WVExplorer publishes first series video featuring W.Va. monsters

WVExplorer.com has published the first of five videos that discuss the backstories for legendary monsters apparently featured in the soon-to-be-released video game Fallout 76.

According to publisher David Sibray, who is interviewed by Alfred Clark throughout the series, the strange beasts are among those introduced in 2014 by author Ted Fauster in “The top five monsters of the West Virginia hills.”

The video series begins with an overview of “Snarly Yowl,” alleged to roam the hills around western Maryland and the eastern panhandle of West Virginia.

Sibray said he first became aware of the beast while studying folklore through the Appalachian Studies program at West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia, and expressed a fondness for the tale.

“It is perhaps my favorite of the five monsters we reported on,” he said.

Each of the monsters may appear in the Fallout 76 video game, played in an alternate timeline in which West Virginia had been annihilated by a nuclear war.

News of the game’s release and its setting in West Virginia has led thousands of fans of the Fallout series to explore WVExplorer.com, looking for information on monsters that appear in the game’s trailers and other relevant information that might help players.

Sibray said off-camera that editors for West Virginia Explorer will continue to integrate information relevant to the game with its website content, and that fans can expect to find easter eggs among its pages.

“Many aspects of the virtual West Virginia that the developers have unveiled may seem to be rarified versions of the real-world state, but there’s perhaps more reality here than I think they and others guess,” he said.

Sibray said he welcomes fans and other interested in the game to sign up for the FalloutWV Newsletter, which will track the development of the game and its relevance to West Virginia.