Fallout Series Megathread

[KelBlock]

War. War never changes.

Information | Games | Setting | Secondary Post

Information

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Fallout is a series of post-apocalyptic role-playing video games created by Interplay Entertainment. Although the series is set during the 22nd and 23rd centuries, its retrofuturistic setting and artwork are influenced by the post-war culture of 1950s America, and its combination of hope for the promises of technology and lurking fear of nuclear annihilation. A forerunner for Fallout is Wasteland, a 1988 video game of which the Fallout series is regarded to be a spiritual successor. Although the game worlds are different, the background story, inhabitants, locations, and characters draw many parallels. The first two titles in the series (Fallout and Fallout 2) were developed by Black Isle Studios. Micro Forté and 14 Degrees East's 2001 Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel is a tactical role-playing game. In 2004, Interplay closed Black Isle Studios, and continued to produce an action game with RPG elements for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel without Black Isle Studios. A third entry in the main series, Fallout 3, was released in 2008 by Bethesda Softworks. The latest role-playing installment of the series, Fallout: New Vegas, came out in 2010 and was developed by Obsidian Entertainment with many former Black Isle employees who created Fallout and Fallout 2. Bethesda Softworks now owns the rights to produce all Fallout games. Soon after acquiring the rights to the IP, Bethesda licensed the rights to make a massively multiplayer online role-playing game version of Fallout to Interplay. This led to a lengthy legal dispute between Bethesda Softworks and Interplay, with Bethesda claiming Interplay had not met the terms and conditions of the licensing contract. The case was decided in favor of Bethesda. The MMORPG only ever got to the beta stage under Interplay, and it is not currently known whether or not Bethesda plans to develop a Fallout MMO.

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Games

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Main series | Spin-offs

Main series
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Fallout

Released in 1997, Fallout takes place in a post-apocalyptic Southern California, beginning in the year 2161. The protagonist is tasked with recovering a water chip in the Wasteland to replace the broken chip in his or her underground shelter home, Vault 13. Fallout was originally intended to run under the GURPS role-playing game system However, a disagreement with the creator of GURPS, Steve Jackson, over the game's violent content required Black Isle Studios to develop a new system, the SPECIAL. Fallout's atmosphere and artwork are reminiscent of post-WWII America and the nuclear paranoia that was widespread at that time.

Fallout 2

Fallout 2 was released in 1998, with several improvements over the first game, including an improved game engine, the ability to set attitudes of non-player character (NPC) party members and the ability to push people who are blocking doors. Additional features included several changes to the game world, including significantly more pop culture jokes and parodies, such as multiple Monty Python-referencing special random encounters, and self-parodying dialogue that broke the fourth wall to mention game mechanics. Fallout 2 takes place eighty years after Fallout, and centers around a descendant of the Vault-Dweller, the protagonist of Fallout. The player assumes the role of the Chosen One as he tries to save his village, Arroyo, after several years of drought and death.

Van Buren (Fallout 3)

Van Buren was the code-name for the cancelled version of Fallout 3 developed by Black Isle Studios and published by Interplay. It featured an improved engine with real 3D graphics as opposed to sprites, new locations, vehicles, and a modified version of the SPECIAL system. The story disconnected from the Vault-Dweller/Chosen One bloodline in Fallout and Fallout 2. Plans for the game included the ability to influence the various factions. The game was cancelled in December 2003 when the budget cuts forced Interplay to dismiss the PC development team. Interplay subsequently sold the Fallout intellectual property to Bethesda Softworks, who began development on their own version of Fallout 3 unrelated to Van Buren. Van Buren is considered to be a part of the main Fallout series, however it is considered semi-canon. Main parts of the game were incorporated into Fallout 3 and its add-ons as well as Fallout: New Vegas.

Fallout 3

Fallout 3 was developed by Bethesda Softworks and released on October 28, 2008. The story picks up thirty years after the setting of Fallout 2 and 200 years after the nuclear war that devastated the game's world. The player is a Vault-dweller in Vault 101 who is forced to flee when the Overseer tries to arrest him/her in response to the player's father leaving the Vault. Once free, the player is dubbed the Lone Wanderer and ventures into the Wasteland in and around Washington, D.C., known as the Capital Wasteland, to find his/her father. It differs from previous games in the series by utilizing 3D graphics, a free-roam gaming world, and real-time combat, in contrast to previous games' 2D isometric graphics and turn-based combat. It was developed simultaneously for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 using the Gamebryo engine.

Fallout: New Vegas

Fallout: New Vegas was developed by Obsidian Entertainment and released on October 19, 2010. Fallout: New Vegas is not a direct sequel to Fallout 3; rather, it is a stand-alone product. Events in the game follow four years after Fallout 3 and offer a similar role-playing experience, but no characters from that game appear. Instead, it is more tied to the first two Fallout titles, featuring characters from those games. In New Vegas, the player assumes the role of a courier in the post-apocalyptic world of the Mojave Wasteland. As the game begins, the Courier is shot in the head and left for dead shortly before being found and brought to a doctor in the nearby town of Goodsprings, marking the start of the game and the Courier's search for his or her would-be murderer. The city of New Vegas is a post-apocalyptic interpretation of Las Vegas with only five standing casinos.

Spin-offs
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Fallout: Tactics

Tactics is the first Fallout game not to require the player to fight in a turn-based mode, and it is also the first to allow the player to customize the skills, perks, and combat actions of the rest of the party. Fallout Tactics focuses on tactical combat rather than role-playing; the new combat system included different modes, stances, and modifiers, but the player had no dialogue options. Most of the criticisms of the game came from its incompatibility with the story of the original two games, not from its gameplay. Fallout: Tactics includes a multiplayer mode that allows players to compete against squads of other characters controlled by other players. Unlike the previous two games, which are based in California, Fallout: Tactics takes place in the Midwestern United States. The game was released in early 2001 to generally favorable reviews.

Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel

Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel became the first Fallout game for consoles when it was released in 2004. It follows an initiate in the Brotherhood of Steel who is given a suicidal quest to find several lost Brotherhood Paladins. BoS is an action role-playing game, representing a significant break from previous incarnations of the Fallout series in both gameplay and aesthetics. The game does not feature non-player characters that accompany the player in combat and uses heavy metal music, including Slipknot, Devin Townsend, and Killswitch Engage, which stands in contrast to the music of Fallout 3, performed by The Ink Spots and Louis Armstrong. It was the last Fallout game to be developed by Interplay.

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Setting

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Background | Vaults | Post-War conditions | Factions

Background
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The series is set in an alternate history scenario which diverges from our reality following World War II. The transistor was not invented, while vacuum tubes and atomic physics became the cornerstones to scientific progress, eventually achieving the technological aspirations of the early Atomic Age and locking society into a 1950's cultural stasis. Thus, in this alternative "golden age", a bizarre socio-technological status quo emerges, in which advanced robots, nuclear-powered cars, directed-energy weapons, and other futuristic technologies are seen alongside 1950's-era computers and telephones, and the aesthetics and Cold War paranoia of the 1950s continue to dominate the American lifestyle well into the 21st century.

More than a hundred years before the start of the series, an energy crCIA emerged caused by the depletion of petroleum reserves, leading to a period called the "Resource Wars" – a series of events which included a war between the European Commonwealth and the Middle East, the disbanding of the United Nations, the U.S. annexation of Canada, and a Chinese invasion and subsequent military occupation of Alaska. These eventually culminated in the 2077 Great War, a cataclysmic nuclear exchange that lasted for only two hours, and subsequently created the post-apocalyptic United States setting of Fallout.

Vaults
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Having foreseen this outcome decades earlier, the U.S. government began a nationwide project in 2054 to build fallout shelters known as "Vaults". The Vaults were ostensibly designed by the government contractor Vault-Tec as public shelters, financed by junk bonds and each able to support up to a thousand people. Each Vault is self-sufficient, so they could theoretically sustain their inhabitants indefinitely. However, the Vault project was never intended as a viable method of repopulating the United States in such a deadly scenario. Around 400,000 vaults would have been needed, but only 122 were commissioned and constructed. Instead, the Vaults were part of a secret and unethical social experiment, and were designed to determine the effects of different environmental and psychological conditions on its inhabitants. Experiments included: a Vault that was designed to never open, a Vault where the inhabitants were exposed to the mutagenic Forced Evolutionary Virus (F.E.V.), and a Vault where the door never closed, exposing the inhabitants to dangerous amounts of radiation. A few control Vaults were made to function as advertised to contrast with the data from those Vaults with intentional flaws. Nevertheless, many Vaults had their experiments derailed due to unexpected events. Many of these Vaults were so self-destructive that by the time other survivors opened them, they were nothing but graveyards.

Post-War conditions
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In the years following the Great War, the United States devolved into a post-apocalyptic environment commonly dubbed "the Wasteland". The War and subsequent nuclear fallout severely depopulated the country, leaving large expanses of property decaying from neglect. In addition, virtually all food and water is irradiated and radiation exposure, combined with a mutagenic bioweapon that was accidentally released into the atmosphere during the War, have caused mutation in nearly all forms of life. With a large portion of the country's infrastructure in ruins, basic necessities are scarce. Barter is the common method of exchange, with bottlecaps providing a more conventional form of currency. Most cities and towns are empty, having been looted and deserted in favor of smaller, makeshift communities scattered around the Wasteland.

Many humans who could not get into the Vaults survived the atomic blasts, but many of these, affected by the radiation, turned into so-called ghouls. While they were given an extended lifespan, most lost their hair and their skin decayed, giving them a zombie-like appearance; often, their voices became raspy. Many ghouls have a hatred for humans, either through jealousy or due to discrimination by the humans. Almost all ghouls resent their comparison to zombies and being called a zombie is viewed as a great insult by them. After suffering mass amounts of radiation, a number of ghouls eventually go insane; these "feral ghouls" become mindless, aggressive creatures, driven only by instinct.

Factions
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Although the Wastelands of the Fallout series are home to innumerable self-supporting groups, there are a number of factions who have a significant presence across the entire former United States. These factions are often the major players in the larger events of each game's primary storyline.

• The Brotherhood of Steel is a group dedicated to the collection and preservation of Pre-War knowledge and technology. They pursue these goals with religious fervor and many are descendants of American military survivors. Seen as xenophobic, the Brotherhood believes that they are the sole heirs to Pre-War technology, bringing them into conflict with other factions. On the East Coast, however, in the D.C. area (also known as the Capital Wasteland), the Brotherhood takes on the form of protectors of the Wastes, actively engaging Super Mutants in the region and helping to distribute clean water to the people of the region.
• The Enclave is composed of the shattered remnants of the éminence grise of the pre-War U.S. federal government and acts as the main antagonist in Fallout 2 and Fallout 3. They have access to superior technology available before the War, such as advanced power armor and plasma weaponry. Their main goal is to wipe out all mutation in the Wasteland so that they can restore the pre-War America of old, which, given the pervasive radiation and background FEV virus, is almost every living thing in the Wasteland besides themselves.
• The New California Republic (NCR) is a constitutional republic and is the largest faction in post-apocalyptic America, both by population and landmass. The NCR bears resemblance to the democracies of old, with a democratically-elected government and a commitment to "old world values". Based in California, it has holdings in Nevada, Oregon, Baja, and New Mexico along the Colorado River.
• Caesar's Legion is an autocratic totalitarian homogeneous dictatorship consisting of 87 conquered tribes that willingly rejects the use of most technology and utilizes slave labor. Basing its culture and ideals on the historic Roman Empire, the Legion expands its borders by violently conquering nearby lands, massacring and enslaving the original inhabitants and obliterating their previous culture.
• Mr. House is the owner and proprietor of New Vegas, the Post-War version of Las Vegas. Previously an influential businessman and scientist, he had predicted the Great War and spent 12 years developing a plan to save the city from destruction. Though he managed to save the Vegas Strip, radiation from nearby bombs devastated the surrounding area. Hoping to guide human progress after the apocalypse, House entered an immortal stasis in order to develop long-lasting plans for rebuilding civilization and reigniting scientific innovation and industrial growth through the profits of the New Vegas strip, treating the other factions as customers.
• Raiders are primarily nomadic tribes, scavengers, and bandits that rely on violent tactics to sustain themselves and obtain valuable resources. There are many sub-factions of raiders, most of which express various levels of hostility towards the player.

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[KelBlock]

-Reserved-

[AcornCake]

[uno_da_cat]

I think you forgot New Vegas in the OP unless I missed something.

Really excited for a new fallout. They may always feel dated but they are always so much fun.

[Flatflyer]

I think you forgot New Vegas in the OP unless I missed something.

Really excited for a new fallout. They may always feel dated but they are always so much fun.

He missed New vegas! everyone point and laugh at him!
point and laugh!

[KelBlock]

I think you forgot New Vegas in the OP unless I missed something.

Oops. Adding it right now. Done!

He missed New vegas! everyone point and laugh at him!
point and laugh!

:-(

[Flatflyer]

:-(

>:>

[ZombiLoin]

I think you forgot New Vegas in the OP unless I missed something.

Really excited for a new fallout. They may always feel dated but they are always so much fun.

They're not really dated, I mean, they're one of the few triple A games to actually have any real depth.

[uno_da_cat]

They're not really dated, I mean, they're one of the few triple A games to actually have any real depth.

A dated game can have depth. The mechanics (Both melee and shooting feel really clunky.) of the game and the graphics are extremely dated. It's actually a bit of an eye sore to be honest.
Even if the characters look bad and their animations are poor the games have always been very fun. Hopefully the new game won't look exactly like the last in terms of aesthetics. It would be kind of a disappointment if it did.

[Night Fox]

the new game is almost definitely gonna look as good as skyrim

[ZombiLoin]

A dated game can have depth. The mechanics (Both melee and shooting feel really clunky.) of the game and the graphics are extremely dated. It's actually a bit of an eye sore to be honest.
Even if the characters look bad and their animations are poor the games have always been very fun. Hopefully the new game won't look exactly like the last in terms of aesthetics. It would be kind of a disappointment if it did.

The art style should remain the same but the graphics and gameplay really need to be improved, I agree.

[uno_da_cat]

the new game is almost definitely gonna look as good as skyrim

This is what I'm hoping for really. I'd like to see the same changes skyrim had. Better fight mechanics and graphics. Also I'd like a slightly bigger map. The fallout series always has tiny maps :C.

The art style should remain the same but the graphics and gameplay really need to be improved, I agree.

Oh of course. One of the main reasons I love the series is the art style and general theme. I just can't stand looking at the characters faces.

[ZombiLoin]

I'm afraid that Bethesda is going to forget up the story like they did with 3 though.

[Flamecannon]

bethesda is the best at making good buggy games
i'd hope something more than skyrim, from what other's have if i can recall said it didn't push the engine or something far enough
i've also said this a ton (three times?) but i wouldn't mind the next fallout taking place in a winter setting
like maybe it's really dangerous to be out and about like in metro 2033 but open world

[Tonkka²]

i wouldn't mind the next fallout taking place in a winter setting

I don't think dragon shouts fit the Fallout lore.