke explains. "So, no matter what you do, it's always going to be worth your time. That was our goal with a lot of these changes."

Another big addition are new, more valuable U-Mine-It maps, which can be found through public events or bought from the regular vending machines. You'll find other such changes dotted about the world - lockboxes, for example, have had their loot adjusted, with fresh rewards scaled to the difficulty of cracking them open. Bethesda has also done a spot of much-needed tuning to the sluggish Pip-Boy menus, which should feel "a lot snappier now," and photo mode has had some new vanity lights added to it.

The result is that jumping between activities as they pop up across the entire world of Fallout 76 should feel exciting in a way it hasn't of late, especially if you've put as many hours into them as I have. The party crashers in particular are a smart addition that I'm looking forward to tackling. Leaving us with one final teaser, Wienecke hints that "there's a super secret with Bigfoot… but it's only revealed under a certain lens. That's all I'm going to say."

The Fallout 76 Backwoods update is out today, Tuesday March 3. You can play the game on Steam, or via the Xbox app, and it's also available as part of Game Pass.