Fallout 76 has come quite a long way over the years, gradually overcoming its troubled state at launch and expanding into something that both new and longtime Fallout fans might be pleasantly surprised to experience in 2025. Alongside a variety of new content updates for Fallout 76 that are available free for all players, the game has recently undergone several major balancing changes, addressing its harsh difficulty curves and allowing underutilized weapon types to finally get their turn in the spotlight alongside popular meta builds.
Yet another round of balancing changes for Fallout 76 inevitably reignited a longtime debate about Fallout 76’s legendary Perk Card and whether a seventh Legendary Perk Slot should be added to the game. Ultimately, there are fair arguments to be made either way for and against this change, making it something that Bethesda should carefully consider for future updates of Fallout 76, especially in light of the recently announced balancing changes for the 2025 roadmap.
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The Argument For a Seventh Legendary Perk Card Slot in Fallout 76
Once players reach levels 50, 75, 100, 150, 200, and 300 with a character in Fallout 76, each of these milestones will unlock an account-wide Legendary Perk Card slot for all the players’ characters, both retroactively and going forward. Alongside normal Perk Cards, these Legendary Perk Cards in Fallout 76 can be used to equip game-changing buffs or invaluable QoL utilities that take players’ endgame builds to the next level.
Additional Legendary Perk Card Slots Could Address Fallout 76’s Lack of Endgame Progression Milestones
These Legendary Perk Cards create a natural incentive for players to progress beyond level 300, which is generally regarded as the max level in Fallout 76, at least in terms of offering the final progression milestone. However, with the maximum possible level allegedly being 32767, and the final Legendary Perk Card slot being unlocked at level 300, the lack of meaningful progression milestones for thousands of levels beyond this point creates an awkward void that no longer encourages players to progress. Hence, a seventh Legendary Perk Card Slot, or possibly more beyond even that, could be the perfect way to fill this void.
The Argument Against a Seventh Legendary Perk Card Slot in Fallout 76
As mentioned, the Legendary Perk Cards in Fallout 76 provide some substantial buffs and utilities for players, so the balance of these buildcrafting tools can be incredibly fragile. Given how much work has recently been put into Fallout 76‘s endgame balancing, adding an extra Legendary Perk Card slot could undo a lot of this hard work and have a lasting negative effect on the game’s balancing in both PvE and PvP, since simply removing this feature after introducing it could be a controversy waiting to happen.
Fallout 76’s Legendary Perk Cards Are Already on the Brink of Tipping the Balancing Scales Too Far
For reference, a seventh Legendary Perk Slot would provide enough slots for players to equip one of each of the different bonus-SPECIAL Legendary Perk Cards. These each provide 5 additional Perk Card slots for each of the players’ SPECIAL attributes, so with a seventh slot, players would be able to benefit from 35 more Perk Cards than normal, which risks introducing “omnipotent” builds that modern RPGs are widely criticized for – especially the Fallout franchise games.
Although the debate about introducing an additional Legendary Perk Card slot in future updates for Fallout 76 is nothing new, the recently announced Public Test Server (PTS) patch notes and other recent balancing changes have once again reignited this debate. Ultimately, whichever decision is made, this kind of balancing change is sure to have a lasting impact on the game’s overall balancing.
Fallout 76
5/10
- Released
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November 14, 2018
- ESRB
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M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Use of Alcohol
- Engine
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Creation