In the dog-eat-dog world of Fallout, murder and the looting of corpses is the name of the game. But NPCs are supposed to follow different rules.

For some Fallout 76 players, friendly NPCs are taking a leaf out of the player's book and looting their corpses - and even stealing their prized possessions.

Redditor Lizardinosaurus reported that, while playing one of the game's new PvE events, a friendly NPC stole their Gatling Gun and nearly 2000 units of 5mm ammo.

In Fallout 76, when you die you respawn close to the location you died. Where you died is a small paper bag that includes your junk only. You're not supposed to lose any weapons or armour.

However, when Lizardinosaurus respawned, they found they were missing their Gatling Gun. Puzzled, they returned to the scene of the crime to find an NPC wielding the Gatling Gun. Somehow, the NPC had looted Lizardinosaurus' corpse in the tiny window after death and before they respawned and the paper bag entered the game world.

"Just to be safe don't use your best/rarest weapons in events like Riding Shotgun just in case one of the NPCs decides to steal it," Lizardinosaurus wrote.

An isolated, ultra rare bug, perhaps? It turns out others have suffered a similar fate from the hands of Fallout 76's new - and sneaky - NPCs. The video, below, shows a player die during another PvE event, respawn without their high-powered gun (you can see them search for the weapon in their inventory and weapon wheel), then find NPC Marion Copeland wielding it during the fight.

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As there is no way to kill these NPCs (they can be downed only), there is no way to loot their corpse and steal the stolen weapon back. Annoying!

Clearly this is an unintentional bug, and a Bethesda rep took to Lizardinosaurus' reddit thread to say the developers will investigate immediately. Until then, maybe don't take your prized weapons out on Fallout 76's NPC events - you never know when they may loot your corpse.