Walton Goggins Is Set to Play The Ghoul From the Fallout TV Show in Fallout 76 — but How Does the Character Fit in the Fallout 76 Timeline?

Walton Goggins is acceptable to reprise his fan-favorite relation arsenic The Ghoul from the Fallout TV amusement successful Fallout 76.

The Ghoul appears successful Fallout 76 implicit with Goggins' likeness and dependable arsenic portion of the escaped Burning Springs enlargement successful December. Burning Springs expands the Fallout 76 representation into Ohio, westbound of the Appalachian portion (a fictionalized mentation of West Virginia and the surrounding areas) already successful the game.

While not disposable arsenic a playable quality oregon companion, fans tin brushwood The Ghoul astatine ‘The Last Resort’ successful hub country Highway Town, wherever helium hosts caller Bounty Hunting missions. Through rewards, players tin adjacent equip themselves with The Ghoul’s weapon arsenic seen successful the show.

During a preview lawsuit attended by IGN, Bill LaCoste, accumulation manager connected Fallout 76, and Jon Rush, originative manager connected Fallout 76, said Burning Springs is inspired by not lone the Fallout TV show, but Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas.

“We each saw Season 1, right?” Rush said. “We saw wherever that ended up. Kyle MacLachlan's quality staring retired astatine New Vegas and past you've got the Deathclaw skull down connected the ground. So erstwhile Season 1 wrapped up, we instantly started readying for the contented we wanted to marque for Season 2. Now, we didn't cognize precisely erstwhile Season 2 was going to travel out, but we knew that we wanted to astatine slightest commencement readying that content. And past erstwhile we recovered retired much astir dates, commencement readying each the patches astir that too.

“What we wanted to bash with the caller portion was we wanted it to truly punctual folks of what they came to cognize and emotion successful Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas. And truthful erstwhile we acceptable retired to marque this caller region, the 3 pillars that we gave to the squad were, alright, it's got to person desert, Deathclaws, and raiders. And to maine that captures the code and the essence and the information of those games. We wanted that reflected successful our representation enlargement successful Burning Springs.”

The Ghoul came into the equation people arsenic the mounting and the bounty hunting strategy were fleshed out, Rush continued.

“Okay, here's the caller region: desert, Deathclaws, and raiders. That's the tone. What's going to beryllium the hallmark diagnostic for that caller portion oregon that update?" helium said. "And truthful that was bounty hunting, right? That makes sense. And a barren wasteland similar that, there's going to beryllium a batch of nefarious folks moving around. And truthful having a bounty hunting strategy would beryllium a large adhd for players, thing amusive to do. It's besides a diagnostic that we had discussed doing for a small portion arsenic well, and we were conscionable looking for the close time.

“Who amended to big a bounty hunting diagnostic than The Ghoul, right? Not conscionable a ghoul, it's the Ghoul from the show. So we started talking astir that, and Walton Goggins is simply a large fan, of course, of the franchise. He's a large instrumentality of the games. And truthful it came up organically truly quick. And we had folks connected our broadside moving connected the script, folks connected their broadside moving connected the dialog script, and came together. And of people The Ghoul really came retired erstwhile Walton Goggins took the publication and truly made it his own, made those adjustments. It was benignant of chill to spot him spell from Walton Goggins to The Ghoul similar that. It was truly awesome.”

The anticipation is that Fallout 76 volition spot a flood of caller players arsenic a effect of Fallout Season 2, which premieres connected December 17, 2025. Burning Springs and The Ghoul’s accomplishment in-game aboriginal December is well-timed to capitalize connected the show’s immense popularity.

One evident question is, however does The Ghoul acceptable successful the Fallout 76 timeline? It’s worthy remembering wherever we are successful the wide Fallout timeline: the TV amusement is acceptable successful the twelvemonth 2296, aft each the Fallout video games. Fallout 4 takes spot successful the twelvemonth 2287, portion Fallout: New Vegas is acceptable successful the twelvemonth 2281, a afloat 15 years anterior to the events of the show.

The Fallout 76 timeline, meanwhile, begins successful 2102, connected October 23, known arsenic Reclamation Day. It is the earliest crippled successful the Fallout franchise, acceptable 25 years aft the Great War of 2077, erstwhile atomic bombs devastated the Earth.

A S.P.E.C.I.A.L. connection from The Ghoul. pic.twitter.com/VO23nZZOh1

We cognize from Season 1 of the Fallout TV amusement that The Ghoul has survived for implicit 200 years. Cooper Howard, the pre-war quality who became The Ghoul, underwent ghoulification from the atomic blast successful 1955 and has lived done the consequent 2 centuries. Fallout 76 is canon, which means we cognize The Ghoul was operating successful Ohio during its timeline.

“76 is furthest backmost successful clip successful the Fallout timeline,” Rush explained. “And the amusement is the furthest guardant successful time, and that's wherever we were introduced to The Ghoul connected the Amazon series. Lucky for us, The Ghoul has preserved himself by done ghoulification. So The Ghoul existing successful the 76 timeline makes sense. Although what he's doing successful Ohio, oregon what I conjecture utilized to beryllium Ohio, is inactive to beryllium determined. I'm not 1 to question The Ghoul, I'm conscionable going to bash what The Ghoul says.”

So, tin we expect Burning Springs to bring caller accusation to the canon of the Fallout universe?

“Yes, absolutely,” Rush said. “We've ne'er explored this portion of the map, and truthful adjacent conscionable the tiny sliver of Ohio being added, that does power the lore of Fallout arsenic a whole. So yeah.”

LaCoste added: “as astir radical know, there's lone a fistful of references to Ohio passim Fallout, truthful it's truly large to person a small spot of a blank slate successful a portion that we tin benignant of found immoderate aboriginal lore for the game.”

The announcement of Goggins successful Fallout 76 comes blistery connected the heels of his effect to Pete Davidson’s prediction that fans volition “turn” connected him arsenic they did with Pedro Pascal. “If this is my fate… Well… F*** it. I’m going to bask the F*** OUT OF IT,” helium said.

Wesley is Director, News astatine IGN. Find him connected Twitter astatine @wyp100. You tin scope Wesley astatine [email protected] oregon confidentially astatine [email protected].