Fallout 76 Season 21: Gone Fission Kicks Off, Introducing Fishing Mechanics and Rebalanced Combat

Free content update Gone Fission goes live along with the start of Season 21 in Fallout 76, bringing some new features and rebalancing the game’s combat system.

Gone Fission brings a fishing mechanic to the game, which will work only in waters where swimming is possible. The odds of catching a good fish will be determined by the weather and by the use of one of three types of bait: Common, Improved, or Superb.

Common Bait, which is purchasable from The Fisherman and Captain Raymond Clark in Fisherman’s Rest, will allow players to catch common regional fish and scrapable junk.

Improved Bait, which is not available for purchase but tradable with other players, will increase the player’s chances of catching uncommon fish. Gamers can also get this type of bait from the daily fishing quest, public events, or by finding it as loot.

Superb Bait, which gives the best chance to catch very rare fish, is only earnable as a reward in Season 21.

The update also brings fish recipes and 12 collectible Axolotls to find, one of which will appear in a particular month of the year.

Besides that, Gone Fission brings a new questline to Fallout 76. At a new location in the Mire called Fisherman’s Rest, players will meet three new characters: Captain Raymond Clark, The Fisherman, and Linda-Lee, the Fisherman’s pet hermit crab, which will signify the start of the Casting Off questline.

Gone Fission, along with the following updates, will finalize the title’s long-term combat rebalance, which began in 2024 with the Skyline Valley update. With this new free content pack, the Harpoon Gun received major buffs, including higher damage, increased ammo capacity, and improved mod effects.

“Many weapons now retain more damage at long range. Action Point (AP) costs were lowered for numerous guns, making them easier to use in the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System. Damage was increased across many ranged weapons, including rifles, shotguns, SMGs, laser, plasma, Gauss weapons, and pipe weapons. Critical and sneak attack multipliers were raised on a wide variety of guns, with semi-auto weapons gaining more, while automatic receivers now reduce damage output across the board. Melee weapons saw base damage increases across the board, bringing them more in line with other weapon classes. Several weapon mods were rebalanced: Plasma and Gatling Plasma mods received adjustments to fire rate, damage, and AP cost.

Limb damage is now based on a percentage rather than a chance to cripple. Related perks, mutations, and mods were updated for consistency, and many creatures are no longer immune to crippling, allowing for more strategic targeting options. Other fixes include recoil tuning, reload delay adjustments for Quad-mod weapons, AP cost tweaks, and increased weapon durability.

The update comes in sizes of 15 GB for PC (Steam), 32.5 GB for PC (Microsoft Store), 32.6 GB for Xbox, and 8.2 GB for PlayStation.

Developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks in 2018, Fallout 76 had 17 million players as of March 2024, according to the developer. According to estimates, by the end of 2018, Fallout 76 had sold 1.4 million digital copies. Notably, the game saw a price drop in North America less than one week after its release.