‘We’re all big fans of Walton’: Walton Goggins reprised his role as the Ghoul for Fallout 76’s latest expansion, and it was a big hit among the devs

As part of Fallout 76’s latest expansion into the wild Wasteland of Ohio, Walton Goggins walked into the recording booth to reprise his role as the Ghoul—in other words, perhaps the oldest bounty hunter in the New West has joined the live service game.

We’ve known that the Ghoul would be lurking around somewhere in Ohio for quite some time now, as his role was teased ahead of Fallout 76’s newest expansion, Burning Springs, but seeing him in the videogame flesh is a sight to behold.

(Image credit: Bethesda)

I wandered into Highway Town after fighting a Deathclaw and a couple of poor raiders for the entertainment of the Rust King (a story for another time) just so I could see what Goggins’ character would look like in Fallout 76, and I wasn’t disappointed. By the sounds of things, talking to lead producer Bill LaCoste, the devs were just as happy with the final product as I am.

“Oh, it’s pretty amazing,” LaCoste says. “When you have an opportunity to work with somebody like that, who can actually bring a character like that into the game. But to also have the opportunity to work directly with [Goggins] and have him be in character and do voice-over lines for the character, it’s just an amazing experience.

“We’re all big fans of Walton anyway, so having him not only be a part of the show, but also be part of our game and play a pretty pivotal role in Burning Springs as the Ghoul himself, was really an amazing experience. It’s really hard to describe sometimes. I’m usually starstruck whenever I see somebody like Walton Goggins come in and be part of what we’ve created here. To see the genuine excitement behind it when they talk about the game and then hearing all those things being played out in the studio was a lot of fun.”

(Image credit: Bethesda)

The Ghoul doesn’t have a whole lot of lines in Fallout 76—it’s not like he’s integral to a new major storyline or anything, but he can always be found in Highway Town’s underground bar, dishing out bounties on no-goods for players to pick up and claim the rewards for.

I’ve already completed a couple of the minor ones, which are dubbed Grunt Hunts. They’ve both led me to Dino Peaks mini golf and Sandy’s Sock Hop to make me kill rascals, and then inevitably ended in me getting chased into the sunset by disgruntled rusted Deathclaws—no one said it would be easy.

But getting to return to the Ghoul and hearing how well of a job you’ve done in Goggins’ Wastelander accent makes it all worth it. He apparently even brought the mouth prosthetic that is used in the show into the recording studio to perfect his ghoulish tone.

(Image credit: Bethesda)

“When you get into a studio like that, a lot of the time, what you’re providing to the voice actor or the talent is a kind of a guideline, like, ‘Hey, here’s what we’re trying to say,’ but we never put very strict barriers on that,” LaCoste says. “We want Walton to play the Ghoul the way the Ghoul is supposed to be played. So there’s a little bit of ad lib here and there, you know, but Josh Sawyer (lead quest designer) did a fantastic job of writing the scripts, and a lot of dialogue there that really matched the tone and the style of the Ghoul.”

This kind of collab between the show and the games has been a long time coming. When the first season of Fallout aired, I was left a little confused as to why there weren’t more crossovers in recent games like Fallout 76 and Fallout 4, seeing as so many viewers flocked to these games in search of more Wasteland goodness.

But apparently, the reason why there wasn’t any major collaboration between the two Fallout media was really just down to timing. “A lot of it was really kept very, very secretive for quite a while—by the time we were ready to even think about what we would do for season one, we were already well into development on a lot of the other content that was there, like Skyline Valley and caravans and things like that. So there wasn’t really an ability for us to shift very quickly based on what would be happening there in season one.

(Image credit: Bethesda)

“As we started to roll into season two, we started to see what the theme was going to be there and getting some updates on the story, where the story was going to progress, and that gave us enough time to make sure we had something with this release that actually fit alongside what season two would be. So, a lot of it just came back to time and understanding exactly what was going to happen within season one—just the timing of it, really.”

Thankfully, there was better timing and collaboration for the second season, which is what has resulted in us getting to enjoy Goggins’ Ghoul character in more than just the show. “This has been in the works for quite a long time,” LaCoste says. “There’s been interest from both sides to really have [Goggins] be a part of this game. But we wanted to take the right approach.

“It wasn’t just, hey, let’s stick the Ghoul into Burning Springs, just to have him in Burning Springs. We wanted there to be a reason. We wanted there to be some backstory or at least a plausible reason why the Ghoul would be in the area, what his job is, and what he’s taking on within this, this role within the world.”

And it really doesn’t feel forced. Sure, it’s a little surreal to see Goggins’ character just standing in some Fallout 76 random bar, but he’s a free ghoul—he can do what he wants with his time in the Wasteland. After all, he does have 200+ years to fill, and sending underleveled player characters off to fight a pack of Deathclaws seems pretty in line with his sunny personality.