Yesterday, Bethesda Game Studios announced the release of a new Fallout 76 update, weighing around 24/25 GB on PlayStation, Xbox, and Microsoft Store PC, while PC Steam players must download around 14 GB and a half.

　　The highlight of the latest Fallout 76 update is the so-called 'Mutation Invasion', where mutators that players know from the Daily Ops missions are now also infecting Public Events in the open world. At the top of every hour, a Mutated Public Event will appear on the map, marked with a unique icon to better distinguish it from the regular Public Events. As you would expect, Mutated Events pose greater challenges but also provide greater rewards when successfully completed.

　　Such rewards include bonus currency, XP, Legendary Items, Treasury Notes, and a Mutated Package. The latter item features ammunition, stimpaks, resources, a three-star Legendary Item and, if you're lucky, also a rare plan usually dropped from different quests or events.

　　Even greater rewards are available in Mutated Public Events when at least three participants have an active Fallout 1st subscription. In that case, everyone participating in the event gets a Mutated Party Pack, which is an enhanced version of the Package with more rewards and a higher chance to drop the rare plans.

　　This new Fallout 76 patch also delivers some improvements to the Daily Ops missions, such as the new Reflective Skin mutator (where enemies get a temporary buff that reflects some of the damage done to them), a new encounter group (Aliens!), three new locations, and the following new plans for rewards: Floater Tubes (Gnasher, Freezer, and Flamer Variant), Hot Rod Handmade Skin, Flatwoods Monster Tube, Deep-Space Alien Power Armor skin and Jetpack.

　　Last but not least, Season 12 is now active in Fallout 76, themed around Rip Daring and his Cryptid Hunt. Players will find appropriately themed rewards and C.A.M.P. items, and there's also a new ally to recruit, Brother Steven from the Mothman cult. Moreover, the developers added a feature to re-roll one Daily or Weekly challenge per day; additional re-rolls can be unlocked by going through the Season 12 scoreboard.

　　After a shaky start, Fallout 76 found its footing and eventually reached 13.5 million players as of the end of last year. That number has certainly grown further since the game was included as part of the PS Plus subscription last month. As a reminder, about a year ago, Double Eleven announced that it is contributing to the development of Fallout 76, likely because Bethesda Game Studios devoted a greater number of developers to the upcoming launch of Starfield.