Fallout 76 is set to cross over with Prime Video’s popular Fallout TV series, with its latest update introducing Walton Goggins as The Ghoul. As detailed, Burning Springs – which is set to release around December 2025 – expands on a year of great change for Fallout 76, introducing new areas, and a new core feature: bounty hunting.
That’s part of the reason The Ghoul is debuting in the game. He’ll occupy the new area of Highway Town, which is essentially a ramshackle outlaw hideout, where he’ll invite players along on special bounty hunts that can be taken on solo, or in teams, for more powerful enemies.
How Walton Goggins came to be in Fallout 76
According to Bethesda Game Studios, Goggins was enthusiastic about reprising his role as The Ghoul, even going so far as to bring his own prosthetics for the recording process, to deliver an authentic performance that stays true to the Ghoul we all know and love from Prime Video’s series.
‘To be in … the actual video game itself, there are rainbows coming out of my heart,’ Goggins said, in a brief appearance during a recent livestream announcement.
Speaking to ScreenHub in a roundtable interview, Jon Rush, creative director of Fallout 76, and Bill LaCoste, production director, explained the process of introducing The Ghoul as being a collaboration with Prime Video.
‘On the appearance, on the specifics of The Ghoul … the mannerisms, and the gun, that was all a lot of back and forth to make sure that it was as close to what you’re seeing in the show as we could get,’ Rush said. ‘As far as the initial ideation of having The Ghoul included, that was something that came up organically, as we were discussing the new region.’
‘Once we got the new region nailed down – the look, the feel, the tone – then we arrived at bounty hunting as being the appropriate feature for that region. It only made sense to try and have The Ghoul that everybody knows from the Amazon show to host that new feature.’
Per Rush, plans to integrate Prime Video’s own creations in the video game world of Fallout have expanded considerably since the show debuted and swiftly grabbed mainstream attention. When the first season arrived, the team introduced small crossover items, like Lucy’s Backpack, and The Ghoul’s hat and duster.
‘Once we saw how players were reacting to the show, and the players that saw the show that came to the game, we wanted to start preparing for season two right away … We wanted something that helped us continue telling our story, for our Appalachia, and give our players the tools to tell their own stories through the places they built, or the adventures they go on with friends.’
With that in mind, the team began designing an update that could exist alongside and compliment the upcoming season of Prime Video’s Fallout, while charting its own path. With the first season ending on an implied trip to New Vegas (inspired by the video game of the same name), the team wanted to go for a ‘similar’ gameplay experience – a barren world with Deathclaws, raiders, and bounty hunting.
Where does The Ghoul fit in the Fallout 76 timeline?
Intriguingly, the appearance of The Ghoul in Fallout 76 does raise questions about the timeline of Prime Video’s series, and its relationship to the Fallout video games. The show moving to New Vegas in its second season will likely also complicate things further.
But as Rush recently explained, there’s a simple way to frame The Ghoul’s appearance in the game.
‘Fallout 76 has the luxury of being the furthest back in time,’ Rush explained. ‘Fallout 76 is the earliest glimpse of a post-war Fallout that you can experience, whereas the show takes place on the exact opposite end of the spectrum. Luckily for us, The Ghoul has preserved himself through Wasteland means, as a ghoul, so The Ghoul existing back in the 76 timeline makes a lot of sense.’
What to know about Fallout 76‘s Burning Springs update
Beyond the appearance of The Ghoul, it’s worth noting Burning Springs will be one of the biggest updates to hit Fallout 76 yet. It’s the 64th free update for the ongoing game, and aims to provide a whole new land to explore, packed with new activities, quests, and discoveries.
Per Rush and LaCoste, it’s designed to be friendly to new players, particularly those discovering the game after watching Prime Video’s series.
‘[The onboarding experience] is much easier than it used to be,’ Rush said. ‘We always have our eyes on ways to streamline that process, and we have some small plans for down the road, and some big plans for down the road.’
Players awakening in their home vault and entering the Wasteland for the first time will have the option to start from scratch, or to start with a higher-levelled character, to ease the burden of entering a fully-formed world. There’s also a range of special perks and equipment that aid this passage, so that as soon as you begin the game, you’re ready to explore all the points of interest that surround you.
Burning Springs appears to be a higher-level area in the game, but with this onboarding process, players will be better equipped to start their journey, and head out to meet-and-greet The Ghoul and his friends. From there, the world of Fallout 76 is your oyster.
Those keen to check out Fallout 76‘s latest update should keep an eye out for more news as development continues. For now, Burning Springs is targeting launch in December 2025, to accompany the arrival of Prime Video’s Fallout season two.
