Opinion - How Bethesda Killed Fallout

Escapist Magazine has an editorial on how Bethesda killed Fallout.

Let's make one thing clear: I didn't bemoan the lack of an option to kill children in Bethesda's Fallout games, but those who did had a point. The original Fallout games were dark. Dark as fuck. Just downright bleak. Yes, they were full of jabs at mid-century American bombast, but those jabs landed with a dry chuckle and left a bitter aftertaste. The joke, they seemed to say, was ultimately on you, sitting in America, enjoying the fruits of that bombast. It took apart Manifest Destiny by showing the inevitable end result, leaving you to draw your own conclusions about whether or not we're the good guys.

Bethesda's Fallout, instead, hears the whispers of hubris inherent in Fallout's lessons of post-World War II Americana and amplifies those whispers to a shout, drowning out the lesson or insight within them. Bethesda's Fallout's jabs at mid-century Americana aren't at the expense of those of us who grew up in it, but rather those who don't buy into it. And they aren't subtle jabs so much as graceless haymakers, landing with a guffaw and a wave of nausea. In Fallout, the atomic-fueled techno-consumerism of the late 21st Century is both setting and antagonist. The world "before" was both awesome and terrible. Its masters beneficent and cruel. In attempting to solve humanity's problem through science, they ultimately created new ones, amplified the old ones, and almost exterminated humanity in the process. In Bethesda's Fallout, you can not only pick up where the 21st Century left off, but you can try most of its failed experiments over again, and purchase the fruits of those once-doomed dalliances in stores. In real life.

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Good article. I've said on here before that Bethesda doesn't understand the Fallout setting that they purchased, and that Fallout 76 has taken that to ludicrous new heights. This guy has put it into words much better than I could have.

While I agree with the article we also have to remember without Bethesda Fallout would of never became much more then a few 90's cult classic RPGs.

I kinda can't agree with the article.
Pushing mmo, even if it's broken and lousy, doesn't instantly mean killing something. Final Fantasy is an example.

Also sorry everyone who was disappointed with FO4. If you used norespawn and noradiantcrap mods, you'd see how good that game really is when not tainted with respawn design crimes. Vanilla game. Didn't buy DLC.

I'm saying if Beth makes FO5, I'm buying.
mmo dead horses I'm not beating. Even if they now announce Dishonored mmo, it'd also be get off my property.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
While I agree with the article we also have to remember without Bethesda Fallout would of never became much more then a few 90's cult classic RPGs.

I'm not sure that's true. Haven't both Obsidian and inXile said they wished they could have acquired Fallout?

Also, to be fair, I'm not 100% sure that Bethesda "doesn't understand" the Fallout setting they bought, it might just be that they don't give a shit and/or that the writers they have (who we all know are pretty bad) might just not be competent enough to pull off the original setting.

Originally Posted by joxer
I kinda can't agree with the article.
Pushing mmo, even if it's broken and lousy, doesn't instantly mean killing something. Final Fantasy is an example.

Also sorry everyone who was disappointed with FO4. If you used norespawn and noradiantcrap mods, you'd see how good that game really is tainted with respawn design crimes. Vanilla game. Didn't buy DLC.

Fallout 4 is just plain boring.

Yes it can be enjoyable but the writing, further RPG diluting, and settlement building almost make it a sim game instead of an RPG. To me it's the weakest Fallout.

I don't care about Fallout 76 it's an online survival game.

Did you install those two mods I mentioned so you don't see "another settlement needs to give you a wedgie"?
You didn't.

Originally Posted by Stingray
I'm not sure that's true. Haven't both Obsidian and inXile said they wished they could have acquired Fallout?

I wish they did but based on the current sales of their crowdfunding games it would have sold nowhere close to what Bethesda's version of Fallout has sold.

Yes I know Fallout:NV was made by Obsidian but the engine was Bethesda's. I'm glad to see Obsidian make another game like it with their new RPG The Outer Worlds.

Originally Posted by joxer
Did you install those two mods I mentioned so you don't see "another settlement needs to give you a wedgie"?
You didn't.

Those two mods don't fix Fallout 4.

Interplay killed the Fallout franchise, no one else:

Van Buren (video game)
Prior to the development of Van Buren, two attempts to make a new Fallout game were halted by Titus Software in favor for other of Interplay's titles, notably console titles. When Interplay lost the rights to make Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate video games for the PC, their game Baldur's Gate III: The Black Hound, in development by Black Isle Studios, was canceled. With the cancellation of Baldur's Gate III, Black Isle Studio's team was immediately transferred to work on Fallout 3, codenamed Van Buren. During this time, Interplay's own team was working on Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, the teams had one meeting together to plan out the games. When many of Black Isle Studio's most talented developers left Black Isle Studios, the developer Damien Foletto responded by stating it was only the trust within the team and belief that they could finish the game that kept them going. The game was officially canceled when Titus decided to try to improve Interplay's console division. This led to a nearly completed Fallout 3 being canceled. Members of the Black Isle team were then either transferred to the development of Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel 2 or Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II, of which only the latter was released.

Mmm nope, I disagree with the editor's position. Bethesda damaged the Fallout brand by forgetting that at its heart its a role-playing game. The game doesn't need to be an exercise in blaming the supposed ills of technological development; the cultural theme of the setting is more about the blind conservatism of the 1950s and its (supposedly) blanket acceptance of authority.

To be fair, the despair and lessons of humanity's depravity were already diminished with the goofy tone of Fallout 2. Bethesda simply cranked it up to 11.

This argument has been around forever and so while I give the author some credit for its creation and articulation, it isn't by any means an original or new position to take.

I think it's pretty clear that philosophically Fallout was going in a different direction when we saw the utterly flippant treatment of nuclear weapons in Bethesda's Fallout 3. Running around shooting off the Fatman and catch phrases out of character like "Steel be with you" were patently absurd and showed little wish to continue the established tone of the original games. Coupled with the more unforgivable gradual reduction of roleplaying themes in recent titles, it is quite easy to mount this particular argument and observe Fallout's decline.

That said, there are new indie titles clamouring for the Fallout mantle. Perhaps this is the direction many disenfranchised fans of the original games are going in.

Sad but true. Personally i think both F3 and F4 are mediocre "elder scrolls with guns" games. I do not hate them or anything, i have played them and i thought they were ok. However, they are nothing compared to the classics.

I am playing Fallout 2 currently after a very long time and i had completely forgot just how different it feels, in a good way. As the article says, the game is indeed very dark and bleak and nothing compared to F3 and F4. The atmosphere in these games is just completely off.

On another note, if Bethesda hadn't bought the rights from Interplay, i am positive that many others would be up for the task. It was a well known IP and people knew that a game in the setting would sell like hot cakes.

I see the games from Beth, Bioware (Obsidian in close future?) are becomimg more action oriented over time and by my own standards, I dont consider their last games as RPGs anymore. I might buy them and enjoy the visuals but Im not able to sink dozens or even hundrets of hours in them anymore (as I tested myself on F4, ME4, which I wasnt able to finish by far). Personally wouldnt mind if they made them shorter.

And for games with complex and innovative gameplay mechanics I will look in production of indie and medium sized companies in the future. Luckily, access to market for these companies is easier then ever before, so I trust the future is bright.

A good article. Although, Beth not understanding what Fallout is about did not kill it. Boring, dumb-down gameplay and greedy suits killed it in the end.

Originally Posted by Stingray
Good article. I've said on here before that Bethesda doesn't understand the Fallout setting that they purchased, and that Fallout 76 has taken that to ludicrous new heights.

No. Bethesda understood the Fallout settings. Bethesda exist to serve though.

Bethesda inherited from a universe that could not be sustained without angering customers.
This showed that Bethesda understood their customers, their desire and transformed accordingly the franchise to serve their master, a master who cant stomach that they are the cause of the change and blame their servant.

FO had a political foundation, cold war US, undubiously dominated by white US Americans.

So it must be believed that a franchise that depicts a dystopic future as the result of a white people dominated world could be accepted without attracting the same old lament of white people are evil propaganda, leftist agenda and stuff.

It must be believed in 2019. If anything, Bethesda sense of anticipation must be praised. They know their customers.

And FO4 took the necessary route: it is about time to reconstruct, to overcome the disaster, to outgrow the deficit, the usual US american stuff.

In 2019, it is clear that white dominated, white only dystopic universes can not born without angering a segment of customers that is going to call stuff like anti white people rhetorics etc

And since they can not be born, diversification is brought in as a diversion.

WH 40k followed the same path.

It was a grim, dark universe at start, technology has failed, expansion has failed, the war was lost, humanity was condemned to worship the corpse of the man who doomed mankind, his teachings were enforced by genocidal fanatics. No future, any second passing by meant worsened situations.

Then GW launched his products in the US and the big wave of change was set, people were associated themselves to Space Marines, taking them for the humanity saviours etc

2019, the same fate as FO: reconstruction is happening, technology is once again moving forward, the war is no longer lost, hope is back. New Space marines are in the making. And the same lamentation from people about diversification.

2019, white people dystopic futures are not sustainable because white people feel so insecure they would associate a political agenda to them.

Bethesda did not kill Fall Out. GW did not kill WH 40k. These guys who can not stomach a bad future dominated by white people did.

Laughing at the demise of the FO universe. The way to go.

Can you kill something tha was already dead?

I suppose obsidian or someone of that ilk could have made a fallout game in the vein of the old ones and had tyranny, torment or even POE level sales but that would have been a drop in the bucket compared to the sales and popularity that Bethesda brought to the franchise. It may have made the core fallout fans more happy but would have done nothing to expand the IP or bring it to a new generation of gamers.

Sure us old guys that have been gaming for 30 years know about fallout but there was a whole generation or two of gamers that didn’t. Bethesda didn’t kill fallout they resurrected it and made it a household name even if us old timers or fallout purist don’t like what the resurrected it in to.