The patch notes for the Burning Springs update reveal a new map region and the introduction of The Ghoul from the Fallout TV series. By S.E. Doster on December 2, 2025 at 3:19PM PST Fallout 76's Burning Springs update is live, bringing the game's largest map expansion yet. The patch notes for Burning Springs also highlight new Bounty features, more wildlife, and the introduction of The Ghoul character from Amazon Prime Video's Fallout TV series. Although Fallout 76's main setting is the post-apocalyptic wasteland of Appalachia, players can now explore a brand-new bordering area with a setting in rural Ohio. Burning Springs is described as a region of southeastern Ohio affected by nuclear destruction and environmental poisoning from a chemical plant. This map expansion offers players a new questline that features a Super Mutant known as the Rust King. Highway Town is a main point-of-interest for the new region, and it serves as a social hub for some of the game's new characters. A notable location to visit is the town's Last Resort saloon, which is where players can meet Walton Goggins' character, The Ghoul, from the TV series. One of the new features for the Burning Springs update is Bounty Hunting events. Players can collect "Grunt Hunt" bounties while in town, and these mark mutated targets to take down. There are also more challenging "Head Hunt" bounties, and these contracts offer unique rewards. Burning Springs adds new wildlife to the game. Players can add a new creature, the Radhog, as a Camp pet. The water sources in the region introduce new fish types to fish out and collect as well. Additionally, there are new Legendary mods, more public events, new items to craft, and other content available with the Burning Springs update. The full patch notes for the December 2 Burning Springs update can be found below, as shared by Bethesda Studios. A new region of the map is opening for those with enough grit to cross Point Pleasant bridge. It’s time for you to travel westward towards Burning Springs. Taking place in rural Ohio, this is our largest map expansion to Fallout 76 yet! Become one of the meanest Bounty Hunters around, as the Burning Springs update introduces Bounty Hunting to your Fallout 76 experience. A major new piece of content here to give you the opportunity to find and eliminate some of the area’s largest threats. We’re extremely excited to share that The Ghoul from the Fallout TV Show on Amazon Prime will be joining us in Burning Springs! Voiced by Walton Goggins himself, The Ghoul will be your guide in all things Bounty Hunting. The main questline for Burning Springs is just the start of your story in this new region. Planned as the beginning chapter for a story that spans multiple updates, this quest works as an introduction to characters that you’ll end up spending more time with down the line. With a new questline for you to complete, two new public events, the introduction of Bounty Hunting, plus a load of additional content (including new fish and a local legend to catch), Burning Springs is our largest update since Wastelanders back in 2020. Burning Springs, a region of southeastern Ohio rocked not only by the nuclear destruction of the bombs dropping, but also the environmental poisoning from the local Abraxodyne Chemical plant. The area is now a desolate and barren wasteland with poisonous water, and a dust storm coating everything in a toxin known as Rust. Who would ever want to call this land home? The Rust King is who would. A Super Mutant with just as much brains as brawn, The Rust king is the unrelenting and unforgiving ruler of Burning Springs. He has twisted the land into his cruel kingdom, where the only rule is "might makes right." Players will cross paths with this monstrous monarch during the new questline. He will task the player with proving their worth and braving the wilds of his wasteland. While barren, Burning Springs still holds pockets of life. Highway Town serves as a pit stop for the last of humanity. Built on a section of elevated highway, players will be able to rest and resupply here. Highway Town serves as the region's new social hub and a last resort for survivors-- speaking of which, The Last Resort saloon at the end of town also serves up Bounty Hunt contracts. Once you unlock the location, you'll be able to fast travel directly to the saloon for maximum Bounty Hunt efficiency! You can wander into Burning Springs by crossing the bridge in Point Pleasant. The questline can be started by tuning into the Ohio Distress Signal once they've reached level 30." Mosey down to the Last Resort saloon in Highway Town if you're looking to put your gun to work. The Ghoul has set up shop there, providing piles of bounties to plunder. To start a Grunt Hunt, just pick up one of the posters off the table. There's plenty to go around, so you can repeat this activity to your heart's content. Each time you start a Grunt Hunt, a random location in Burning Springs will be chosen, and a mutation will be applied to your target. Watch out, though, because these mutations are contagious: enemies near your target will also benefit from the effects of the mutation! Plan accordingly to take out your target without getting overwhelmed. Adjust your build to counteract their mutation or just go for the classic stealth approach. If you're lucky, a Grunt Hunt target might drop a premium Bounty Poster. These will allow you to start a Head Hunt-- an extra challenging bounty hunt in the form of a public event! (Note: these are granted through the Quest Rewards and not found on the body itself.) Just place your poster on the bounty board outside of the saloon to send the word wide. All players on the server will be alerted to show up to your aid when you do. Only one Head Hunt can be active at a time, though, so be sure to join in any actives ones before trying to start your own. There's dozens of unique Head Hunt targets across a handful of locations. Each has a unique loadout and posse protecting them-- some with pretty wild and weird skills, too! If you've got an itchy trigger finger, and caps to spare, The Ghoul would be more than happy to part with a premium poster… for the right price. Players will be able to track which Head Hunts they've completed from their Challenges and earn a variety of unique rewards for doing so. Speaking of loot, Bounty Hunting is primed to be the premiere path for Legendary Item hunters. Grunt Hunt targets will initially appear as 1-star Legendary enemies. As you complete more, they will eventually make their way toward 2 and 3-star! Head Hunt targets will always appear as 3-star legendaries and are flanked by a pair of 2-star posse members. But, most importantly, Head Hunts have a chance to drop items with NEW 1-, 2-, and 3-star Legendary effects. Some of these will offer special bonuses for Ghoul or human players… As mentioned above, you’ll be able to earn items containing new and exclusive-to-Bounty-Hunting Legendary Mods. Have you ever wanted to help a Deathclaw prepare for its debut in an Arena deathmatch? Now’s your chance! The Rust King requires a new combatant. Your job is to head over to the Junkyard and help The Beastmaster gather the scrap metal needed to armor up her latest tamed Deathclaw. During this public event, you'll fight alongside your Deathclaw-in-training against the wastelands wildest foes. Just be sure to keep the beast alive! It can't die a glorious death in the arena if doesn't survive the junkyard first… Remember: you can heal friendly NPCs using the Medic's Legendary Mod. Don't have one? Well luckily a new unique named weapon, the Stimpike, comes with this pre-installed! You'll have a chance to earn it-- alongside many other rewards-- by completing this event. Fires rage beneath the surface of Burning Springs and natural gas deposits occasionally breach the surface near places where the ground has broken. Willow, a resident of Highway Town, needs your help culling Radscorpions and Stingwings that have gathered around a highly volatile sinkhole. These creatures are causing issues for the residents of Highway Town so you’ll need to head over to the aptly named Scorpion Lake to activate a “stomper” device to draw them out of their dens. Your objective will be to destroy their dens, all while dodging pillars of fire and navigating a blinding sandstorm. Also, stick around to the end to learn why Radscorpions aren't an apex predator… Assuming you can even find them, the watering holes around Burning Springs are poisonous and irradiated, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t new fish to catch. Explore this new zone and find new fish (including a Local Legend) to add to your collections. Side Quest: Dirty Laundry Keep a sharp eye out for mysterious Abraxodyne intel briefcases hidden all over Burning Springs. Return them to Bodhi in the city of Athens to take part in the Dirty Laundry side quest. Unlike other collectibles, these brief cases appear in specific locations, once per player. You'll have to search every nook and cranny to find all 150. (Schoolyard rumors say there's a 151st one hidden under a red truck, but we're pretty sure that's made-up.) As you turn these cases in, you'll help Bodhi unravel the mystery of his missing daughter-- and earn unique Abraxodyne-themed rewards along the way. You'll earn a unique Legendary weapon for completing the quest-- which only requires finding about half of the total cases-- but you'll get an even more powered-up version if you find every last one. Season 23: Blood X Rust is here to inspire you to unleash your inner raider spirit. The bandits roaming Skyline Valley looking for caravans to rob have proved themselves to be dastardly threats to the Blue Ridge Caravan Company. Scaring poor brahmin into going off track, leaving deliveries incomplete. For now, Milepost Zero will be closing shop and moving their wares to other vendors across Highway Town. Awaiting a time in the future when things might be a bit safer for their operations. The rewards from Milepost Zero are now spread across the Wasteland: All characters who completed the “A Bump In the Road” Caravan intro quest will receive the title “Caravan Investor” (immediately upon logging in). We will also be granting a pennant that can be used account wide (any character on the account will have access to this pennant) and characters that have completed the quest will also receive 2K Gold Bullion. The Pennant will be granted during the first week of Burning Spring’s release while players should expect to see the 2K Gold Bullion upon logging into characters who have completed then quest. We believe that Bounty Hunting delivers on the same promise of on-demand content, with Legendary enemies, and great rewards in a more succinct and satisfying way. We love the Skyline Valley region and have some fun things planned. One of the new creatures you’ll find in Burning Springs is the Radhog. They’re tough and fiercely protective of their young, so if you get too close expect to be attacked. What would happen if you brought one to your C.A.M.P.? You would probably have the most adorably disgusting pet this side of the Ohio River! After purchasing the Radhog C.A.M.P. Pet from the Atomic Shop, the radhog bed item can be found in the “Dwellers” section of the Workshop menu and its Nose Ring is in the “Pet Clothing” section of the Armor Workbench. A new weapon is entering the fray. The Dom Pedro is a Hand Cannon that can fire .50 rounds or be swapped to .308. It has an explosive effect and can pierce enemies too. Really sending a message to anyone foolish enough to stand in your way. Whether you’re hitting your favorite emote at the wandering traveler passing by in the hulking Power Armor skin or trying to convince a level 30 Vault Dweller to pick up the loot you just dropped for them, emoting is core to the Appalachian way of living. In the Burning Springs update we’re reorganizing emotes so that more emotes can be equipped at once. With the work done here, you can now equip all your favorite emotes at once with little to no need to go into the Atomic Shop to swap them in and out. Almost a year after its introduction, Gleaming Depths has proved to be an excellent place for players looking for an endgame challenge to push themselves and their builds to the limit. We’re introducing a new weekly challenge for Gleaming Depths that can be completed by working through all stages of the raid. Your reward for doing so will be a 4-Star Legendary cache that contains a 4-Star Armor, Power Armor, Melee Weapon, and a Ranged Weapon. To go along with this new weekly challenge, we’re also redistributing the raid rewards so that the farther you progress in Gleaming Depths the more enticing the rewards will be. We know this may cause some disruption to your local EN06 farming group (and you can still farm him for XP), but it was never our intention to have one phase of the raiding experience be the source of some of the most coveted rewards in the game. In this update we’re also fixing numerous bugs and introducing quality-of-life improvements to make the raiding experience smoother for everyone. Combat in Appalachia has experienced a lot of changes since the Skyline Valley update was released last year. For Burning Springs we’re slowing things down to see how it all settles. We are making a few more adjustments to V.A.T.S. to address the feedback we’ve received after the Fallout 76: C.A.M.P. Revamp update. All in all, you should experience far less instance of V.A.T.S. chance to hit fluctuations and targeting issues. Blood X Rust Season Items Not Appearing under the “New” section of the Build Menu We are aware of an issue with the Blood X Rust C.A.M.P. items not appearing under the “New” section of the build menu once claimed. The team is working towards a solution. Head Hunt Target Cletus Brimstone is Doing More Damage Than Expected We are aware of two issues with the Head Hunt target, Cletus Brimstone; When his fire attack is triggered on a server, players in The Forest region will also be affected. Additionally, the additional enemies present are using incorrect weapons, resulting in players taking much more damage than designed. We have identified a fix for a future patch. Various Unicode Characters in Crafting Requirements Block for Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Russian Players Players with their language set to Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Russian will notice a string of characters in the requirement box of the various crafting menus in the game. The team is aware of this issue and are working towards a solution. We apologize for the inconvenience and please stay tuned for more information. Missing Text From Some Terminals, Holotapes, and Other Interactables We have discovered an issue with the text within various lore related holotapes, and terminals across Appalachia and Burning Springs. You may come across some of those items that may not be working as intended while the team is working on a fix. Latest in Fallout 76 Fallout Season 2 Trailer Shows Off Macaulay Culkin And Kumail Nanjiani's Characters Todd Howard Teases "Even More" Fallout Is Coming Fallout 4 And Fallout: New Vegas Are Getting Anniversary Editions