The Best of Fallout

 

As surreal as it is to say out loud- by the time this blog comes out the Amazon Fallout series would have debuted and we'll know well and truly whether or not Johnathon Nolan has pulled of what, frankly, sounds impossible. (Making a good Fallout TV series that both respects the source material and introduces a wider audience.) I've been impressively sceptical throughout all the marketing stages, but that was because I already knew I was going to be watching the show- so the chief point of the marketing, to draw my watch, was irrelevant. All that was left was the hunt for any indication that this show had been mistreated or placed in unfit hands and so far... I'm not sure. But I don't want to air such feelings, I want to talk about the best of what Fallout was so we can celebrate more coming to our post-apocalyptic wasteland after all this time waiting!

The original Fallout was brought into existence as a spiritual successor to the original Wasteland- and in that vein I found their command of portraying the harshness of the Wastes to be Fallout's biggest strength. The tribes, gangs and roving packs of mutants creates this kind of survivalist-western vibe, alongside the overbearing reminder of the scarceness of common essentials. That the entire story is about securing the water for your tribe is a grounding factor cutting through all the silliness and black humour that would come to characterise the Fallout franchise later. I think it's the spirit of this original game that keeps the franchise from devolving into the out-and-out tryhard comedy that Borderlands has become. Not that the original Fallout doesn't have it's share of absurdities, mind you- but it was really Fallout 2 that defined those original twists.

Fallout 3 cannot, in my opinion, be under-represented for the influence it had on action adventure RPGs. Before Fallout the very idea of a RPG, with inventory management and levelling and all that good stuff- was the pure purview of fantasy. People were still stuck in the mires of what Dungeons and Dragons stood for when it was introduced all those decades prior, despite the fact that many more modern set RPGs had been fully realised in the years since. (Cyberpunk, Shadowrun- there were options!) What Fallout 3 did so well was bring those concepts, creating your own character, living a life of consequence and customised outcomes, and brought it to a generalised audience through a widely accessible genre type. For all that I think Fallout 3 did wrong in it's direction- I will never call it over-rated. The game had it's part in play in the journey of the craft.

New Vegas was pretty much the game that defined what every RPG could be for the next ten years. Oodles of potential to be whoever you were amidst a wild and untamed post-war society balanced between various factions of different shades of thug. New Vegas was all about creating a world without ultimate forces and providing tools to the player to veer practically whatever direction they wanted to create the world they wanted to. New Vegas is a bit much when you first play it, but all it takes is a little bit of experimentation to learn the true range of what is possible with a little bit of creative thinking. And that's just narratively. The world is also the franchise's best in terms of individual character writing, ambitious side quest lines that introduce you to unforgettable side characters, brilliant DLC support with the single best written lore story in Fallout history hidden away within and... it's the best Fallout game ever made, nuff said.

Fallout 4 was the game that really nailed a comprehensive look to the Fallout universe. Whereas New Vegas will remain my favourite, and because it was built on the bones of Fallout 3- I consider that look to be what Fallout is when I imagine it- Fallout 4's redesigns hit every single nail directly on the head for creating the most tangible vision of what Fallout could be. I understand fully why this was the world that Johnathon Nolan sought to bring to life when he started on the show. The functionality of the Vaults, the genuine 'mech suit' iteration of power armour, the bestial remodelling of mutated Yao Gui and Deathclaw- that is the Fallout we always saw in our minds eye- and seeing it brought to life is a special kind of brilliant. 

76 was the Fallout game that introduced some of the most contentious parts of the lore that... I suppose broke up the stigma of this franchise being a coherent narrative. I mean there was a time when the Fallout wasteland was this ever-stretching blossoming cornucopia of new stories and ideas that could spring up game after game, but Bethesda have been so enamoured with the Brotherhood of Steel for so very long it's become clear they'll shoehorn those tincans into literally anything that they can. 76 has been the dissolution of the brand, and from that has come a lot of new ideas- which is something worth celebrating I guess. We've got a whole new branch of the Brotherhood that spawned half a continent away from the Maxon branch by way of radio. We have every company and their mother developing their own suits of Power Armour. Note, I didn't say 'sprays for power armour' such as you find in Nuka World- I'm talking brand new fully unique sets of Power Armour. Every private company in Appalachia has one of their own now! And... I guess we just don't have to care anymore.

Along the way I suppose it's worth celebrating some of the other games that have struggled along in relative obscurity lending their little this and that to the franchise as they're fazed out of canonicity. At the very least Fallout Shelter is worth a shout-out for being the most successful Fallout game of all time. Yes, that is the sad truth of the mobile market. The game is sick though, I understand the appeal. Pretty sure they heavily toned down the drop rate of legendary settlers though. Of course, the best of the best Fallout has to offer will always be their mods- for which New Vegas is the reigning king. The Someguy Series of bounty-hunting mods, Tale of Two Wastelands, Enclave Rising, Autumn Leaves, Fallout California... and I suppose Fallout: The Frontier is worth a mention. The community for Fallout is so brilliant and huge they go out of their way to make the Fallout they love! Isn't that great?

Now with Fallout being passed into the relative mainstream through Amazon we've lost a bit of that control over the franchise as fans. I wonder what will become of the little gaming franchise that could, of the dozens of self-developed stories and adventures that turned our wasteland heroes into unique little nuggets of legend. Will Amazon now own a portion of this franchise? Will they wrangle the rights to start developing their own Fallout content? Will there be a breakdown of Western Civilisation driven by a collective desire to see Jeff Bezos release the rights to make a Fallout New Vegas 2 to Obsidian- a conflict that rises to such a crazed fever pitch that the powers that be have no recourse but to fire thermo-nuclear missiles upon their own constituents, plunging the world into nuclear fire? Probably not. But you never know.