Fallout Series: Because Arguing Never Changes

I'd imagine the best way to get Fallout games that take place in different countries would be to outsource spin-off games to different countries. Like having a British Fallout make by a British developer that satirises 50s British culture, for example.

However, I doubt that would ever happen. Bethesda seems pretty reluctant to outsource their I Ps to different developers after New Vegas wasn't as successful as they liked.

This is the first I've heard anyone say New Vegas wasn't the most profitable or quality Fallout games.

In my opinion, a localised Fallout would be so different from the original as to look like a completely different game and setting. It reminds me of the issue I have with some fanfictions or even official spin-offs that try so much to explore aspects of the universe that the original work did not cover that they end up having little relation to it.

As a Brit, a Fallout satirising 50s Britain would be fantastic, though probably better off as a side game (I doubt it would have much in the way of mass market appeal). I definitely disagree that Fallout has to be set in America (though don't mind that it probably always will be). As long as themes, tones and aspects of the world building are brought over, then it will still feel like a Fallout game, just in a different context.

Marketing stats are always bullshit. Bethesda can basically make up whatever metric they want to say something "wasn't successful." If I recall, that was especially the era when producers were trying to find ways to justify underpaying game companies. "Oh, it sold ten million copies, but we wanted a hundred million copies, so we're not paying you the full amount."

I almost want a seemingly new IP, set in a new country, and then halfway through the game they make enough references to Fallout to be clear they're in the same universe.

Actually that's a decent idea.

"Coming soon: Outfall. Nuclear survival goes international!"

The PT or Prometheus method. Sure.

Bethesda-The-Publisher used Metacritic scores as their metric. IIRC they did at least say in advance that they would do this and what the score would need to be.

I vaguely recall New Vegas being Vindicated by History. At release it was regarded as mildly inferior to Fallout 3 if memory serves, though the game is looked back on far more fondly and for good reason.

Edited by Protagonist506 on Apr 30th 2024 at 11:40:21 AM

TBH I felt the game was extremely pleasing to both old and new fans alike when it came out. The only real complaint everyone had were the bugs.

And it definitely had bugs.

Yeah, my recollection of the time is that it was regarded pretty universally as an Even Better Sequel to 3 by players and critics, large amounts of game-breaking bugs aside. It's just been subjected in the years since to a combination of Hype Backlash over how much excessive praise it gets, critical re-examination of its (IMO fairly minor) weakpoints, and a not-insignificant hatedom that has arisen mainly out of (again IMO) bitter diehard Bethesda fans sick of people praising it over 3, 4, and 76.

I remember a big part of that was that it added some much-needed quality of life features for the combat and companion systems. People forget that 3 didn't even have ironsights and weapon accuracy was largely a vague suggestion thanks to the weird weapon sway feature and wonky, unhelpful crosshair — and whether you agree with companions being essential or not, the command wheel is leagues more convenient and comprehensive than how 3 and 4 handle it.

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Apr 30th 2024 at 11:25:57 AM

Fallout: London is already a project everyone is excited about and would be a difference of degrees than kind. After all, 1950s Britain had its own struggles with fascism, pollution, nuclear fears, Red Scare, and conservativsm.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Apr 30th 2024 at 11:52:47 AM

After a while, I decided to make my Speedrun to destroy Megaton and get to Vault 112.

And basically managed to leave the Vault at 8:30 am, and by 13:00 I had already destroyed Megaton, and by 15:00 I had already reached the Vault 112 building.

James when moving slowly, it will take to reach Rivet City, so this point depends less on my character.

I'm a bit late to the conversation, but I might not mind a Fallout DLC to go to a different country.

Since it's not only rather contrary to the 1950s Americana subject matter of the series but also A LOT more difficult to get right in terms of research and writing, having something that could work as a compare-contrast side-dish to the maincourse meal of a full game might be more manageable? Something where you can narrow the focus to a smaller narrative, game-map, and a more 10-hour experience compared to 100+?

Like, if we have a game that is, as most other fallouts, all about "THE OLD WORLD WAS AMAZING AND WE NEED TO REBUILD THE AMERICA THAT CAN REBUILD THE WORLD" and developing (and likely demolishing) that narrative, swapping locations to somewhere else and their history and take on "The Great War" and their own country's position within the conflict could be facinating. You'd still have the "Americana" lens coming from the base game, but still get a wildly different flavor.

I think crossing the water to China might be a bit of an ask for the setting, but what if we went to a country that was far more of a bystander to the entire conflict? I'm not sure if the series touched upon Mexico very much, but they're certainly within reach of our setting and research of the era. culture, and aesthetics wouldn't be impossible?

Edited by InkDagger on May 3rd 2024 at 10:21:45 AM

I mean, the entire point of Fallout is that America was a fascist dictatorship conducting horrific experiments on its own people and destroyed the world, isn't it?

I think you should be able to nuke Megaton within an hour, maybe two. You basically run in, take the quest, and run out back to Tenpenny to blow it up.

I actually see it as a good sign that Bethesda would bother stating they aren't planning on a game set elsewhere. That still shows they're well aware fans are curious about the rest of the world, and they could definitely reveal a lot more even without an entire game set outside the USA.

I kind of prefer the franchise setting/parody of American culture as well and would rather the franchise not move.

1) Fallout 2's ending in particular always made it mysterious how the bombs dropped. I always got the sense that because we were stuck on one continent we'd never get the full answer and that added to the mystique.

2) The portrayals of the Red Menace and Chinese army soldiers feel intrinsic to the series at this point, and rather pointed in a way that actually playing as them would spoil.

3) And honestly, not moving to a new location means less research and therefore less ability for an online movement to start about how Betheseda did something else that New Vegas did ten times better, or that they didn't map out Britain or China well enough.

4) We've been conditioned to accept incongruencies/revisions to American history. That might not fly so well with British or Chinese history.

If they were to do that an Operation Anchorage DLC might be best.

5) Not hearing that annoying American jingo on Eyebots every 5 sessions?

"We've been conditioned to accept incongruencies/revisions to American history. That might not fly so well with British or Chinese history."

I'm not 100% sure what you mean by that, but there certainly are famous alternate histories of the UK that are dystopian like Fallout (one of these examples is not like the others) so it wouldn't be particularly controversial to do a new one.

I guess I should be clear- I'm in full agreement that we should NEVER have, like, "Fallout: New Venice" or some nonsense.

I was merely stating a way by which the series might address some of that desire for a non-American perspective within the Fallout universe without full-on setting a game there or making it a major plot point.

A smaller-scale DLC where the player were to go to a location that's within reasonable travel distance of post-apocalyptic America could sate that desire without disrupting the series identity. I'm proposing a win-win- The fans curious about a non-American taste get that but the fans who think Fallout should always be America centric probably wouldn't be offended by a DLC.

I mean, the Old World Borders don't exist, so why wouldn't we see character traveling to-fro Mexico, Canada, or South America? Considering how South-West focused the earlier fallout games are and those locations relationship with the America-Mexico border, I'm surprised it doesn't really come up more often.

And, well, in a game where "Nationality" comes up, having a nationality that is not the "base" on come up is an important point of definition. Part of what makes the Fallout 4 ghouls so interesting is that they're still Pre-War Chinese soldiers after all of this time. It's been awhile since I played, but I don't think their national identity changes.

I guess an easier way to put this would be, if everything is going to be defined by AMERICA in big capital letters, you need a regular interaction with things that are thus not American. Otherwise the description becomes meaningless if everything is AMERICAN.

But I can maybe empathize with international players who might be a tad alienated by the franchise's seeming incuriosity with the rest of the world. American culture and history might be well broadcast to the world, but that doesn't mean a Sweedish player can exactly relate to the noise.

Another way to come about to it- If the franchise is themed around how Pre-War America was genuinely terrible and the jingoism, isolationism, xenophobia, (I could go on for a few hours listing terms here), lead to the destruction of the world, then it feels weird a bit to not engage with nationality in a broader manner within the post-war America.

Like, idk, does every house have to have the most American-American decore to ever be American made? I think it would really stand out to find, like, a locked room somewhere and there's a fully detailed Mosque in the basement. Or Hindi decorations. Pre-War and irl 1950s America were still lands of immigrants- that never changed. Just the perceptions of to what extent and how true those perceptions were did.

I guess this is starting to now overlap with a conversation from previous weeks as to how Fallout doesn't really want to engage with race very much and that's kinda odd for an American centric (and American critical) game. Like, if you wanna take the piss out of America, it's racial track record isn't that great.

It doesn't help in that regard that Bethesda's actual core development and writing staff are like, 80-90% white and 60-75% male :P

It's wild they used so much underground railroad and slavery imagery/allegory with the synths in FO4 when there isn't a single black person on their writing staff, to my understanding

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on May 4th 2024 at 2:40:05 AM

(2) By that I mean its way more common to see Alternate History based around American history from American companies and studios, and asking one to pick up the torches left by 1984 or Black Mirror is asking for disaster.

Fair. Which is also why I think a DLC would serve them best in that regard; you have far far fewer opportunities to fuck up, the scope can be smaller and more controlled so your writing staff (and sensitivity readers) can focus more on doing their jobs in a quality instead of quantity manner, and you can make sure your beats in that topic really hit in a powerful way.

I'm talking like... Sierra Madre levels of "We have a short but developed DLC storyline we're telling and then we bow out once we're done". Play to the strengths and advantages of the medium and it's tools, right?

And, yeah, Fallout's writing staff needs to be way more diverse, but I also see that as something that needs to occur regardless and, well, at that point we're maybe grounding our hypothetical conversation a bit too much?

Bethesda in it's current state would never be able to write what I'm talking about. But, then again, I also say Bethesda in it's current state cannot write a quality Fallout narrative either. You don't need to cite their lack of diversity on staff when I don't think their staff is particularly talented period.

If we talk about, "Hey, I think this property could use a cool diverse storyline to challenge the fundamentals of the series?", countering that with "The staff isn't diverse enough to do that" applies to basically any video game franchise today and kinda ends the conversation there... 'EVERYWHERE needs to diversify.

Edited by InkDagger on May 4th 2024 at 3:34:17 AM

Fair enough.

Well I suppose we should disregard the practicality of a hypothetical Fallout London and just fantasize about Fallout London like the thread was doing.

What sort of irradiated wilderness/enemies would we see?

What non-American folklore/political caricatures/satire would we encounter?

Who would the Big Bad be?

I'd actually been thinking of a reveal that the rest of the world actually recovered quite well in the past 200 years, it's only the US and China that's still a Death World due to having been hit a LOT worse during the war.

I imagine a bunch of Mexican or Canadian explorers trying to breach the US Wasteland and being turned back by constant attacks by raiders and mutants before the whole place gets written off.