Bethesda's Fallout 76 Brotherhood of Steel Lore Explanation Seems to Have Placated the Fans, At Least For Now

Bethesda addressed a recent dust-up in the Fallout community regarding an apparent discrepancy in the established lore in the upcoming Fallout 76, specifically with the Brotherhood of Steel. It turns out it was just satellites all along.

Last week the Fallout subreddit pointed out that the Brotherhood of Steel, a humanist militia in post-apocalypse U.S., is present in Fallout 76. The problem is that Fallout 76 is a prequel that takes place in 2102, 32 years before the Brotherhood emerged from hiding and began operating in California in 2134.

The community, some of whom were already skeptical of an online-only Fallout game, questioned the timeline wonkiness and wondered if Bethesda's latest game was just messing with the timelines to include the iconic Brotherhood into the game.

Yesterday in an Instagram post Bethesda appeared to address the timeline issue with a new picture of the Power Armor in Fallout 76 and the following comment:

"November 2077, a month after the Great War, army Captain Roger Maxson arrived with survivors at the Californian bunker of Lost Hills. There he formed the Brotherhood of Steel, who used a functioning satellite to extend their reach across America... all the way to Appalachia."

On the Fallout subreddit the response to Bethesda's new storyline for the Brotherhood has been a bit mixed. Commenters seem to agree that as far as story goes it's a bit convenient, but plausible.

"But why would some survivors in West Virginia care to follow the commands of some renegade military group that's a couple thousand miles away in Cali? That's the part I don't get," commenter mrbigah writes.

"Story-wise it's fucking cheap, yeah. But it's still a probable premise. Maxson's gathering the remnant of the military into some kind of functional group," writes halfton81.

"You know what, I still don't like it but at least they didn't say the just decided to walk across America for no reason and for that I'll give it a pass," shrugs TrafficCoen.

Others are still wondering why the Brotherhood of Steel are in the game at all saying that the group has been included or a focus in nearly all recent Fallout games and that it's time for a change. But that appears unrelated to lore.

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Fallout 76 is Bethesda's new multiplayer Fallout game set in the Appalachia region formerly known as West Virginia. We had a chance to get some hands-on time with Fallout 76 recently and came away with impressions about the multiplayer, answers to questions we had, and more. Check out our Fallout 76 guide for our full coverage.

Fallout 76 is coming out on PC, Xbox One, and PC on November 14 with a PC beta sometime this month.