Fallout 76 will be taking players back to post-apocalyptic Pittsburgh, known as the Pitt. The fact that the game was set in West Virginia had many Fallout fans hoping for the return of locations from Fallout 3, but the Pitt may be one of the most unique locations Bethesda could have chosen.
Realized to its full potential, the Pitt could add whole new layers to Fallout 76's gameplay. It has some unique monsters already hinted at in the trailer and much more which could see the latest Fallout 76 Expedition add some interesting new mechanics, with new opportunities for players who love PvE and PvP alike.
Fallout 76: The Pitt
Players first visited the Pitt in a DLC for Fallout 3. The third game takes place in 2277, while Fallout 76 takes place far earlier in 2102, just a few decades after the Great War that rendered the world a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Based on the trailer, there will be several key returning elements from the original rendition of the Pitt that could add new layers to gameplay.
Pittsburgh was never hit by atomic bombs during the Great War of 2077, but ended up suffering a far slower, more painful demise. The Monongahela, Allegheny, and Ohio rivers quickly became irradiated, giving the inhabitants of Pittsburgh some of the Fallout universe's strangest mutations.
Trogs From Fallout 3
Many of Pittsburgh's inhabitants became infected with the Troglodyte Degeneration Contagion, turning them into wrinkled, hairless, hungry creatures capable of running at high speeds, leaping great distances, and hunting in packs. Fans of works like I Am Legend will recognize some of the tropes at play, particularly in a decaying urban setting. It's likely one of these "Trogs" is dragging the dead body of a Vault Dweller just out of sight in the recent trailer — after all, the Trogs seen in Fallout 3 are also said to be highly sensitive to the light, avoiding it whenever possible.
The Trog concept was never quite realized to its full mechanical potential in Fallout 3, even though it added something interesting to the story. Although it could be terrifying running across a pack of Trogs, they didn't actually follow the logic that comments about them in-game would suggest, pursuing players into the light among other things.
Fallout 76, however, could see the Trogs add a whole new aspect to multiplayer gameplay. Bethesda could take elements from popular multiplayer zombie games like Left 4 Dead, with different types of Trogs have different strengths and weaknesses. The far tighter FPS mechanics originally developed for Fallout 4 that provide the backbone of Fallout 76's combat could be far more suited to swarming zombie-like enemies than Fallout 3's combat system was.
Players could find themselves slowly creeping through the ruins of Pittsburgh, avoiding any dark area where Trogs might spawn and being careful not to make a sound - there may be a reason that the trailer for this Expedition DLC doesn't use music like the classic Fallout trailers. The Pitt could end up feeling like a survival horror game within Fallout 76's broader RPG world. That may not be the only opportunity setting an expansion in the Pitt creates for Fallout 76, however.
The Hole in Fallout 76
The plot of the original Pitt DLC for Fallout 3 sees the Lone Wanderer go undercover as a slave in order to help find a cure for the town's unique mutations. While enslaved, the player can fight in an arena known as the Hole. In the Hole, the player must fight through three rounds of combatants. First they face three slaves, then two more powerful gladiators, and then finally the Hole's champion, a released slave named Gruber.
Fallout 76 may take place years before Fallout 3, but it's possible that raiders have already begun to establish settlements and use the Hole as an arena. Bethesda's general aversion to human NPCs in Fallout 76 where possible may have players come across the Hole themselves, becoming some of the first people to use it as a gladiatorial arena.
The Hole could be the staging ground for some great PvP in Fallout 76, allowing players to fight to become the champion in away that feels far more competitive than Fallout 3's arena quest. Players could even bet money and resources, inadvertently starting a tradition that would survive for centuries. It would be great if players could enter fights in the Hole under their own gladiator names as well, just like the Bear Brothers in the original Pitt DLC. The Hole is no place for honor, and players who want PvP without the risk of griefing may find that the Pitt is the perfect place to let loose.
If nothing else, The Pitt has been established as one of the Fallout universe's most chaotic locations. It's known that in 2255, the Brotherhood of Steel began a purge of the Pitt known as the Scourge, designed to run out some of the mutants, slavers, and raiders terrorizing the area. Fallout 76 is set long before that, and it may be too early in the Fallout timeline for the Pitt to have become the place the Brotherhood found in the mid 23rd century quite yet.
However, an area of the Fallout 76 map cut off from the main West Virginia region and set in one of the Fallout world's most chaotic, dangerous locations could make the entire area a haven for fans who want a high-octane PvP experience. Players who prefer cooperative gameplay and PvE could find themselves in luck too, with the Trogs providing the perfect monster for mechanics from zombie survival games.
So far few details have been revealed about the Pitt, but the setting has a lot of potential in a multiplayer game, perhaps more than it ever had as the setting for a single player Fallout DLC. Whether or not Bethesda will be able to realize it to its full potential remains to be seen, but Fallout 76 fans hoping to see some significant new additions to gameplay may well be in luck when the new Expedition expansions launches.
Fallout 76 is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.