Update:

This problem has now been addressed in a hotfix. A post on the Fallout 76 forums explains, "We just released a hotfix for Fallout 76 to address a rare issue where NPCs could take items from a dead player under certain circumstances. We did not need to take the game offline to do this, and the hotfix has now been applied to all worlds."

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Bethesda is investigating a bug reported by players where Fallout 76's new NPCs are looting items from their corpses and keeping them.The strange glitch has been noted by several users on the Fallout 76 Reddit , with posters claiming that they've lost hordes of ammo and expensive weapons. Upon death, players are waking up to find the guns they were using and the ammo attached missing from their inventory. Later, they've noticed that the same gun they were using in combat is now in the hands of a nearby NPC, suggesting that it had been looted from the player's corpse upon death. Those NPCs can't be looted back.This is a major problem, as it means expensive and rare weapons that players have worked hard to purchase or unlock are being lost, with no clear means to recover them. One particular post mentions that a player lost an explosive machine gun that they spent "15k caps" on . A few posters have singled out the event missions Radiation Rumble and Riding Shotgun as being a particular source for the bug, so you may want to avoid them for the time being. This video from Dani Garcia gives us our best glimpse at the glitch in action (thanks, PC Gamer!) A Bethesda Community Manager has responded to the strange phenomenon, writing that they will "investigate this immediately" under one of the offending Reddit posts. NPCs arrived in Fallout 76 as part of the Wastelanders update, a free overhaul anticipated by the fans who stuck with Fallout 76 after its troublesome launch. Wastelanders adds new questlines and infrastructure, as well as an improved reputation system.If you're thinking of jumping back into the apocalyptic fray, check out our article on whether you should return to Fallout 76 for Wastelanders. And if you've already made the leap, you may want to check out our walkthrough which will guide you through the new quests in Wastelanders . Just watch out for those event missions if you're fixing to keep your hard-earned loot!

Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.