Fallout 76 Steam Release Will Have A Perk For Existing Players

Fallout 76 launched about a year and a half ago, but when it did, it was exclusively available through Bethesda's own launcher. Slowly but surely, Bethesda has been trending in the same direction as other major publishers throughout the years, launching its games through a first-party launcher instead of letting stores run by third-parties take a cut of each sale. In regards to Fallout 76, that's all about to change, because the game is finally about to make its way to Steam.

Bethesda has revealed that it's bringing Fallout 76 to Steam when the Wastelanders update launches on April 14th. This is a fairly big move for Bethesda, because at this point, most of us were probably under the impression that we'd never see Fallout 76 on Steam.

Those who already own the game through Bethesda.net will have the opportunity to claim a free copy on Steam, too. In a blog post to its website, Bethesda says that those who already own Fallout 76 simply need to link their Steam accounts to their Bethesda.net accounts before April 12th at 11:59PM Eastern. After doing that, you'll get a free Steam copy of Fallout 76 when it launches on the 14th.

One important thing to note is that Atoms and Fallout 1st membership balance won't transfer between platforms, so you won't be able to bring those to Steam with you. Any purchases you've made from the Atom shop will be available in both the Steam and Bethesda.net versions of the game, so you won't have to worry about losing access to those.

Existing players can learn more about jumping between the Bethesda.net and Steam version in an FAQ in the blog post linked above. Those who buy Fallout 76 on Steam between April 14 and April 28th will get the Fallout Classic Collection for free, which includes Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics (existing Bethesda.net users who activate the game on Steam will also get the collection). Fallout 76 has been quite the beleaguered game since launch, so we'll see how it performs on Steam when it launches.