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Bethesda swings banhammer on ‘Fallout 76’ players visiting secret developer room

Bethesda is banning Fallout 76 players who have accessed the open-world game’s secret developer room, which is obviously not a place for players to explore.

The secret developer room of Fallout 76 contains plans for everything in the game, including top-tier weapons and unreleased items that are supposed to arrive in future updates. There is also a human NPC named Wooby, and gamers did the logical thing upon meeting him — kill him and take his stuff.

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The Fallout 76 secret developer room started making the rounds on Reddit a few days ago, but some sources told Eurogamer that its existence has been known on Discord servers for several weeks. Here’s a re-uploaded video of the room, as the original one by Mr. X has been taken down.

Fallout 76 Developer Room

This is not the first time that a Bethesda game featured a secret developer room, as Fallout 4 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim also had their own. They can be explained as spaces where developers test items within the game. The rooms in Bethesda’s single-player titles for the PC are accessible through console commands. Since Fallout 76 is an online multiplayer game, it should have been impossible to access its secret developer room.

Fallout 76 players who are thinking of finding out how to gain access to the secret developer room might want to rethink their plans. Bethesda is issuing automatic account suspensions for visiting the room, and players who refuse to respond to the studio’s email on how they found their way into the secret location will no longer be able to use their account. Players who reply, meanwhile, will have their accounts investigated, which sounds like the banhammer is still coming down.

Some Fallout 76 players, however, are reportedly creating mule accounts to acquire unreleased items from the secret developer room, and then transfer them to other accounts. It appears that only the accounts of players who enter the room are being banned, while those who receive the items are not affected.

The problem of Fallout 76 players gaining access to the secret developer room follows a multitude of issues with the online multiplayer game, including duplication exploits that have created a surplus of high-powered items. There have also been previous reports of leaked personal information, the missing canvas bag from the game’s Power Armor Edition, and a player achieving unwanted immortality.

Aaron Mamiit
Aaron received an NES and a copy of Super Mario Bros. for Christmas when he was four years old, and he has been fascinated…
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