Even though they managed to survive the apocalypse, the end of times, the wholesale destruction of humanity as we know it, it would appear that Fallout 76’s computer systems aren’t immune to bugs and malfunctions, as wasteland wanderers suddenly found themselves unable to access or launch any of the game’s nuclear missiles. According to reports, the issue was first discovered on January 1st, when players realized that the game’s nuke silos were locked and displayed a 9,999-hour countdown until reopening. In addition, the enemies who normally drop the codes that players must assemble in order to launch one of the devastating warheads have ceased to spawn as well.
Considering the fact that launching nukes comprises a significant portion of Fallout 76’s current endgame content, this is obviously a major blow to the already somewhat anemic game. Bethesda acknowledged the issue via Twitter yesterday morning and subsequently brought the game down to administer a hotfix, which went live a couple of hours after the initial tweet, and things seem to be working normally again.
We're planning to bring #Fallout76 offline at 2:30 p.m. EST today for a hotfix to correct the issue with the nuke silos. During this time Fallout 76 will be unavailable. Thank you for your patience.
— Bethesda Support (@BethesdaSupport) January 2, 2019
Although the studio didn’t provide any details as to why this issue suddenly cropped up, the timing of the glitch’s appearance has led some to suspect that it was the new year itself that messed up the silos’ timers. At any rate, they’re back up and running now, so players are once again free to bomb the hell out of each other as they see fit.
