With the Fallout games experiencing a huge uptick in interest, inevitably, people are noticing that there’s some weirdness happening in its world building. So, let’s dive into what’s possibly the world’s most popular post-apocalyptic setting!
Background
Fallout emerged from a failed joint enterprise between Interplay and Steve Jackson Games to create a turn based isometric computer RPG. Interplay would go on to produce Fallout with their own SPECIAL system, and then its sequel Fallout 2. Two spinoff games, Fallout Tactics and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel were also released under their watch, and several more Fallout games were in development when they were forced to sell the franchise to Bethesda. Bethesda produced Fallout 3, Fallout 4, and Fallout 76; while Obsidian Entertainment created Fallout New Vegas. And therein lays the divide and partial connection.
Content Warning: this article includes content covering sexual assault.
Interplay’s Fallout
Under Interplay, Fallout was a very different setting. There were retro-futuristic aspects, like the 50’s style nuclear cars. But it was much closer to the look seen in films like Road Warrior or Mad Max as opposed to the more fully retro-futuristic aesthetic we see in the Bethesda era games. There’s more reconstruction, and barring the vehicles and mutants, things seem more like a real world based post-apocalypse.
A great place to see the difference is in firearms. Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 have their share of invented firearms. There’s also a Desert Eagle .44 Magnum, 9mm Mauser M96, .44 Magnum Revolver, M3A1 Grease Gun, M1928 Thomspon, H&K P90, H&K G11, FN FAL, M60, L86 Light Support Weapon, Pancor Jackhammer, “Bozar” (a renamed Barret .50), and H&K CAWS. A selection of anachronistic weapons whose existence in California period is questionable at best. Many were brand new at the time of design, others experimental, several not generally available in the USA in the 1990s. Not really the hallmarks of a game happening from 2161 CE onwards, in an America that was intensely nationalistic.
The point here is that, as much fun as the Interplay years were for writing out the core events that made the Fallout universe an Alternate Universe (AU) to our own, they weren’t great at smooth world building. There were a lot of real-world influences at work, and a different aesthetic. It was also a hyper “local” world, existing primarily in the vicinity of California with a brief outreach as far east as St. Louis. California was the locus of the game world though, with little being known about the larger world.
The hallmarks of the Interplay Fallout universe are its darker themes, deeper connections to the real world, and reconstruction of civilization. Of these, the first and last are more notable. In the Interplay era, the Enclave are cardboard cutout villains. They’re there to commit atrocities and unambiguous bad guys, no matter how their own actions hinder their plans; they are cartoonishly evil. And rape is a story element in their universe. Most notably in Fallout 2, where interactions between a female player character and the NPC Myron can lead to the character being drugged and raped. On the last point, reconstruction, the Interplay universe is one where new civilizations and societies are rising out of the ashes of the old. As opposed to the peoples of the Bethesda era, who live in scrap huts and the leftovers of pre-war buildings, the people of the Interplay era are rebuilding and developing. Notably, Super Mutants are an integrated part of several communities in Fallout 2, and have more agency.
Bethesda’s Fallout
Once purchased, Bethesda scrapped a lot of the stuff in development and did some serious world building. Their goal appears to have been to create a tighter world build with a more defined aesthetic that was more firmly in an “AU” than it was. And music is where it started. Classic pre-rock and roll songs from the 40’s and 50’s had been part of the franchise before, and Bethesda leaned into that, making songs from the 30’s to 50’s the standard. This fed into the retro-futuristic aesthetic they were looking to create by increasing the immersion.
And the aesthetic is the key thing here. Bethesda scrapped or retconned pretty much everything. Were the Chinese using AKs and Mauser pistols? Yes, but they were renamed and reskinned to be different from their real-world equivalents. America got a new service rifle, the R91. Power armour was polished up and new models introduced. And the world became more scrap build and less intentional construction.
The big things that Bethesda did though was lean harder into the weirdness of Atomic Horror and the 50’s/60’s America vibe (minus the hippies and peace movement) that Interplay started. They also made a firmer distinction between the real world and the AU they were evolving from the Interplay baseline. Some decisions were misses with the existing fanbase, but the result was a tighter world build.
In the Bethesda Era, the hallmarks are different. As stated, they’re deeper into the Atomic Horror and selected aesthetics than Interplay went. Their Fallout universe is one where the villains are smarter, working to succeed in their plans and not just be evil for evil’s sake, and where there are more factions at work than are available to interact with (I’m looking at you, Gunners). The Bethesda era is also pulpier than the Interplay era; the Pulp genre has always been a bit of an influence, but Bethesda runs harder with it. This is why Zetans (the aliens), Cthulhu-esque Old Ones and their artifacts (Ug-Qualtoth, the Dunwich company, and the Cabot family), and cryptids (all of Fallout 76) are more prevalent in their universe. It’s part of how they’re building their AU.
There is one major issue with Bethesda’s Fallout world build though, and it needs to be addressed separately. And that’s the formulaic nature of it. It seems that the attitude of Bethesda’s world designers is that all the key IP elements of Fallout, Super Mutants, the Brotherhood of Steel, and others, are a grab bag to apply to all games and times. This has resulted in some weak world building, particularly around the Brotherhood of Steel in the Bethesda Universe.
Obsidian’s Fallout
After releasing Fallout 3, Bethesda contracted Obsidian Entertainment to make Fallout New Vegas on the same engine, and things got weird. Why? There was a significant presence of ex-Interplay staff at Obsidian. People who had worked on Fallout 1 and Fallout 2, and on the cancelled projects. The result was a partial return to the Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 status quo.
The team eschewed many of the items of equipment and world development that Bethesda had introduced and reintroduced a selection of anachronistic weapons back into the game. They also brought in elements that I suspect were part of their plans for Interplay’s cancelled Fallout 3 and other games. Obsidian also reintroduced rape into the universe, with the raider character Cook-Cook who has raped two NPCs in the game, and with scenes set up to imply that dead female NPCs had been raped.
Obsidian only made New Vegas and its DLC, and the core game was very much in the style and design of the Interplay era. In the DLC, they divided their efforts. For two, they adhered to the more super-science and pulp vibe of Bethesda’s Fallout; Dead Money (set in the futuristic hologram and poison fog filled Sierra Madre resort), and Old World Blues (where the Courier enters Big MT, a nightmarish scientific research & development facility run by insane pre-war scientists). In the other DLC released that had storylines, it was very much back to the realm of Interplay’s interpretation of the universe.
A deviation in the Bethesda universe, the Obsidian take on Fallout is very much the last gasp of the Interplay universe. It’s not bad in itself, but its different vibe, aesthetics, and anachronisms set it apart from the rest of the Bethesda era developments. It also makes it hard to reconcile with the directions Bethesda is taking the franchise.
Two Universes, One Timeline
So how does this all come together? Honestly, it doesn’t really. For all intents and purposes, there is one Fallout Timeline, and two universes running parallel to one another on it. The Interplay universe is darker, grittier, and edgy in an 90’s edgelord kind of way that makes it cringy; and it’s very familiar to anyone who consumes popular mass media featuring post-apocalypse settings in terms of visuals. The Bethesda universe is more purposeful, leans harder into the pulp adventure genre, and is more willing to let its various factions develop and evolve into more believable groups. New Vegas tries to straddle the divide, and the results are shaky at best.
Ending the Interplay Era
Until now, Bethesda has stuck to the east coast for its games, leaving the NCR and Mojave alone. But with the launch of the Fallout series on Amazon Prime, this practice came to an end. Given the events portrayed, it’s my belief that Bethesda is getting ready to head west and are scrubbing the board clean. The NCR is likely restricted to Northern California after the destruction of Shady Sands and is dramatically weaker than in Fallout 2 or New Vegas. The Brotherhood of Steel is operating in the open again and resurgent, with their airship returned from the east coast. And New Vegas seems to have had a bad time post the events of the game; which makes sense with the NCR’s fall from power.
I think that these choices were deliberate in order to extend the Bethesda universe to the rest of the known and canon world. That means that the west coast needs to be brought into line with the new aesthetic and vibe. And the Fallout TV show does that. The locations, people, and equipment are all right out of the Bethesda playbook. Sure, there’s some modifications, but the core is there and it’s overwriting the aesthetic and vibe of the Interplay universe that previously dominated that region.
Final Thoughts
Fallout has some of the most fun world building out there as far as I’m concerned, but it’s not without its flaws. Afterall, like so many big-name worlds today, its origins are in the 1990’s where things like “continuity” and “planning” weren’t really a thing, especially in the game world. And this is the root of the issue. Interplay had a specific vision, and that vison clashes with Bethesda’s. Interplay’s world build was looser and included more anachronistic elements. Bethesda’s world build is a more thematically sound one that’s deeper into being an AU. And here’s the thing, they’re both okay. But increasingly, they can’t coexist because there’s increasing conflict between the two AUs in terms of vision and direction. I think that things are going to become more frustrating for Interplay AU Fallout fans as things progress with the franchise as it continues forward under Bethesda.
