YMMV / Old World Blues

• Awesome Music: The mod has its own soundtrack. You can find it here.
• Broken Base: How the Enclave should be handled in the mod can be a extremely contentious topic among the playerbase. One group of players want more paths featuring Enclave remnants that and also feel that the Chicago Enclave should be the ultimate Big Bad of the setting, believing a greater role for the Enclave to not only not be lore-breaking, citing lore hinting towards Enclave holdouts existing in Chicago, but also providing a good opportunity for players to either fight an iconic villain faction in the setting as a potential campaign Final Boss or even play as them, rebuild their power base, and potentially take them in a saner direction in lieu of the official games relegating them to full antagonist status. On the other hand another group of players find both the Enclave overrated and/or their fanbase excessively apologetic along with finding the premise lore-breaking, citing that evidence of Enclave holdouts outside the Capital Wasteland are based on extremely vague lore. They also claim that over-emphasizing the Enclave as either a threat or a playable faction takes the spotlight away from more interesting factions and storylines. Not helping matters is the fact that the current dev team tends to have a very tepid reaction to the idea of more Enclave content, while the developers the most enthusiastic about building up a greater role for the Enclave in the story have mostly left the team, which leads to concerns among both Enclave fans and those excited for an ultimate villain in the setting that Chicago might be treated as a joke by the developers rather than a legit threat for the story.
• Complete Monster: The Putrescent Mother was the first person to be experimented on in Oklahoma by American scientists before the Great War. Surviving their corporal death as a spirit through raw hatred and relishing in the spread of hatred and fear, the Mother would reach out to another survivor of the experiments, a young girl named V. Taking advantage of V's immortality and powers developed through these experiments, the Mother promises her power if she will create a body for her. If V does not resist the Mother's influence, she and the Psykers of the Chained Choir will subject the inhabitants of post-apocalyptic Oklahoma to either mind control, zombification, or having themselves killed and their bodies and souls stitched together to form a new body for the Mother. Those who get zombified will be sent to work as slave labour indefinitely without rest and be used as fodder for the Psykers. Once the Mother awakens in her new body, she gruesomely disposes of V and the Choir and seeks to consume the entirety of the American wasteland, and eventually humanity itself.
• Demonic Spiders: Both hailing from Area 51, the New Plague and the Zetans. The New Plague was actually so insufferable and annoying the devs reduced it to an optional game rule. The Zetans have also been regulated to being an optional game rule.
• Friendly Fandoms: As expected, the mod is chummy with a lot of other Hearts of Iron IV mod fandoms, such as Equestria at War and Kaiserreich: Legacy of the Weltkrieg, further intensified with a joint crossover done with both mods for April Fools.
• Growing the Beard: Old World Blues definitely experienced this somewhere around "Tlaloc's Demise" 2.0 update, going from a very clunky and bland mod into a very solid and still improving mod with a lot of fascinating new lore.
• Harsher in Hindsight: As shown below, a vocal segment of fans, particularly on the OWB discord, tend to be very dismissive of any faction that can be considered "good" seeking to claim the mantle of the United States due to how bad America was before the bombs fell; this being despite the fact that a fair chunk of these factions disavow the Enclave. With the heavy implications in the TV series that one of the reasons Vault-Tec sought to instigate the Great War(regardless of if they fired the first shot or not) was because they view all national and cultural identities of the Old World as having failed, including America itself, and wanted to erase America and the rest of the world so they can reshape the world into one horrific post-apocalyptic corporate dystopia "transcending" politics, to view restoring the US as an inherently bad idea in itself because of the actions of the pre-War Government/Enclave and Vault-Tec(which actually sought to do away with America) might not be entirely the right mindset.....
• Just Here for Godzilla: Many players play the mod with the sole purpose of playing as the Enclave or alternatively some of the saner factions that can take up the mantle of successor to the United States like Hayes-led NCR, Cult of Liberty, Commonwealth Remnants, or the Northern Commonwealth/Reunited States of America should MacArthur cut all ties with the Enclave. This is why the Chicago Enclave and even some nations not on the roadmap like the Capital Enclave are some of the most anticipated upcoming nations in the mod as well as why Enclave Reborn is the most popular submod for the mod.
• More Popular Spin Off:
  • Discussion about the Enclave Reborn submod often eclipses discussion of the various factions and routes in the mod proper. This is due to the huge popularity of the Enclave among Fallout fans, the fact that thus far many anticipated Enclave and Enclave-adjunct groups(Chicago, MODUS, and the Capital Enclave) have yet to appear in the mod proper aside from a few hints of future content, along with the engaging narrative offered by the submod that allows the survivors of the Navarro Enclave to either double down on their evil actions, make their ideology more palatable to the Wasteland, or even try to genuinely make amends for their past crimes.
  • Likewise, Douglas Granite's incarnation in the abovementioned submod is much more popular than his OWB self, which is seen as a rather unremarkable character. This is because while OWB!Granite has a set characterization remains committed to aspects of the Enclave's ideology and his entire arc is at most a huge My God, What Have I Done? moment upon realizing the evil he has unleashed in trying to restore the Enclave in the West Coast, ERB!Granite is seen to fit the feel of and aesthetic of a Fallout protagonist that can be played as an entirely evil or an entirely good character, with his good route where he slowly reforms the Enclave from within, restores the United States and both turns against the ideology of the Enclave seen to be very heartwarming and narratively satisfying. The fact that OWB!Granite is a Canon Immigrant from ERB based off of some of the more unsavoury paths Granite can take in ERB helps with ERB!Granite's popularity.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • The Washington Brotherhood has this in spades.
  • Everything with the Odious King. Brr..
  • The Mirelurk Tribe are lesser nightmare fuel, but dear god look at Mlulu
  • The Chained Choir, especially in the evil path.
• Ron the Death Eater: Many of the saner factions out to restore the United States(ie: Grant Hayes-led NCR, Commonwealth Remnants under Johnson, Cult of Liberty, MacArthur's anti-Enclave route, General Freedom) tend to get a bit of this from diehard adherents of the satirical themes of the Fallout series and those that view all old world nostaligia as inherently toxic, said adherents seeing said routes as naive at best or some of the worst routes for the Wasteland at worst. Much of this perception is tied to the degeneration of the pre-War US into a Fascist oligarchy controlled by the Enclave before the bombs fall and the satirical critique of American exceptionalism in the Fallout franchise itself. This is despite many of these groups repudiating the ideology of the pre-war government and the Enclave in favor of creating a new America that lives up to its' founding principles while bringing technological progress back to the post-apocalyptic wastes. While many of these factions may engage in morally dubious actions, they are nowhere as bad as the more outright villainous factions in the game and the actual remnants of the Enclave themselves. This mindset tends to be more prevalent on discord, while reddit tends to take a more nuanced stance.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Santa Anna's focuses relating to the inevitable death of Tlaloc are prime tear jerkers, especially for anyone dealing with the death of a loved one.
  • The death of Kalomte Sebastian II at the hands of Itzan Dissidents can certainly be this.
  • Further expanding on the sadness involving Santa Anna, in 3.0 the devs revised Santa Anna's writing and made it even more heart-wrenching than before (as displayed in Dev Diary 20).
• Unexpected Character: Virtually no one was expecting the end of the Hangdogs' focus tree in the "Monster of the East" 3.0 update to feature a surprise appearance from M.O.D.U.S., of all people.
• The Woobie: Many of the tribal and settler nations. Especially when they're nothing more than food for expansion. Even worse when its the Troll Warren stomping in to take their lands.