Bethesda made a big deal of giving Fallout 76 players the ability to fire off nukes, but are they legitimate weapons of mass destruction? We got our answer at a recent event Bethesda held in West Virginia: yes, they are. Check out the footage embedded above or here on YouTube.

As our demo came to a close, the event organizers corralled us toward Vault 76. We fast traveled to the vault and were told, quite suspiciously, to wait. "For what?" we wondered. Well, we didn't have to wonder for long, because that was around the time we heard the nuke falling.

It didn't go off right on top of us, thankfully, but we were close enough to see just how devastating player-operated nukes can be. The explosion sent trees whirling through the air and spawned a mushroom cloud that consumed the sky. We tried to explore the amber-tinged blast site after the dust settled, but even after popping some Rad-X and Radaway, the heavy radiation killed us in seconds. They may well be easy to avoid, but Fallout 76's nukes are not messing around.

We saw plenty more than nukes, too. We also played for a few hours and have lots of thoughts to share. When your eyes stop burning, check out the 12 most surprising things we learned playing Fallout 76.