Fallout 76 October 15 PTS Patch Notes bring Hideouts, cross-species World Pet buffs, new 2-Star weapon mods and significant changes to Nerd Rage and Hellcat Power Armor. Bethesda opened this build on October 15, 2026. Hideouts are targeted for spring 2027, while World Pets and the return to Skyline Valley are expected in winter 2026.
The Public Test Server is separate from the live game. Its rewards and balance settings are still being tested, so players should use these notes to understand the current build without expecting every detail to stay unchanged at launch. Here are the additions that affect combat, progression and team play.
Fallout 76 October 15 PTS Patch Notes: How to participate
Steam owners can install Fallout 76 Public Test Server from their Steam library. Xbox and PlayStation PTS builds are planned but require platform approvals, so they may appear later. Hideouts and pet changes in this article are available for testing and aren’t automatically applied to the ordinary live client.
Fallout 76 October 15 PTS Patch Notes: Hideouts
Hideouts are instanced gang encounters opened with Leads. Their four difficulties are Basic, Challenging, Lethal and Marked. The two areas are The Forever Farm in Burning Springs and Vault 63’s Immortality Sector in Skyline Valley. Basic Leads come from quests, events, Grunt Hunts and containers; more difficult ones can be crafted from lower-tier Leads and Caps. The Drifter and unique rewards are not included in the early testing build.
Fallout 76 October 15 PTS Patch Notes: Pet Buffs
After earning a passive with one World Pet species, you can activate it while travelling with a different one. For example, Deathclaw’s Fun-Festation can be equipped with a Cat, Dog or Radhog once unlocked. Open Pip-Boy → Pets → Pet Buffs to select two unlocked effects. Bethesda also adds a Pet XP progress bar, claimable reward notifications and fixes for item buffs and pet attack animations. Read our World Pets guide for the bigger picture.
Fallout 76 October 15 PTS Patch Notes: Legendary weapon mods
Four new 2-Star weapon mods arrive: Cryologist’s, Pyro-Technician’s, Poisoner’s and HazMat. The matching armour mods unlock them, and the weapon versions increase their associated damage type by 30%. Toxic, Burning and Frozen can now be added to weapons. The chance of Toxic, Burning, Electrified and Frozen effects triggering rises from 5% to 30%. Rapid reduces weapon charge time and Icemen’s increases damage against frozen targets by 50%.
Fallout 76 October 15 PTS Patch Notes: How the elemental mods work together
New weapon versions of Cryologist’s, Pyro-Technician’s, Poisoner’s and HazMat amplify matching elemental damage; they do not automatically add that element to every weapon. Burning, Toxic and Frozen can now be attached to weapons to add their respective damage types. Bethesda says these effects grow stronger when paired with armour carrying the same element, giving the example of a Frozen weapon and five pieces of Frozen armour. For players testing the Fallout 76 October 15 PTS Patch Notes, use a weapon with the appropriate damage before judging the new 30% bonus.
Nerd Rage and Bloodied changes
Fallout 76 October 15 PTS Patch Notes change the low-health build. Nerd Rage no longer scales below 20% HP. At that threshold, its AP regeneration rises from 15% to 25% and its damage bonus from 40% to 60%. Bloodied also reaches its full damage bonus at 20% HP, rather than continuing to scale below it. The Hellcat Power Armor set gains 10% damage reduction, with another 5% per teammate wearing Power Armor.
Gleaming Depths raid rewards
The update lets you craft a new Gleaming Depths cache from items earned in the raid, using the Gift section of a Tinker’s Workbench. One raid component is guaranteed daily from each encounter and may rarely drop again afterward. The cache can award four 4-Star Legendary items, four to sixteen raid mod boxes, around 5,500 Caps and a chance at a plan you haven’t learned. Duplicate untradeable plans instead grant a small amount of Scrip.
Fallout 76 October 15 PTS Patch Notes: Other changes
The daily Bobblehead Box purchase limit rises from six to fifteen. Normal mod boxes now weigh 0.25 instead of 1, and special mod boxes weigh 0.5. The Gutter becomes craftable again after you learn its plan. Bethesda adds a confirmation setting before scrapping Unique Items and restores the correct Royal Jelly drop from Honey Beasts. There are also new Advanced Mod Description fields for Charge Time, Charge Bonus, Crit Bonus and Sneak Bonus.
Known issues and release timing
The PTS can fail to display Hideout join prompts, spawn enemies late or disconnect players from an active Hideout they cannot resume. Bethesda intends to change those problems before release. Pet Bounty Sniffer can still award only one item when two legendaries of the same type are looted. These are documented test issues, not necessarily live-server problems. Hideouts are planned for spring 2027, with pet changes expected sooner.
Official patch notes and further reading
The Fallout 76 October 15 PTS Patch Notes are detailed in Bethesda’s official Inside the Vault article. For related systems, see Fallout 76 Pet Passives and Skyline Valley Bounty Hunting. The game is still testing these features, and Bethesda may change the details before launch.
