Gamers can be fussy folk, to say the very least. Developers often need to walk a fine line in order to innovate enough to keep new games fresh, while also staying true to the heart and soul of a franchise. The latter can be difficult when different people love different games for different reasons.
Enter: Fallout.
1997 and 1998 saw back-to-back releases of Fallout and Fallout 2. Both games were turn-based RPGs set in a retro-futurepunk post-nuclear war world. Gesundheit! I’ve never played either of these games, but I’m familiar enough with them to know that the RPG element is strong in both titles, with multiple choices, endings, and strategies being made available to the player.
Fallout 3 didn’t get released until 2008. Ain’t that a gap? Sure, there were two spin-offs released in the interim, but ten years between main installments is no small wait. When you factor in the rate at which technology advances, we’re looking at a veritable lifetime between the two. Obviously, things were a little different when Fallout 3 rolled around.
This new installment abandoned the turn-based combat and added some standard shooter elements. First- or third-person cameras were available, your preference, and exploring the open world was completely different. No more isometric world design for you! This was the Fallout of the future!
The game didn’t abandon its RPG roots, however. Leveling up was still a core mechanic, a dynamic main quest gave you some freedom in your goals, and there was more than enough to do on the side to keep people invested in the world in which they found themselves. No, it wasn’t turn-based, but the V.A.T.S. system was a unique way to freeze time in combat and take aim, keeping a certain strategic element alive. It’s an incredibly fun game, both for the interesting story and for the harrowing recreation of a nuked-to-hell Washington, DC.
Two years later, Bethesda published a spin-off installment that was developed by Obsidian Entertainment called Fallout: New Vegas. Set in the Mojave Desert, this entry upped the fluidity of the story tenfold, giving the player far more freedom than Fallout 3 did. There wasn’t one main quest, there were several. It all depended on the factions you favored.
Attempting to read through a summary of the story on Wikipedia is like trying count how many strands of spaghetti are in your dish. The downside of New Vegas was that the world was comparatively dull; a vast expansive desert isn’t quite as interesting as the crumbling ruins of our nation’s capital. But what the game lacked in visual pizzazz, it more than made up for in story and elasticity.
Things went dark for another five years. This gap was when I played Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas for the first time. My first move out of college was to build a gaming PC, so I caught up on my Bethesda entertainment on my new rig. Between these games, plus Skyrim, I was relatively hooked on the formula. So when Fallout 4 was announced for 2015, I was finally on board with the hype. I could finally play a Fallout game on release and take part in the discovery, exploration, and discussions along with my peers. I could participate in the zeitgeist!
Though the fanbase was ravenous at the time, public favor for the game has certainly cooled over the last four years. Never one for nuance, the internet can provide many reasons why the game sucks: the story, the quests, the general dumbing-down of the mechanics, you name it! Fallout 4, depending on who ask, might just be a bad game.
The reason for this sour sentiment stems from the lack of emphasis on RPG elements. Some previous games tracked your “Karma” as a general measure of how much you’ve stolen, killed, assisted, or donated. Karma, in 4, was no longer. You lived in a world without justice, and the outcome of your actions is up to who had the faster gun in Boston.
Many earlier entries had “Factions;” groups of people that you could align with and reap the rewards of their favor. This would often put you at odds with other teams, however. Who you aligned with was a function of your priorities as a player. Factions, in 4, were reduced to an ornamental touch. The Railroad, the Minutemen, the Brotherhood of Steel, and the Institute were all technically unique groups of people with competing interests, but you never really had to curry favor with any of them. They each had a questline, with many of said quests overlapping, and you only ever became an “enemy” of a faction right before you wiped them out. These parties were cosmetic, really, and there wasn’t much “gameification” in your juggling of quests. It was certainly a simpler approach than in previous entries.
Praise was also heaped up on the dialogue systems of old. Though it’s true for other installments, New Vegas sticks out in my head for the enormous leeway the player has in conversations. Simply talking was a game unto itself, as you attempted to glean crucial information, convince weary travelers, and bargain for useful materials. Sentences were locked behind stats that you had to level up to and enemies could be made if you said the wrong thing. Dialogue, in 4, was much simpler. You could say “Yes,” and accept a quest. You could say “No,” which would put the quest on hold until you came back and said "Yes." You could say a sarcastic remark, which was the same as saying “Yes” except it was a little funnier. All told, there wasn’t a lot of consequence to your conversations.
Longtime fans of Fallout were dismayed at the reduction of their favorite franchise. It’s understandable, too. Despite rolling my eyes at the hyperbolic vitriol it’s couched in, I understand what it’s like to boot up a new installment in your series of choice, only to see that the developers horribly misunderstood what made the previous titles so great. Oh believe me, I understand; *cough*Other M*cough*. No one wants to play a bad game.
But I love Fallout 4.
When I say I love it, I mean “have hundreds upon hundreds of hours into it” love it. Rainy days, lazy Sundays, or just nights when I’m not sure what I’m in the mood for—I always turn to Fallout 4.
Why? I just spent several paragraphs ripping apart the game! Remember when I said a sequel needs to retain that heart and soul? What happened to that? How can I love a game that is fundamental misfire in the furthering of the franchise? Alex is a hypocrite!
Well, simply put, I never loved Fallout for the RPG. I loved it for the world. If you’re unaware, Fallout takes place in a world that’s futuristic and retro at the same time. Robots are household helpers, laser guns and electric landmines are standard issue, and every soldier has access to a suit of Iron Man-esque armor. At the same time, Cold War color schemes and Atomic Age advertising make up the rest of the aesthetic. The world of Fallout looks exactly like what someone in the 1950s would have assumed the future would look like. It’s very Twilight Zone, from head to toe. And boy does that tickle me.
Furthermore, if you know me, you know I’m not one for doing what I’m told. I like to walk around, investigate the nooks and crannies, and go out of my way to see “what’s over there.” With an ever-expanding map, the exploration is tailor made for Alex Russo. Fallout 4 features the best landscape in the series to date. Glimmering lighthouses on the edge of the ocean promise a treacherous adventure across the suburbs of Boston. The wreckage of comic book stores and baseball diamonds in the city boast horrifying enemies and colorful allies alike. Even houses on the edge of town are littered with details that just beg you to find them.
Though the V.A.T.S. system is still present in the game, the gunplay is more well-rounded on the whole. Enemies are no longer bullet sponges and, with the right stats and weapon upgrades, I can turn the game into an exercise in stealth. Now my sniper rifle will actually kill someone, instead of simultaneously making my target angry AND giving away my position. Now when I play, I can sneak in, find my target, and neutralize any threats without arousing suspicion.
So let’s combine these elements, shall we? I now have the ability to boot up a game that takes place in a Twilight Zone-y post-apocalyptic future where I have the freedom to go to any unexplored corner of the map at my discretion, find a hideout of enemies that I can stealthily pick off one-by-one, and slowly infiltrate their base to discover what treasures they’ll be hiding. As far as my taste is concerned, that is a winning combination.
The icing on the cake, through all of this, is that the game features one of the best base-building features I've ever seen. As someone who enjoys aimlessly constructing heavy-duty compounds full of auto-turrets and framed cat pictures, Bethesda won me over yet again.
Of course I’ve beaten the main game. I sided with the Brotherhood of Steel and destroyed the Institute. I acknowledge that siding with either the Railroad or the Minutemen would have yielded the same result. I know that those quests were always waiting for me if I chose to stop dillydallying and that I couldn’t fail any of them due to saying the wrong thing in conversation. Yes, I will admit that my freedoms were limited in the main quest. But that doesn’t matter to me, because I had freedom where it mattered. The story was what got me in the door, but I stayed for everything else.
So, has this whole post been a long-winded way of saying “people have different opinions?” Is that what we’ve really accomplished here?
Not quite.
Fallout 4 is geared towards those people who like to fastidiously manage an inventory, voraciously explore a map, and dig in to the nuts and bolts of combat. It’s not geared towards people who want to play a sprawling RPG or navigate a nuanced story. Maybe this was by design, maybe not. Who knows? But there are some complex feelings associated with falling on the “loving” side of something that’s otherwise divisive. I now find myself needing to justify why I like the changes that were made to your favorite toy. After all, I’m a latecomer to this franchise.
There are times I try to walk a theoretical mile in their shoes. How would I feel if, in a few years, I boot up the newly-released Metroid Prime 4, only to discover that’s now a Halo-style shooter? How would I feel if everybody loved that? I’d be disappointed for sure. These people have tons of first-person shooters; why did they have to ruin my thing? Don’t these people realize how good it was before?
That’s not a good feeling to have. So I understand why old-school Fallout fans have it when I say I don’t care about the factions in Fallout 4 because I just want to roam around the city and dig through burned out buildings. I understand that I’m that guy that’s ruining their favorite game, right?
Well…no. I’m not.
I didn’t make Fallout 4. I’m not making Metroid Prime 4. I’m not making any games (except for the one that I’m currently developing and you can follow me on Twitter for updates). So, in a sense, I don’t have any responsibility to uphold the Fallout legacy. Video games aren’t taxes or elementary schools or public works that require a certain level of selflessness to improve society. Like any other piece of art, video games are entertainment, and on that score, I’m going to be a little selfish. This game makes me happy, so I’m going to play it. I’m sorry if it doesn’t make you happy; truly, I am. Hopefully the next one will make us both happy. But in the meantime, the game has been released, what’s done is done, and I’m going to play it because I think it’s fun. I just don't have the mental bandwidth to feel bad about liking something just because other people don't like it. I'm going to enjoy the thing I enjoy.
I love Fallout 4 and that's okay with me.
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