Fallout 76: Community Spotlight: Fallout Five-O

After the bombs fell, Appalachia became a wasteland.

A deadly plague devastated the land, animals mutated, food and water became irradiated, creatures roamed the Earth. It seemed there was little hope for its residents to survive. Then, Vault 76 opened. Since its opening Appalachia has become home to many new residents. They formed groups, rebuilt, worked together and reclaimed the land as their own.

Enter the Fallout Five-0: A player-created group of Responders, and our focus for this month’s Community Spotlight Feature.

Ray and Lucy Middlethon have been gamers their entire lives. Ray started with Pong on a black-and-white TV, and Lucy on the Commodore 64. “I love the stories of video games, of the countless creative ideas that people fashion together to bring a dream to reality for others to enjoy. As adults, we’ve shared this with our own children, and happily play as a family at times,” Lucy says.

Not only have they shared their passion for video games with their children, but now The Fallout Five-0 reaches countless players on PlayStation and through social media.

Fallout 76 is not their first Fallout game. Ray has been around Fallout since the beginning in 1997 when a college friend introduced him to the game. “I had never been into RPGs or turn-based games as much as action but the idea of living in a post-nuclear world was enthralling!” he says.

Lucy shares the same sentiment with Fallout 3. “I’ve always loved the idea of a post-apocalyptic format to explore but wanted more than just a horde style game. Fallout 3 sucked me in with its homage to the classic 1950s science fiction genre and exploration of the human condition. Couple that with a fantastic dose of vintage Americana and I eagerly jumped in and haven’t looked back since.”

With the release of Fallout 76, the two could finally experience Fallout together. We asked Lucy and Ray how the Fallout Five-0 came to be. “This question is so fun to answer because, while we would love to say we intended to form the Fallout Five-0 from B.E.T.A., it wasn’t as romantic a story as that. We started the game with five friends at B.E.T.A.; we would all play together and run the quests. It was the first week or so, all of us came across the Responders quest line and subsequently we received the Dress Blues Responder uniform. We put it on and happened to be near a bar, so we took a photo of all of us in uniform. It was just such a cool thing to see the five of us wearing the same uniform. Ray laughed and said we were the Five-0 because of the slang for police, but also because there were five of us. Long story short, Ray put that photo on a Fallout Facebook page, and it blew up with comments and reactions. People said, ‘OMG we can actually roleplay the dead factions, etc.’ and from there we caught the bug. We became a roleplay group dedicated to the Responders.”

So, what exactly is the Fallout Five-0?
“The Fallout Five-0 is a roleplaying group based on the Responders Faction in the world of Fallout 76... We feature a game community dedicated to crafting in-game experiences for our players and the greater Fallout community,” Ray and Lucy answer.

The Five-0 doesn’t just operate in-game. “We use multimedia such as our website, videos, and machinima to extend the immersion of the player quests, roleplay, and lore, which is developed through in-game events. These events dictate the direction of the stories we tell. Similar to a choose-your-own-adventure meets a D&D experience.”

Doing this is no small undertaking. “It’s a team effort that involves a spreadsheet for requisition numbers, a calendar for filming calls, a Discord for quick announcements and communication, and a staff of officers that help us with specific roles, such as mentoring, requisitions, and even props/costumes for filming.”

Since its inception its ranks have grown; finding new members has come naturally to the group. “Generally speaking, people either see us roleplay in the game and express interest, or they’ve seen our content on social media and are curious.”

Joining the Fallout Five-0 is a relatively simple process once potential members take notice. “Regardless of how an individual comes to us about membership, the process is universal. We ask that prospective members use the Requisition system we have set up via the web page to initiate the process. From there, in-game encounters are scheduled between the members and the individual expressing interest. We have several of these encounters, using the Armory as the backdrop, to engage in-character with the individual. This allows for everyone to have several opportunities

The Five–0 consumes a lot of hours during the week for the two to manage, which is why they currently only operate on PlayStation 4. Lucy, the in-game community leader finds herself spending three to six hours a night, four to five days a week in-game. It’s all in fun, however, as both Ray and Lucy find relaxation in creating content through roleplaying. “For me, making quest videos or machinima is how I relax and enjoy Fallout 76, I can do that on any of my characters,” says Ray.

We asked Ray and Lucy to tell us a bit about the characters they play. Ray plays two roles; Commander Connor Johns, (a play off of his favorite movie, the original Terminator) who “started as an over-exaggerated hero-type character, but through the roleplay and events that the Five-0 have been through, he has become hardened and a bit jaded. He believes in ultimate good, but the costs of getting there have been muddled a few times. This character has also been featured in the CHAD: A Fallout 76 Podcast. I also play a more animated and jovial character, Lt. Dutch Walker, a former stripper at Watoga Willy’s. You can find a few of his videos on our YouTube.”

Lucy takes a different approach with her characters. “First would be Korinne Anders. Depending on where you see her, she is either Field Commander Anders (in Five-0 lore) or Lt. Anders (in CHAD: A Fallout 76 Podcast.) She is Commander Johns’ right hand, and also his fiancé. Originally a trauma surgeon in Vault 76, she adapted to life outside by becoming a combat medic and diplomat of the Five-0. When the Commander is abroad, she is recognized as the voice of the Commander. I also play a Firebreather named Grace O’Malley, a former Trapper raider convinced of taking a different path than what seemed to stretch out in front of her. Then there is Changeling, an enigmatic information broker that has connections with several characters across multiple roleplay groups.”

The Five-0’s storylines cross many different groups, and many have been running since the group’s inception in the B.E.T.A. When asked about her favorite memories of the Five-0, Lucy shared an emotional moment. “One in particular comes from the tragic ending of one of our storylines. A member decided to have her character killed off by the end of the plot and as a result, we had a funeral in the game for the character. For Anders, this was particularly poignant as the character had been her best friend, and now she was giving a eulogy.”

Not all memories are as serious, however. “I think the greatest memory thus far is just the community of players I’ve gotten to know, both within the Five-0 and outside of it. There’s no other community quite like the Fallout 76 community.”

Ray also shares fond memories of the community. “By far my favorite story was early on in our more anti-griefing and policing of the wasteland timeframe, one of our roles was to help wanted players become unwanted. We would approach said player and offer to kill them, thereby taking away their wanted status. We would guard their dropped bags and refund their caps. We confidently roll into the area with the wanted player and pronounce our intentions, no answer, we walk out into the open, ‘where is this player?’ one of us chimes, and of course like true tactical geniuses, we are all facing the same direction. From out of nowhere we hear, ‘I’m behind you.’ Boom, he could have owned us all and we looked so inept of skill. Luckily he was a good guy and we ended up providing assistance.”

Fallout 76 has grown since its initial release, now expanding into Wastelanders: a whole new way to experience the Wasteland with human NPCs. We asked how Wastelanders affected the Five–0 and its stories. “From a content perspective, Wastelanders provided the community with an expansion of stories and RP. We use Foundation as a gathering point, often referencing the key figures there in our in-game RP as much as we have used them in our quest creations. We still feel that the story of Fallout 76 is in the players’ hands; that the NPCs and changes brought about by Wastelanders feels like the natural progression of the timeline and only helps to support the development of storytelling for all of us.”

As Fallout 76 has grown, so has the Five-0 in its content. Currently, they write and produce a show in-game that they then publish onto YouTube. This show is called Redemption Fall, and it has special guests like Kenneth Vigue from CHAD: A Fallout 76 podcast and Bethesda’s SVP of Marketing and Communication’s Pete Hines The show tells the stories of their characters, diving into their pre-war backstories and how they came to know each other. Each episode is a large production, with call sheets, props, location references, and more. Players record their scenes then send their voice over lines to Ray and Lucy for them to then edit into the episode.

All this effort pays off, as each episode is intriguing and exciting to watch. Episodes can be found on the Fallout Five – 0 YouTube channel.

Interested in joining the Fallout Five-0? The process is simple! Head over to the Fallout Five-0 website and check out the Enlistment Section which allows anyone who's interested to schedule a requisition turn-in meeting as their first way to interact in-game with community members.

Thanks for sitting down and talking with us, Ray and Lucy! We appreciate your time and passion in putting together the Fallout Five–0 and can’t wait to see more content from you.

If you’d like to keep up with everything Five–0 related, check them out on social media at the following links:
Twitter
Instagram
Facebook
YouTube
Website
Or add the PSN: Fallout Five0

If you have someone you would like to nominate for our next Community Spotlight, head over to our thread on the official Fallout Forums and say a few words about them.

See you next month!