Fallout 76’s battle royale mode is here, and we already know the deadliest thing you can take into battle: frog legs.
No, not actual frog legs you scavenged off a piece of roadkill. It’s a perk you can take into Nuclear Winter, Fallout 76’s new battle royale mode which is currently in “pre-beta.” Like other battle royale game modes, Nuclear Winter sees 52 wasterlanders all battle it out until only one remains. The winner becomes the overseer of the recently opened Vault 51, filled with untold pre-war riches.
Nuclear Winter was announced along with the Wastelanders update at Bethesda’s E3 presentation. We’re pretty confident that wasterlanders will be a more popular addition to Fallout 76 as it promises to actually make the game into a Fallout title, complete with NPCs, quests, factions, and chat wheels.
Battle royale just seemed like a nice thing to tack on, although it so far seems to be having a troublesome development.
In Nuclear Winter, every player is able to outfit themselves with a set of custom perks. You start with a few basic perks to choose from, and then as you play the game mode and level up you will receive a random assortment of additional perks. Most of these perks do expected Fallout-y things, like taking less damage or getting more healing from healing items. Some of them, however, do some distinctly non-Fallout-y things.
Frog Legs is one of them. This perk provides a 300% boost to jumping, allowing you a level of mobility unseen in a Fallout game. Suddenly you’re able to jump across buildings, dodge enemy attacks, and basically fight like you’re playing Unreal Tournament while everyone else is stuck playing Fallout 76.
There are a LOT of complaints against Frog Legs, and for a good reason. It’s bad enough on its own, but combined with the grenade launcher and the Demolitions perk which doubles the size of your explosions, it can be impossible to stop a hopping player from raining death from above.
The Fallout 76 subreddit is filled with players calling for changes to Frog Legs or to have it removed outright. Bethesda is aware of the problem and is currently considering changes, and since this is still well before an actual beta release, we suspect Frog Legs will get ditched in the next patch.
In the meantime, the “demo frog” meta remains in Nuclear Winter, and players are not happy about it.