Fallout 76 Community Spotlight: Once Upon a Wasteland

At the heart of many Bethesda Game Studio games are the stories you forge, and Fallout 76 is no exception.

In our latest community spotlight, we had a lovely chat with Brad, creator of Once Upon a Wasteland, a story-driven podcast based in Fallout 76. Learn more about Brad and how he has been able to bring together his love of storytelling, Fallout 76 and its community.

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Before we jump in, please introduce yourself!

I’m Brad Williams, the creator of Once Upon a Wasteland, a Fallout 76-based audio drama podcast that’s currently in its third season. I’m also a voice actor, musician and occasional streamer.

How did you get into Fallout and what was the first Fallout game you played?

I’m a relative newcomer compared to a lot of people in the community. My first Fallout game was Fallout 4. I started playing right around launch and got hooked immediately.

The game itself was a lot of fun to play and had significant replayability, but I think I kept coming back to it because of the way that the setting, atmosphere and lore spoke to me; it’s funny looking back, even then I was thinking that universe would be perfect for a film or, even better, a TV series. I thought those were the only two choices. I’ve never been so glad to be so wrong.

What do you enjoy most about Fallout? What’s your favorite game in the series?
The thing I really latched onto in Fallout 4, and it’s something that’s carried over into Fallout 76, is settlement/C.A.M.P. building. I’m not the most innovative or elegant builder out there, but I still get a lot of joy out of it; it’s almost like a little Zen Garden. It’s always fun when somebody stops by and does a tour, especially if they throw a thumbs-up or a “nice C.A.M.P.” emote.

It's not all that long ago that I still would’ve cited Fallout 4 as my favorite, but it’s firmly Fallout 76 now. It’s a game that’s become so vibrant and alive thanks to the community finding brilliant and innovative ways to play and create, as well as Bethesda continuing to invest time and resources to make the in-game experience both bigger and better. Both of those feed each other and it’s created a genuinely wonderful gaming experience.

How did you get into Fallout 76?

I was excited about 76 from the moment it was announced. The prospect of a totally new region that hadn’t been explored in any previous Fallout games was enticing, and I was interested in what kinds of improvements we were going to see in the overall experience.

The fact that it was multiplayer, though, gave me pause. The mostly ephemeral nature of the interactions in multiplayer games just didn’t appeal to me.

But I quickly learned that my concerns were largely unfounded; Fallout 76 wasn’t like that. Sure, most of the people you’d encounter were people that you’d never see again. It’s still like that today. But it was the exceptions to that rule that stood out. The seeds of what the community would eventually evolve into were there from the start and it’s been fun to watch how that evolution has played out. Somebody should write a book about it.

What is your experience with the Fallout 76 community like? What do you think makes the Fallout 76 Community so special?

When I started playing, I had absolutely no idea that there was such a robust community of Fallout creators, so my first exposure to the community was just regular players like me.

I became aware of the creator community a few years in, and that opened up a fascinating new world. The thing that struck me was the diversity among the types of creations people were putting out there; you had visual artists, streamers, YouTubers, roleplayers, C.A.M.P. builders, storytellers… it not only demonstrates the limitless potential of people to create, it shows just how well-suited to creativity the Fallout universe is.

I think what truly makes the Fallout 76 community special is how those two things combine to create. We see that play out in myriad ways, whether it’s how the community comes together to support Fallout for Hope or even backing Once Upon a Wasteland whenever we’re up for an award. This community wants everyone to succeed, full stop, and it doesn’t matter who they are or how they indulge and express their love of the game and of the Fallout franchise in general.

What is your Fallout 76 character like, and what’s your playstyle?

Age Required

I play the same main character on all three platforms, and that’s Beth, the character that formed the basis for the audience’s point-of-view character in the show. I most often play as a female character because it helps me get in a mindset that allows me to not just play as myself and do what I’d do (or what I hope I’d do) if presented with the same situations. Still, Beth and I do have some things in common; she tends to look for ways to defuse or at least de-escalate conflicts where possible.

That inspired one of the original aspects of Beth’s backstory.I originally wrote her character brief half-jokingly because it seems silly on its face given the environment – that her goal is for everybody to be nice to each other. But that evolved into a program run by Vault-Tec to train people in diplomacy and coalition building so they could rebuild society following reclamation day. Beth isn’t driven by altruism like the Responders, but rather her mission to do everything she can to ensure that a sustainable civilization grows in Appalachia.

So, tell us about Once Upon a Wasteland – what is it, who is part of it?

Once Upon a Wasteland is an audio drama podcast that follows the story of a Vault Dweller – Elizabeth Kirby (played by Letitia Lemon) – and a Brotherhood of Steel Scribe – Odessa Valdez (played by Vitriol) – as they work together to save the civilization that’s just beginning to take root in Appalachia and fall in love along the way. And Lucy Middelthon as Beth’s best friend Amanda.

We’ve had some wonderful actors join us for guest runs as well, and I’m constantly floored by the sheer number of people who audition and by the talent and skill that they demonstrate in those auditions. It’s a great feeling when performers like that want to be a part of something that you’ve created. We’ve assembled a cast that’s exceeded any expectations I could’ve dreamed up.

Vitriol isn’t just one of our stars, she’s also a co-producer who’s vitally important to the show and its success in myriad ways. She’s been a sensitivity reader, script consultant, hype woman, and an inspiration for several of the emotional beats that we’ve seen throughout the show’s run. It’s rare for someone to contribute in so many practical ways and also be a muse, but she’s been all those things and so much more.

You just started season 3 of Once Upon a Wasteland, tell us a little about Beth and Odessa.

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The show, at its core, revolves around two people who find each other and fall in love in a post-apocalyptic hellscape filled with danger and uncertainty. It’s a love story at heart, but that love story plays out as a sci-fi mystery-thriller with plenty of action to keep things lively.

The two people at the center of the story are Beth Kirby and Odessa Valdez. When we meet Beth, she’s a Vault Dweller who was trained in both spycraft and diplomacy in Vault 76 and has been plying her trade in Appalachia for about two years. Odessa is as she was not long after the events of Steel Dawn.

The most important character outside the main couple is Amanda, Beth’s ex and best friend. We also spend a lot of time with Beth’s parents, Andrew and Elise, with whom she’s very close, and even Paladin Rahmani. Including Rahmani as a prominent character goes against my stated goal of avoiding that, but having her as a confidant and mentor for Odessa made sense organically, and creating a new character to fill that narrative role would’ve felt forced.

What inspired you to start the podcast?

The first spark of inspiration came from how interactions with Odessa are handled in Steel Dawn and Steel Reign. You can flirt with her, and she can be receptive to that or dismissive depending on the context, but you can’t romance her in the way you can Beckett or Commander Daguerre. But what if you could?

Odessa is a compelling character and I felt that I could do a lot with her, using what we learned from the game as a jumping off point. Her unattainability felt like a fascinating aspect of her character to explore.

On the practical side, I have a background in screenwriting, but I hadn’t put fingers to keys to write anything “real” in almost 25 years. That changed in 2021. That February, I was cast as MODUS in a Fallout 76-based audio drama called “The MODUS Files.” Its creator, Lawrence McNamara, strongly encouraged me to flesh out my ideas and eventually to create my own show and worked with me to do that. He saw potential both in me and in the concept that I’d put together, and it’s not an overstatement to say that, without him and his encouragement and collaboration, there would be no Once Upon a Wasteland.

What do you enjoy most about making the podcast?

Age Required

I think listening back to a completed episode after watching it evolve all the way from an idea in my head to a fully formed product is the most gratifying single aspect of the process.Hearing what these incredibly talented actors have done with the words that I’ve put down on the page amazes me every single time. We record asynchronously, but they’re so good and they understand their characters so well that it sounds like everyone’s in the same room having a conversation or taking part in the same action scene. I don’t know how they do it, but I do know how hard they work and how dedicated they are to their craft.

Knowing that we’ve all worked together to make something that so many people enjoy listening to and are invested in is also gratifying. It’s never been enough for me to just make a thing. My goal has always been to move people emotionally. Knowing that people do listen, and that they’re moved emotionally by these characters, their stories, and the performances of the actors portraying them is a wonderful feeling and something that I’m never going to forget.

I never - even at my most hopeful - thought that the show would garner the response it has. We’ve been listened to in 183 different countries and crossed the 350,000 download threshold not long ago. We’ve won a total of eight Signal Awards in categories like Best Writing and Best Scripted Fiction where we went head-to-head with big studio productions. It’s the kind of thing that’s both gratifying and humbling in the best ways possible.

Wow, congrats on the Signal awards, what an accomplishment! Thank you so much for chatting with us, Brad! For those reading, where can they listen to Once Upon a Wasteland?

The show is available on all popular podcast platforms, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts. We have two fully completed ten-episode seasons, four behind-the-scenes minisodes, two bonus episodes, and we’re five episodes into the third season, so there’s plenty to binge!

We’re also on YouTube.

Our website is here, and that’s where listeners can find scripts for each episode along with show art and episode information. We’re also on IMDb if they’d like to check out our actors’ other work.

Our main social media outlet is Twitter. We’re on Bluesky as well. We love feedback and questions, and we can be reached via email as well as via DM on Twitter.