This Fallout 76 Developer Room Secret Is Getting Players Banned

Some days it seems like there are more ways to get banned from Fallout 76 than to actually play it, but this latest one is a real treat. Players of Bethesda's still-controversial online RPG have discovered a secret developer room, containing – among other things – just about every item you'd hope to find in the game itself.

That includes items that are so-far unreleased. One such example is a suit of power armor, though there's also a non-player character called Wooby to be discovered there, too.

Unsurprisingly, Bethesda isn't especially pleased that gamers have discovered it, and it's wielding the ban-hammer liberally to anybody taking advantage. According to reports on Reddit and elsewhere, there are automatic bans being issued for anybody who visits the developer room. If you want to get access back, you'll apparently have to explain to them how, exactly, you got in.

According to the message sent to players in such circumstances, shared with Eurogamer, characters are left "in a corrupted and/or unusual state" after visiting the room. "This form of character corruption is typically seen after a character has visited an area within the game which isn't typically accessible via normal gameplay."

"Should we not hear back from you,"this Fallout 76 account will simply remain suspended and unavailable," Bethesda continues. At least this time the company didn't demand an essay be written on the evils of cheating in video games.

As you might expect, though, there are some players for whom the lure of the room's treasures is worth coming up with a workaround. By setting up secondary accounts, entering the developer space, and then transferring items from there to other accounts, they can apparently keep those items. That is, assuming they do so swiftly enough before the auto-ban is applied.

Reports now suggest that there is a small aftermarket for these unreleased items. Just how long you could get away with actually using one before Bethesda spotted and came calling, mind, is unclear.

It's the latest headache for the game studio, which hasn't seen quite the reception for Fallout 76 it may have hoped. "Big updates" are planned for 2019 – starting from this month – the company has promised, though the first major change players saw was actually a massive bug-fix at the turn of the new year.