Along with revealing the next Fallout 76 update, Steel Reign, Bethesda also revealed a new region outside of Appalachia for players to travel to known as The Pitt. This location no doubt sounds familiar for those who’ve played Fallout 3 and its DLC. From what was shown in the trailer, the expedition will be undertaken using a vertibird aircraft. It also looks as if whatever they found in the city is very far from welcoming.
Before the Great War, this city was known as Pittsburgh that like its real-world counterpart, was a major industrial center for the prewar US. While the city itself wasn’t directly hit by any warheads, the radioactive fallout from other bombs combined with industrial pollution from the factories created a highly hazardous environment that encompassed Pittsburgh. Like everywhere else in the country, the city fell into chaos and was quickly divided by raider gangs who established their own spheres of control but would never see any semblance of recovery for centuries. Many of the settlers of the town Foundation were originally from Pittsburgh, who fled to find a better life elsewhere in the country in 2103.
The Pitt also became infamous for being home to a unique form of mutation known as Troglodyte Degeneration Contagion, or Trogs for short. Victims of this pathogen would rapidly devolve into hunchbacked, animal-like creatures that attack anything that isn’t one of them, with newborn infants being especially susceptible to the disease. Afraid of bright lights, trogs would hide away in the darkness, only to venture out at night.
The Pitt remained a hellhole for centuries until 2255, a Brotherhood of Steel expeditionary force led by Owen Lyons launched an attack on the city. Referred to as the Scourge, the Brotherhood swept through the city, eliminating any mutants, trogs, raiders or other hostile inhabitants they came across, who stood no chance against soldiers equipped with power armor and energy weapons. When the operation was finished, more than half the population of the Pitt had been wiped out, while the Brotherhood suffered only one casualty. Soon afterward, the Brotherhood salvaged any useful tech and resources they could find, as well as rescuing 21 healthy orphaned children to be trained as initiates before making their way to the Capital Wasteland to form a new Brotherhood Chapter.
Unknown to the Brotherhood, their single casualty, one Initiate Ishmael Ashur, had survived. Recovering from his injuries, Ashur recognized that many of the factories in the Pitt, including a large steel mill, were still intact and could be made operational again. Many locals came to see him as a god for having survived his near-death experience and his imposing power armor. He recruited local scavengers and newly arriving raider gangs to rebuild the city and get the mill back up and running again. To strengthen his industry, Ashur had the raiders capture outsiders and force them into slave labor. This measure was also taken due to rampant disease and mutation, making it very risky to have children who could suffer from an early death or become a trog. The need for slaves to run the city was so great that they even became the largest customer of Paradise Falls, a slaving community in the Capital Wasteland.
During the events of Fallout 3 in 2277, the Lone Wanderer eventually comes across Werner, a former raider turned slave. Having escaped, he tasks the Wanderer with helping to free the Pitt slaves and take down Ashur. The main quest of this DLC leads to players having to make one of the toughest, most morally challenging decisions in the Fallout series.
From in-game dialogue with some characters, including Ashur, it seems that the Pitt is located between several important regions of the East Coast. These include mentions of previously explored locations like the Capital Wasteland and the Commonwealth, as well as mentioned only locations like Ronto or the Erie Stretch. This central location, plus the city’s intact infrastructure, put it in the position to become a major power on the East Coast, with Pitt raiders equipped with freshly manufactured weapons and armor and a plethora of ammunition from a functional ammo press.
There’s still not much information on what Fallout 76 players can expect to find when the new territory becomes available. But since this expedition will take place more than a century before the Brotherhood’s Scourge, players should prepare to face potentially the worst raiders and mutants introduced in the game yet. Only the bravest, strongest Vault Dwellers stand any chance of finding the Pitt’s treasures and live to tell the tale.