Latest in Popular Video Game Series to Be Set in West Virginia

West Virginia will be the setting for the latest in a video game series with an international following. The game will feature landscapes, folklore and well-known locations from around the state in a post-apocalyptic time period.

Over the weekend, American-based Bethesda Game Studios revealed a new trailer and exclusive gameplay for its biggest video game to-date titled, Fallout 76.

Bethesda Director and Executive Producer Todd Howard revealed details for the upcoming game at the 2018 Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, held at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

“Set in the hills of West Virginia,” he said, “you are one of the first to emerge into an untamed and very different wasteland.”

Howard says Fallout 76 is a prequel to the family of Fallout video games that started in the late 90s and set in post-apocalyptic times with cyberpunk and retro futuristic art and style.

Some well-known locations are seen in the latest game trailer, like the State Capitol, the Greenbrier Resort, and West Virginia University’s Woodburn Hall. Some of West Virginia’s own local monsters, like the Beast of Grafton and the Mothman, also make an appearance.

“Now most people don’t know West Virginia that well,” Howard said. “It is an incredible array of natural wonders, towns, and government secrets, and the quest will take you through six distinct regions; each with their own style, risks, and rewards.”

Howard says Fallout 76 will be the first Fallout game to be played entirely online and uses new technology to enhance gameplay and visual landscape.

Both the teaser and the latest trailer feature John Denver’s song “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”

Folk Music Legend Tom Paxton Celebrates 80th Birthday with Mountain Stage in Elkins This Saturday.

“Mountain Stage with Larry Groce” returns to Elkins, WV this Saturday, August 12 as the closing concert of the Augusta Heritage Festival.

The show will take place at 7:30pm at the Harper-McNeeley Auditorium in the Myles Center for the Arts on the campus of Davis & Elkins College. Scheduled to appear are folk-music icon Tom Paxton featuring The DonJuans– the duo of Don Henry and Jon Vezner, both accomplished songwriters and performers. Also on the bill is bluegrass mainstay and Augusta instructor Laurie Lewis & the Right Hands, guitar-hero Bill Kirchen, also a past Augusta instructor, plus folk duo Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer and an emerging roots group with ties to Elkins and the Augusta Workshops, The Early Mays.  

Tickets are $25, general admission, and are available online, by phone at 304.637.1255, and at the Augusta Heritage office.

Guitarist Laurie Lewis has instructed at the Augusta Workshops many times. Now she returns to showcase her band when Mountain Stage closes the Augusta Heritage Festival this Saturday.

Tom Paxton is one of the most prolific songwriter/performers in recorded music history, with songs covered by artists including Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, The Weavers, Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner, Willie Nelson, John Denver, Sandy Denny and The Move, among many others.  A four-time Grammy nominee and recipient of a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award from The Recording Academy in 2009 and an ASCAP Lifetime Achievement Award (for Folk) in 2002, Paxton has made six appearances on “Mountain Stage” since 1986.

Paxton’s new album, “Boat in the Water,” is produced by Grammy winners Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer, who are also scheduled to be a part of the “Mountain Stage” program in Elkins. “Boat in the Water” is a fitting addition to a career that first took off in the fertile turf of New York’s Greenwich Village in the ‘60s, where his contemporaries included Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Dave Van Ronk and Joan Baez.

With movies like the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis (in which Paxton is portrayed as a soldier in uniform singing “The Last Thing on My Mind”) and the recent induction of Joan Baez into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the ‘60s Village folk scene has been the focus of renewed attention. Tom will be celebrating his 80th at The Birchmere on October 28th and in NYC at  Pace Univeristy October 29th.

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Credit Polly Whitehorn
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Emily Pinkerton, Ellen Gozion and Rachel Eddy comprise the roots trio The Early Mays, who appear on Mountain Stage this Saturday in Elkins, WV.

Getaway Prizes Given to Fans of West Virginia

West Virginia’s tourism agency has given out 21 getaways so far to West Virginia fans who used social media for tweets, posts and uploading photographs showing the state to others.

Most daily prizes are weekend getaways at state resorts and cabin retreats.

In advance of West Virginia’s 154th birthday on Tuesday, Tourism Commissioner Chelsea Ruby invited residents and visitors to post why it’s exceptional and stereotypes are wrong.

The Division of Tourism says the campaign’s reach has topped 7 million on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter from 120,000 users directly engaged.

Posts range from lakeside sunsets to mountains, trains, boats, bicycles and fishermen.

Winners are chosen randomly through a search of the hashtag #AlmostHeaven added to posts.

Remaining prizes include a Charleston weekend and other overnights.

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