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Fallout 76 is the next Bethesda adventure in the post-apocalyptic wasteland

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Dan Ackerman Editorial Director / Computers and Gaming
Dan Ackerman leads CNET's coverage of computers and gaming hardware. A New York native and former radio DJ, he's also a regular TV talking head and the author of "The Tetris Effect" (Hachette/PublicAffairs), a non-fiction gaming and business history book that has earned rave reviews from the New York Times, Fortune, LA Review of Books, and many other publications. "Upends the standard Silicon Valley, Steve Jobs/Mark Zuckerberg technology-creation myth... the story shines." -- The New York Times
Expertise I've been testing and reviewing computer and gaming hardware for over 20 years, covering every console launch since the Dreamcast and every MacBook...ever. Credentials
  • Author of the award-winning, NY Times-reviewed nonfiction book The Tetris Effect; Longtime consumer technology expert for CBS Mornings
Dan Ackerman
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Fans who've been glued to Bethesda's daylong Twitch stream were rewarded when the game publisher dropped a bombshell on Wednesday.

After teasing the world by streaming a TV showing a "Please Stand By" test pattern on the Bethesda Twitch channel, the company announced the latest entry in the Fallout universe: Fallout 76. 

The annual E3 video game trade show is just weeks away, but it seems Bethesda couldn't wait that long to make its first big announcement. 

The stream offered few clues during the preceding day, as the TV set shared screen time with a Vault Boy bobblehead and the occasional Bethesda staffer wandering through the shot. 

The company has also recently updated a few of its biggest franchises, releasing VR and Nintendo Switch versions of Skyrim and Doom, and a VR version of 2015's Fallout 4

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The short trailer showed nothing more than a resident of one of the game's unground vaults putting on a Pip-Boy wearable computer and getting ready to celebrate "reclamation day." His jumpsuit had the number "76" stitched on the back. 

No other details were available about the new game, but more information may be available at E3. And this may not be the only new Bethesda game news you'll be hearing soon. The company is planning an E3 press event in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 10. 

Update, 1:22 p.m. PT: Sources tell Kotaku that Fallout 76 may be an online survival game like DayZ or Rust. Wouldn't that be something?

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