Bethesda restores stolen Fallout 76 items to players

Back in December, hackers were wiping out and stealing Fallout 76 player inventories en masse. Now Bethesda has restored those items.

Fallout 76 is no stranger to hacking, but one nefarious spree deleted gearsets and inventories for lots of players, a move that threatened to basically destroy the game's playerbase. Thankfully Bethesda had a backup plan. The team cloned previous versions of gamers' characters to replicate their compromised gear and return it back to the owners. The clone can then be used to transfer the gear to a user's main.

"A clone of your character will be restored on January 22, 2020. Once restored, this character will have the entire inventory of items, gear and scrap (100% of your stuff) that it posessed on December 20, 2019," Bethesda wrote in a support ticket.

If you were affected be sure to check your support ticket or email to see if your stuff is being restored too.

It gets better though.

The studio is also giving away thousands of Atoms (premium currency used for cosmetics) and anywhere between 3-5 months of the premium Fallout 1st subscription service for free. FO1st usually costs $100 a year and gives users access to private worlds, a monthly allotment of Atoms, as well as access to exclusive gear like a Survival Tent and the Ranger outfit from Fallout: New Vegas.

This is a fantastic move on Bethesda's part, but it's also one that's sparked by necessity. Hacks of this level could've significantly and permanently disrupted the game's playerbase. The ultimate appeal of the game is to grind out gear and level up, and if any of that is compromised by unchecked hacks, then gamers simply jump ship.