Greetings Vault Hunters! Fallout 76‘s first multiplayer raid is opening tomorrow and you and four of your friends will be diving into Vault 94 – or at least what’s left of it. Before you barrel in head first, guns blazing let’s get into what’s going to be happening in the Vault.

Vault 94: Plants vs More Plants

Vault 94 is another one in a series of nifty Vault-Tecvaults. Located on the border of the Savage Divide and the Mire regions of Appalachia. Vault 94 was not one of those lucky surviving Vaults like the one you started in. It was supposed to be a harmonious plant-filled Vault. Its purpose to test grow crops to see what could grow in the new world. But a year and a day into the experiment the doors opened back up. All the plants were exposed to a high degree of radiation and have mutated all over the place. And no we’re not talking attack of the vine monsters aka Vault 22 in Fallout: New Vegas.

“Vault 94 remains, although its inhabitants are long gone, and it has been completely overrun by nature,” Bethesda’s blog post explains. “Yet, something within now threatens its destruction.”

Raid Mechanics

Vault 94 is a four-player raid and whilst “bold adventurers can attempt to go it alone”, it’s recommended a full four-person squad of 50+ characters will be needed “to take on the timed and instanced missions you’ll encounter”. 

The raid will be split into three missions set over the course of three weeks. Each will be active for a week before moving on to the next. The first, “Dead in the Water,” arrives August 20th. “Meltdown” and “Washout” will arrive August 27th and September 3rd. The missions will shut down for about three hours at the end of each week.

Each of the missions will be available in Novice, Standard, and Expert difficulty modes. Bethesda says Novice difficulty is untimed, while Standard and Expert impose increasingly difficult time restrictions, as well as tougher fights. Players can earn rewards once per day, per difficulty, for each mission. Needless to say the higher the difficulty, the better the loot.

Let’s Begin

To kick-off the raid you must tune in to the Vault 94 Emergency Broadcast radio station. Something within Vault 94 now threatens its destruction. Daring Appalachian explorers will need to brave many perils if they wish to save Vault 94, find out what became of its former residents, and recover the precious resources hidden within.”

Note that these missions will be the first in Fallout 76 to be instanced, meaning once you’ve entered Vault 94, players outside your group won’t be able to affect your game. Instancing will essentially create a private game state for you and your team just like a standard MMO or dungeon crawler. In other words, unlike the rest of Fallout 76, some asshole can’t run in and start mucking around.

Loot: Be Still My Strangler’s Heart

All the missions in any difficulty mode will drop some Vault 94 Steel, a new resource needed to craft your Vault Armour. Using materials and plans collected in the raid, players will be able to craft the Strangler Heart armour set. Like everything from Vault 94, the Strangler Heart armour set is covered in leaves, and it’s probably a safe bet that “Strangler Heart” is a reference to something bad you’ll encounter during the raid.

Do note that Vault Armor plans can’t be earned in the Novice mode, so that’s basically just your practice run difficulty. Neither steel nor the armour crafted from it can be dropped, traded or sold.