Fallout Should the Fallout world become more civilized?

[Fairfax]

Some like the idea that civilization should rise from the ashes and societies should be rebuilt:

Do you think the Fallout vision of the post-apocalyptic environment has evolved over the series?

In the original Fallout and in Fallout 3, the world was socially and physically in shambles. People lived in small communities and there were very few organisations of any significant size in the wasteland. Many of the vaults had not yet opened, so it was very much in a state somewhere between The Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome.

Fallout 2 showed the American south-west rebuilding. There were many more communities, those communities were more organised, and there was even a defined nation, the New California Republic. Despite this increased stability, the NCR was shown as having many problems with corruption and underhanded imperialist tendencies.

Fallout: New Vegas is, in some ways, a post-post-apocalyptic story. Fallout's American southwest has been built up tremendously over time. They've moved beyond simply living in the ruins of the old world and have started to strike out and build new empires. Three large forces are locked in a conflict that is military, political, and ideological in nature. As such, the issues in many cases move beyond the individual - or stomp on the individual in the process. Even the smaller organisations of the universe, such as the education-oriented Followers of the Apocalypse, are ultimately bit players compared to the big movers and shakers.

Others believe Fallout is about the cycle repeating itself and the setting should always be post-apocalyptic:

You've mentioned Zelazny's Damnation Alley as a source of inspiration for Lonesome Road. That story took place decades after the apocalypse, and indeed Lonesome Road is the most recently apocalyptic area ever seen in a Fallout game. Was this intentional after the post-post-apocalyptic atmosphere of New Vegas? Is this a direction you've been wanting to take for some time?

My only intention was I wanted the player to feel like they were traveling the road to The End. The proper "The End" feel for any Fallout game lies in seeing the wreckage of the world before, all its architecture twisted and cracked and flooded with invisible fires, radiation, and seeing the grave of the world that was. Your road started here, it leads back there, and at the end, you get to see what your journey meant to someone else - and hopefully, decide what it means to you. There are countless ripples that stem from the Divide. Without it, you never would have found the Sierra Madre, encountered Christine, Elijah, and Ulysses, seen Big MT, and more. From one simple act, countless others were born.

Lastly, I wanted to nuke the Fallout world to reset things. NCR's getting a bit big, and it's making things too civilized. Lonesome Road was a way of resetting the culture clock.

Where do you stand, Codex?

 

[Snorkack]

Couldn't care for the setting any less by now. They might as well introduce elves and magic powers.

 

[pippin]

There is no point on trying to add more and more layers to the game's lore or stories. You simply can't, imo. It would be better to just give up and produce "generic" Fallout games from now on, something like "a story set in the Fallout universe" or something like that.

 

[Nekot-The-Brave]

I thought Vault City was already 'Civilized'

 

[Lambach]

Fallout 2 ought to have been more "civilized" already. By that point, the Great War is well over 160 years in the past. Radioactivity and climate fuckery be damned, humans are pretty resourceful creatures and 160 years is a long, long time when you have the kind of technology available to vault dwellers. Hell, compare the 1800 America (and the world in general) to 1960 America, and those people had to figure shit out on their own without advanced technology already existing.

The fact that the Fallout universe remains a constant barbaric wasteland is perhaps the most unbelievable part of it.

 

[Barnabas]

This was actually my idea, but yes I think the world should be evolved. But not in the same way it was in the past maybe more bent towards futureistic like Cyberpunk.

 

[laclongquan]

Not particularly
The European Medieval Age provide an example of how things fall from Rome Civilization era. 1000 year of dark nights.
The halflife of fallout matters, the specific FALLOUT universe effect of radiation on living beings, all that explain well the state of West Coast after the Great War, which should be a Apocalyptic Global War or you would have other nations' ships exploring the ruins of USA.
I am pretty satisfied with the progress of things in F1.2. to New Vegas.

 

[Carrion]

Couldn't care for the setting any less by now. They might as well introduce elves and magic powers.

Pretty much. The thing should be buried already.

If there somehow was a chance to get one more true Fallout game, I'd prefer them to nuke the setting all the way back to hell.

 

[RhodokMasterRaceOfficial]

I'm not really entirely sure where the setting could even go after New Vegas. I guess you'd be able to make an RPG like AoD where it focuses mainly on political intrigues and warfare. The setting is so civilised now that surviving against the environment would be something that goes right out the window. I guess that's not such a bad thing, I felt the whole "surviving in the wasteland" thing was a pretty superficial part of Fallout's core experience, and that it was just part of that particular stage of the cycle of "communities developing after the reset" themes that the first two games had.

 

[CyberWhale]

I'm not really entirely sure where the setting could even go after New Vegas.

Full-blown war between NCR and Caeser's Legion and the following civilisational collapse.

 

[vortex]

Some like the idea that civilization should rise from the ashes and societies should be rebuilt:
Others believe Fallout is about the cycle repeating itself and the setting should always be post-apocalyptic:

My personal thoughts on the subject

I would have say yes and no. Beauty of Fallout setting is that you can write about clash between opposite factions. Post-apocalyptic socities and factions could have varied agendas. One faction could have buried themselves deep beneath and follow self preservation. Another, utopian one, could have start making better industrial chain of cites but isolated with walls from the rest of the world. There could be faction which aims at idealistic city and structure after apocalypse but fails to do so (like in Bioshock Rapture).
It would be interesting to see interactions between these factions and the outcome.

The only thing is how far in future you want to go. Post- apocalyptic theme in far future could end in border between dieselpunk and grittier sub-cyberpunk. Not sure if this fusion of genres exists.

So, in post- apocalyptic world different organizations and societies could end up with disjonted driving motivations for the forthcoming civilization. The question is which faction will endure the most.

 

[Fairfax]

I'm not really entirely sure where the setting could even go after New Vegas.

It really depends on who's handling the game and where it's set. The West would most likely be post-apocalyptic and less developed. In addition to the nukes in Lonesome Road, MCA introduced the Tunnelers to make sure it remained fucked up.

Some like the idea that civilization should rise from the ashes and societies should be rebuilt:
Others believe Fallout is about the cycle repeating itself and the setting should always be post-apocalyptic:

So, in post- apocalyptic world different organizations and societies could end up with disjonted driving motivations for the forthcoming civilization. The question is which faction will endure the most.

That's the question, though. Some people (myself included) don't want any faction to endure and rebuild society. I think attempts (such as the NCR and the Legion) are valid and make the setting more interesting, but they shouldn't become too successful, otherwise the setting loses a part of its essence ("the End" MCA mentioned in the interview). Tim Cain himself said having just vestiges of civilization is a big part of Fallout, and I think the sequels have been slowly moving away from that.
I do believe there are more interesting ways of resetting the clock than nukes, but then again, a less sudden reset to collapse both factions wouldn't fit in a single DLC.

 

[Quillon]

One of the many things I hate in most medieval fantasy universes is that time's standing still; thousand years ago it was medieval age, thousand years later it'll still be medieval age. There is no reason to bring that wretched feature to other genres. If Fallout gets more civilized it'll be no less unique than it already is, its not like there are many other franchises feature post-post-apocalypse.

I asked about this in Josh's FNV stream, that if the tech of the world would advance with time in PoE, he kinda said yes. So if 200-300 years get passed in Eora, we may see steam trains and whatnot.

 

[Durian Eater]

As long as the writing (if you can call it that) is in the hands of Bethesda, who cares?

 

[Morality Games]

Fallout: New Vegas is the spiritual ending of the Fallout series, in the same sense the Infinity Engine era lineage of games came to an end with Mask of the Betrayer.

Sure, they made two more expansions, but thematically it was over after MotB.

 

[Endemic]

It really depends on who's handling the game and where it's set. The West would most likely be post-apocalyptic and less developed. In addition to the nukes in Lonesome Road, MCA introduced the Tunnelers to make sure it remained fucked up.

Why would you need to fuck up the West to have a more "primitive" setting? North America is a big continent, not all of it is like the NCR.

 

[laclongquan]

trade caravans pulled by twoheaded brahmin should be a novelty.

Later on, riders on Deathclaws.

 

[jungl]

The setting is pure fokken fantasy. Every human is completely fine with living in shit and squabble, very stupid. I'm surprised hygienic post apocalyptic nazis have not sprung up in the world that are disgusted with the filth of the wastes and make it their goal to clean stuff up and use technology to uplift the rest of humanity.

 

[Darth Roxor]

who gives a shit

 

[Xeon]

Yeah, if they want it to stay the same then they should just keep it to a closer date to the Fallout[?].

Otherwise they should show progress to civilization depending how far they set it.

 

[Mojobeard]

Yes. And anyway the time scale in the series never made sense to me. Road Warrior is cool, but then don't try and tell me we're hundreds of years after the apocalypse. Shit, RW barely tells what happened, and it made more sense, Max is maybe ten years older from the first movie.

If the original Fallout was the wild west, they should, if not anything else, get to building railroads (not that Railroad) and such by now. Get communities working together a little more, big towns and safe passage. The way it worked in F:NV still seemed very tribal to me.

 

[Commissar Draco]

The setting is pure fokken fantasy. Every human is completely fine with living in shit and squabble, very stupid. I'm surprised hygienic post apocalyptic nazis have not sprung up in the world that are disgusted with the filth of the wastes and make it their goal to clean stuff up and use technology to uplift the rest of humanity.

Enclave tried to do just that Comrade; as to setting it always was fantasy but now its Wasteland Theme Park with valuable pieces of tech, supplies and weapons lying around unclaimed and unspoiled 200 years after bomb fell. Of course I don't longer care about TES Fallout anymore not after Beth glanced at FNV and birthed Fallout 4. It ain't gonna back Comrades.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Yes. And anyway the time scale in the series never made sense to me. Road Warrior is cool, but then don't try and tell me we're hundreds of years after the apocalypse. Shit, RW barely tells what happened, and it made more sense, Max is maybe ten years older from the first movie.

If the original Fallout was the wild west, they should, if not anything else, get to building railroads (not that Railroad) and such by now. Get communities working together a little more, big towns and safe passage. The way it worked in F:NV still seemed very tribal to me.

FNV was cast in buffer zone between two Empires and Guerilla warzone; its like expecting civiliation in places like Iraq or Syria. Shame that Obsidian did not had time to put at least one NCR and Legion town; I would expect them to be like 1860-1910s west with a few bits of high pre war tech added... Like radios and stuff; not much fancy things outside Military Bases and Leaders Mansions but not those bombed ruins full of old bones and people living still in emergency aluminum sheets shacks silliness.

 

[undecaf]

I think it should. Gradually, but in very small increments and with a theme of increasing danger of slipping back to where it all started. The Lonesome Road nuke thing was a hasty move, it shouldn't happen fast and carelessly like that.

 

[Naveen]

In other words, should Fallout stop being Fallout? Realistically, probably yes, but who cares? These sort of questions, like over-bloated expanded universes, usually signal the (definitive) death of a setting.

If anything, the world should be a bit greener, or they could move the story to another continent.