The upcoming Fallout 76 will be one of the biggest leaps forward for the much-loved series, moving it into an always-online multiplayer environment where every other character you'll encounter in its wastelands is a real life human being. But it's also introducing something else never seen before in a mainline Fallout title: card packs.

As revealed at the Fallout 76 panel broadcast during this year's Quakecon, Fallout 76 will feature a progression system that uses perk cards to build out a player's character. This is how it works: upon leveling up, a player earns a point to allocate to one of their SPECIAL abilities (Strength, Perception, Endurance, Intelligence, Agility, Luck). Players can then use perk cards they've gathered to assign to one of those abilities. Each perk card has a cost to use, however, with the number of points you've allocated to each SPECIAL ability being the cap to how many (and which) cards you'll be able to use.

You'll get to choose one perk card every time you level up, but Fallout 76 will also periodically reward you with a perk card pack that features four random cards. In a neat touch, each of these packs will also feature a joke and a piece of gum (which of course can be used within the game to stave off hunger, if only for a little while).

Perk card packs will be rewarded regularly at the beginning of your adventures in Fallout 76: they're given every two levels up to level 10, and then from every from levels earned from that point.

Game director Todd Howard stated during the panel that there will be hundreds of perks available, which will allow players to mix and match their perks to modify their build at any time during the game. What wasn't mentioned, however, were any details that specify whether these perk cards can be bought with real world money, or whether they'll be kept as something you can strictly earn in-game. You can, however, swap cards with other players you encounter in Fallout 76.

Fallout 76 launches for PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 on November 14, and a pre-release beta is scheduled for sometime in October. Today's Fallout panel also outlined how the game will treat players griefing within the game, and it seems like a pretty interesting system.