#fo1 set

[magg0t-king]

as you guys might've known, I'm absolutely down bad for the fallout games. so uh-

[thefalloutwiki]

Fallout: Set

“The Necropolis was mine. Not an all-things-great, but a straight-place for my kind. Then the Master showed. He could've fragged me good, but it was easy for him to just stand some muties and keep an eye on.”

- Set, Fallout

The Fallout Official Survival Guide describes Set's speech mannerisms as “abrupt, harsh, and so jargon-laden he is, at times, a bit difficult to understand.” You can read more about Set here:

https://fallout.wiki/wiki/Set

[enlichened]

fallout fans i beseech thee... whats a plausable m/m couple in the first game. my only stipulation is that it CANNOT include the master

[stupid-sloot-headcanons]

hancock would be a fun yandere. he would NEVER hurt you, but if someone even looks at you wrong hes gonna stab them in your honor.

god forbid if you yell at him. he will cry. you will look like a dick.

Yeeyeye he's that really chill yandere who only shows that unstable obsession when a threat to Darling shows up. But apart from that? Pretty normal loving boyfriend. Apart from the whole "not having skin" thing

[wastedlands]

wait i just realised that genuinely there are only two games where you don’t play someone originally from a vault

[glamfellens]

todd hates that everyone thinks fallout 1, 2 & NV are better than his fallout games so much that he just had to go and retcon everything. ass.

ok to be honest normally im kind of like.. Hmm about when people say todd howard hates the original fallout games, or that bethesda deliberately sabotaged obsidian, etc etc etc, because im like thats a grown ass man he has to have some level of professionalism right, and from all reports from obsidian they had a good working relationship with bethesda during the development of new vegas. but like, to be honest, everything with the fallout show (to me) feels very . um well. thoughtless at best, spiteful/malicious at worst. they could have set it literally anywhere in america, in any time period. yet they chose the NCR, post fnv/fo4, and clearly bethesda/todd made no directions about sticking to fo1/2/NV lore, because well first of all they didnt lmfao, and secondly, i know it was mentioned that bethesda/todd vetoed any storylines or plots that they would want to cover in a future fallout 5. soooo im just kind of confused as to why bethesda will draw the line when it comes to what they want to do, but said no, go fucking crazy with the lore that interplay/black isle/obsidian established. it feels especially shitty when previous interviews with the writers of the show insisted that they were 'adding' to the fallout lore and not changing anything. so tldr i agree with u. fuck todd howard. fuck bethesda. i think its beyond disgusting that they have treated the work of other developers and creators in this way. idc if it sounds dramatic, because they do this, all the while are perfectly happy to sell new vegas merch on the bethesda store. lol!!!!!!!!

[calder]

reasons to reflexively reject the notion that the canon fallout 4 protag is the soldier in the fo1 intro

prevents patriotic/idealistic fans from imagining the canon sole survivor to be an innocent american soldier

new lore touching old lore is categorically gross and fake

okay, somebody's gotta be brave enough to take a shot at this pagliarulo guy

regularly scheduled flashpoint opportunity to redirect general dissatisfaction with the IP onto some quirk of the fiction

reasons to entertain the idea that the fo4 protag is the soldier in the fo1 intro

thoroughly thematically resonant and appropriate

makes world more interconnected

neat cinematic coincidence already typical of the series' storytelling

does not obviously damage the setting in any specific way whatsoever

[leona-florianova]

I sincerely like when just "kind eh OK" show stumbles and face slams into the pavement right at the finishing line... makes it kinda hilarious actually. Aw damn buddy you almost got it. You got the emotional response, but you also lack teeth and failed at what you were supposed to do....

*sigh* why did they reveal one of the core unanswered questions that was supposed to stay unanswered..

*sigh*

If i wasnt mainly fo1 fo2 n fonv fan i might have liked it..kinda..like.. its ok show.. The pacing is bad and the characters get progressively dumber..but it has some aspects that I enjoyed. The gore.. The ghouls...the set design..They also picked really good and interesting actors for main AND support cast (many character actors that I always enjoy seeing no matter where!!!)...

Also also many moments that reminded me of original fallouts and that tbh makes me sadder more than anything else...sadder kinda fondly kinda sourly...ill get back to replaying those fosils because of that.

n speaking of the old games..There were Many retcons I dont agree with... and the possibility that the show lore is canon over the game lore is absurd. Fortunately if true, it doesnt really bother me because I differentiate between the different games lores to begin with.. Its just a bummer...

I expected much much worse and I prepared for way much WORSE.. and it was... eh ok

tho...funnily enough as of writing this I am forgetting what even happened on the show...

oh well

[snapitkeeper]

some refs I made fr my fav FO1 NPCs!! ( excluding Set cause my brother wanted 2 draw the ref fr him )

[magg0t-king]

Here's my list of 'Top 5 Characters Evan(me) wishes he could romance within the entire Fallout game series'

⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀

5. Nick Valentine

-I like robocop.

-He's one of those characters I talk about constantly to my parents.

-I loved building a friendship with him.

-Idk what else to say but uh... He's a dreamboat???

4. Erickson

-I didn't know how to feel about him at first, but then I was like 🥺

-He's respectful, he takes care of dogs, and he offers me food + a bed to sleep in.

-I've spent over 4,000 caps on buying dogs from him(my favorite being Gracie)

-To be honest, I'd kill to just be bffs with him.

3. Sergeant Arch Dornan

-Bro makes me giggle.

-Would've killed someone to have him as a companion.

-I'm the mo-ron he's talking about.

-I think I'd end up breaking down if he yelled at me.

2. Lieutenant (Lou?)

-He's so elegant like--

-I am not ashamed to say that I'd pick him over Valentine any day.

-Love how he calls me dear human lmao (in the game y'know)

-I do not like how he'd want to turn me into a super mutant tho.

1. ✨Harold&Bob(all games)✨

-God I love him so much.

-He's an extremely lovable character.

-He goes from homeless guy, to cranky peepaw branch, and then all the way to big depressed tree(+he's in the bos game, but I'm if-y on it)

-I really wish he was a fallout companion because then I could read to him and show him my collection of random things.

-Also I love taking care of plants so expect this guy to have the best plant care known to man.

⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀↘‿↗⁀

[fandomcringebucket]

started playing fallout 1 recently, had a thought:

So. Cooper's been wastelanding for a long time. He's originally from California. Theoretically, he could have met and potentially known THE Vault Dweller from Vault 13. And that has me thinking.

FO1 is very early in the timeline, it's set only 84 years after the bombs dropped in 2077, whereas the show is set 219 years after the bombs fell. Where would Coop have been? Was he already bounty hunting and wastelanding back then or would he have been keeping his head down and scraping by, just trying to survive like most pre-war ghouls you find in the games? What was Coop like during his early days in the wasteland?

Obviously he's extremely calloused now from the centuries he's spent doing this shit- he's objectively not a good person now. But what would he have been like back then? Could you see the beginnings of those walls he's built up around himself overtime? The start of the persona of The Ghoul he's created for himself? Would he have been more morally grey back then, rather than wholly blackened by the harsh reality of the wasteland?

Something to think about.

[emmettkane]

Fallout New Vegas represented a subtle evolution from FO1 and 2, from a world where people did whatever they needed to do to survive, to one where they tried to rebuild according to their resources and needs. It explored how, under the gun, people would hold onto their traditions, how the old ways that destroyed the world would attempt to insidiously weave their way into the new one.

It also explored how, despite that insidious instinct, things would change for the better, or that, at the very least, they could change for the better. New traditions would arise, new practices, and eventually, the old ways would either fade or mutate into something unrecognizably different.

The fallout show chose to erase those ideas, set things back to zero, undo the growth that had already happened and replace it with a civilization that was neither stuck in their traditions nor willing to advance, a hopeless tale justified by a shadow-government of hyper-competent, hyper-intelligent billionaires who cannot be reasoned with or overcome, and who apparently do not make meaningful mistakes.

---

The intense narrative regression that takes place between Fallout: New Vegas and the show is frustrating, but what's even more frustrating are the people who so gladly embrace it.

In a recent interview, Todd Howard asserted that Fallout games would never be set outside of America, and noted that "It’s okay to leave mystery or questions..." and that 'Americana naivete' was core to the identity of the game franchise.

I'll try to ignore the fact that they felt the need to 'answer the mystery' of 'who dropped the bombs' in the show, a mystery that, given the miserable, myopic answer (evil billionaires oh nooooooo) would have been better left unanswered.

The more egregious idea is that Americana has a deep relevance to the themes of any of the official stories in the setting. Even in Bethesda produced titles, it is, at most an aesthetic element.

Anticommunism, consumer culture, American exceptionalism, rugged individualism, western chauvinism, and other ideas that could be explored through the lenses of retrofuturism and Americana are roundly ignored in Bethesda titles, where those lenses are used entirely to generate advertising and nostalgia-bating appeal instead.

In earlier titles, those subjects are expressed, but are either not the main focus of the games or are simplified. The intro cinematic to the original Fallout includes a shot of an American soldier executing a soldier of annexed Canadian and then waving to the camera, followed by a power-armored head placed proudly before an American flag. The opinion here is not clarified further because it doesn't need to be: American imperialism is bad, and was likely a contributing factor to the apocalypse.

---

Some people think that Liberty Prime from fallout 3 and 4 constitutes a commentary on something, or espouses some value or philosophical ideal.

If it does, and if you agree with it, congratulations, you are the commentary.

[papakhan]

@lynettethemadscientist replied to your post “Oh actually I think if you only play fallout 4 and...”:

Oh is this about me? I just only played Fallout 4 so far. I’m new to the Fallout series. Are people in fandoms not allowed to enter discourse until they’ve consumed every piece of relevant media?

​I didn’t want to make this its own post but I’ve written so much I kind of have to. I've turned off reblogs but feel free to add to this in my replies.

You put up a sign saying "I don't think raiders can be humanised, change my mind" and then argued with people who tried to have discussions with you. All 3 of the people who tried to engage in a discourse with you gave up and I can see why. You're ignoring their points and talking as if these characters in a video game have agency and are choosing to “dehumaniz(e) themselves” when they don't, they are lines of code written by somebody else with their own preconceived biases. What people are asking you to do when humanising raiders is to think outside of the mechanics of a video game and think about their nuances. What led them to this way of life? What do they think of it? Do they wanna get out or are they happy as they are? Forget yourself as the player character ready and willing to blast their brains out for a second and just think of them as people.

Here's the thing, I like Raiders. That doesn't mean I think everything they do is justified, but I like to think about how they justify themselves, which is something the og Fallout and Fallout New Vegas are very good at. Fo1 and FoNV's raiders are defined and their actions and rationale make sense and even if you don't personally agree you can still understand how and why they came to those conclusions. Fallout 4 and Fallout 3 are some of the worst games when it comes to talking about character justifications, including both raiders and normal wastelanders (and your companions!) Nobody in-game can explain why they're still living in the same bombed-out crumbling building full of skeletons because the writers don't care, they just want their wasteland setting and don't want to think about anything else. You coming in to complain about how "I have yet to see any backstories for the settlers" and how the prewar skeletons and raiders typing in terminals are stealing all the limelight with their "sob stories" when you've only played 1 game out of 6-8 is just silly. I promise you the other games are full of settler stories, it's just the game that you're playing and using as your source doesn't really bother with it.

I also don't have a problem with you only just getting into the series. I promise you that I'm NOT trying to gatekeep or anything like that, Fallout is a great series with a lot of stuff I'm sure you'll enjoy. However what you need to understand is that a lot of the games, especially Fo1 and FoNV are very politically heavy games and unfortunately you cannot engage in discourse with them without stepping on some people's political sensibilities. You acting like there's a hardline between right and wrong and stealing, dealing/doing drugs, and being in gangs are objectively evil things to do just comes across as you showing your ass regarding how you feel about actual real-life poor people who are right now in jail for doing those things just to survive. I don't know if those are actually your beliefs but that's just the nature of publically discussing these topics. Good and Bad, and Right and Wrong are very contentious topics and again you acting like the only thing that makes us human is being able to "*choose* right over wrong" and saying "An important aspect of humanity is self-control" is a bad look. Are you saying that people with self-control issues aren't human? Because that's how you come across.

I wanna finish this by saying I'm not mad at you. I didn't wanna pick a fight with you, hence why I made a vague-post instead of replying directly. I'll be honest with you I made that post because I saw your replies and was very disheartened and disappointed, maybe I shouldn't have made a post when I was emotional and for that I'll say that I'm sorry. However, the reason why I've taken time out of my day to write this huge reply is because I love Fallout and I want people to be able to enjoy it and have as much fun with it as I do, so I want you to understand what other people were trying to explain to you and why it might have felt like the discussions weren't going anywhere.

I encourage you to have discussions about this game and think about it as deeply as you want but you do need to be mindful about what it is you're discussing. This game has plenty to dissect but unfortunately, classism and racism are some of the things hard-baked into a lot of the lore by the nature of how old it is and who some of the writers/devs are. Of course I don't think you're those things, but it's important to me that you know where this comes from, why it's so important to be critical of the media you consume AND why so many people are critical of Fallout's writing especially when it comes to the Raiders. This isn't a You thing, I don't have a problem with you, it's just the writing choices that you're choosing to defend.

[stupid-sloot-headcanons]

everytime you write "seth" my mind read it as "sid", and for a moment I think you're referring to Sid from Ice Age, and while I immediately realize that isn't the case, I need you to know that I fully accepted that you'd be into Sid from Ice Age

OH

(and I cannot stress this enough)

MY GOD

Baaaaaabe, this is NOT the animated character voiced by John Leguizamo that I would want to fuck. That would be my man Bruno from Encanto lmao

But Set looks like this! And he's *also* sexier than Sid the sloth, which is tbf an astronomically low bar.

[regarding-stories]

The Culmination - Fallout: New Vegas (The Fallout Series as stories, part 3)

First I told you about the original games, the classic 2D games from the 1990s that built the world and the story. Then I talked about the mixed efforts by Bethesda to convert this into a 3D spectacle. I admit I'm biased, but I'm biased because I prefer certain experiences over others. And this leads you to the 3D title not developed by Bethesday, set between FO3 and FO4, chronologically, which is of course "Fallout: New Vegas".

FO:NV was developed involving some of the people that made the original Fallout franchise under a license of Bethesda which now owned the IP. There's quite a few people who consider FO:NV the genius piece of the series, and IMO that's because it prioritizes story, themes, and consistency over other design concerns. The game has the feel of people working on it that understood the world and knew how to bring it alive.

But it has something else going for it: It dared being something new. That's something FO3 never really dared, coloring within well-established lines. And something that FO4 dabbled with with mixed success. FO:NV has flaws, but what it achieved outweighed them in my book.

Two different kinds of story

FO1 had a vault dweller explore this dangerous world for the first time, thwart a major threat, and leave a legacy. FO2 varied this backstory somewhat, but to be fair, is a rehash, except that both managed to introduce different-seeming threats. Both have you set out to find a MacGuffin in a race against time (a water chip, a terraforming kit), only to battle major evils. So you could say FO2 was, also out of economic necessity, almost a remake of FO1.

And yet. FO2 built an evolving world on top of FO1. That is its redeeming quality. No matter what else new it introduced, even leaving its strong lore aside, this is what makes FO2 still worthwhile, you get to play the world resulting from the one you left behind in the last game.

I personally think that one defining moment of any worldbuilding or franchise happens when somebody tries to tell a major story within it that is not like the previous ones. This happened for Star Wars with "Rogue One" because this was at heart a war movie, using the story tropes of bravery and sacrifice, not a movie about Jedi knights and space pilots saving the world single-handedly. "Andor" takes this even farther, becoming a multi-layered story about politics, living under fascism, and the realities of a resistance movement. (And ultimately accomplishing what "Episode II - Attack of the Clones" wanted to do with all those scenes of people sitting around and talking.)

FO:NV is this for the Fallout Universe. It's an example of both evolving what you have and branching out. And the branching out starts with the protagonist: You already are a wasteland dweller, but you lost your memories when somebody trapped you on a mission, shot you in the head, and put you in a shallow grave.

So, part of this story is finding revenge, not saving anybody. You're your own person, you set out for your own reasons, and probably one of your main goals is to untangle what happened to you and do something about it.

As you wander out into the Mojave Desert, you find it suspended in the eye of a storm. From the west, the New California Republic, with their flimsy hold on the region which they want to incorporate. From the east, the ferocious slavers of Caesar's Legion, styling themselves like Romans, forcing others into joining, submission, or death. At the center, the prize: New Vegas and the still functioning Hoover Dam.

So, while your personal story leads into the center of it all, FO:NV is at its core the story of this conflict between various parties, and it's up to you to decide its outcome, bending and shaping the world to your will where you can. It's about influencing the world and making it your own.

In comparison, in FO1 and FO2 you're defined by the needs of the communities you come from. (And you fail the game if you ignore them.) In FO3 and FO4, you're defined by your family, following your father or trying to regain your son. In FO:NV you start with a rather clean slate, and you write a story of your own choices on it wherever you go. You're not free of limitations, but you're a Wild Card in a volatile mix of elements.

Why I think it's different

FO1 and FO2 give you a MacGuffin hunt, then you stumble across the big bad. FO3 is not really a great story - follow your father, take over his project, finish it. FO4 came after, so let's delay looking at it.

FO:NV never hides what it is about. You are drawn right away in the maelstrom of the conflict that decides the fate of the region. Your role is more active than ever, and you can pick and chose. Yes, there is a twist in the middle, but it only expands your options. FO:NV is from beginning to end about its central conflict, about picking sides, recruiting allies, and bringing things to a conclusion. No more saving the world altogether. People are here to stay, but what societies they leave in their wake - that you help form.

FO:NV is a clockwork of interacting pieces, a story told from parts, and most anything you encounter is the consequence of your actions or the consequence of something else that happened right before you came on the scene. The forces that form this world are constantly on display, and you try to figure them out and shape them.

Whether you push for the New California Republic with its values but also its disregard for the frontier people (when push comes to shove), or for Caesar's murderous slaver legion, or whether you push for an independent Nevada, or hand it over to a Howard Hughes caricature from the past, it's up to you.

This may look similar to what FO4 does, where it makes you side with one faction and destroy the other two. But neither is it woven through everything the same way. Nor are these choices earned in so many places, so many small changes to be made, allies to be won, etc. In FO:NV, you earn your choices and your degree of difficulty through engaging with the story, through and through.

In comparison, if you decide in FO4, you basically get some missions to blow up the HQs/reprogram the mainframe of the other two factions. There's no equivalent of the unity of purpose of FO:NV, and likely you were wandering the Boston Wasteland for a long time without touching upon the main quests at all. The main quest seems at times just tacked on, and the main story can be completed rather quickly if you want or you can leave it aside.

At best, FO4 copied some of the approach of FO:NV. But in the end, it never cared to be "all about that." I spent easily a hundred hours in FO4 just doing my thing without ever engaging with moving forward in the main storyline. This is frankly impossible in FO:NV, for good and bad. As your make your likely counter-clockwise tour around the map in its clockwork world, you will have to make decisions and pick your poison, over and over, as the looming war affects near-everywhere and near-everybody.

Or to put it another way round: 3 out of the 4 main factions of FO4 are powerful but small. FO:NV main factions are in principle strong in numbers and can decide the fate of a lot of humanity between them. They don't need subterfuge for it. They've already grown to formidable war machines. They just can't do everything and be everywhere.

This naturally evolves out of the story of FO1 and FO2 and completes it. Mankind is back in the saddle. A dirty, irradiated saddle with squabbling over limited resources you can't replace, but the trajectory goes from villages to cities to states/nations. And FO:NV feels like that. Were it not for the two power blocs coming to head in the region, either of them would have likely already done their thing. They're no longer fighting "gotcha!" threats popping out of nowhere, these are people trying to carve a legacy - people that stem from a new course of history. History hasn't ended. It marches ever forward.

This isn't a story that ends by a Hail Mary of simply lighting a nuclear bomb under somebody's ass. This ends in battle.

Differently told, too

FO3 and FO:NV at times feature the same assets. But when FO:NV reuses something, it reuses it in context, and keeps coherency. FO3, FO4, and FO76 were set on the East Coast so that the game designers don't have to bother with the legacy of the original games if they don't want to. That's why their reuse can be so unconvincing.

The Mojave has is an empty waste often with wide views. You meet natural hazards, and most anything you encounter has cause or reason, even if it is habitat. Major monsters don't just spawn near settlements. Supermutants, in spite of their major "cool" factor, are mostly present in a few key locations where they make sense. There are quite a few raider factions, but they have their turfs. Conflict between groups centers on settlements and usually has a cause in recent events, partially driven by larger events.

For example, at the edge of the SW quadrant of the map, the NCR ran a prison but the convicts revolted, got their hands on explosives from a nearby quarry they worked in, and became the "Powder Gangers". Their influence is felt throughout the SW and SE corners of the map, as the NCR struggles to muster enough troops to deal with this distraction. In the town of Primm, a part of the gang tried to take over town but only managed to take the key asset, the big hotel. In Nipton, they were part of the customer base of this open-for-all town before the Legion massacred or enslaved the residents.

In comparison, FO3 and FO4 feel very different. FO3 feels absolutely overrun with Supermutants, especially the city itself. FO4 is abundant with endless raider gangs and strongholds, and if you enter the city it's raiders, Supermutants, raiders, Supermutants. Both of which also raid your settlements, until you're left with the feeling that in the Boston area the population of these two outnumber the "settlers" by 20 to 1, with no rhyme nor reason. (Plus, you can't take over any real cool place because why settle in a defensible location, huh?)

Even the enemies are not allowed to kill the vibe or story of FO:NV. There's a push and pull between civilization and monsters, and the latter are most likely to be encountered where civilization doesn't reach or has been pushed out by clashes between the factions weakening all of them. Monsters are in abandoned places. FO:NV does without a major urban wasteland, with New Vegas being quite intact. Settlements make sense and are generally able to provide for themselves, and often subject to the major disruptions occurring due to the moves of the various factions.

This is a continuation of the original series. FO1 had this "points of light" feeling of isolated struggling communities. In FO2 already the tendency had more moved towards there being a frontier, because the NCR and for example Vault City themselves weren't really struggling, they were at liberty to make a few arrogant choices in pursuit of what they wanted. People start coordinated efforts like mining again, or waste time on amusements and crime in New Reno. While there's hardly plenty, there's enough to start skimming the cream off the top.

FO:NV sees you come to a frontier that's basically on the verge of becoming a Territory, where some sense of order exists, and where originally you could travel along the major highways. There is a general Western vibe, a feeling of people able to stand on their own and having some pride at times. They're thinking about making choices between greater security (like siding with the NCR) or making their own way of life.

This Western vibe extends into all corners of the map. There's the frontier wilderness in between, but unless a big bad comes to town, there's a sense of life going forward without too much hardship. Communities were able to carve out their own livelihood just well enough. They're not sitting around in teeny-tiny parcels of lands that you wall up and guard constantly like in FO4.

Building on this environmental vibe, FO:NV tries to tell stories that mix fortune seeking, opportunity, regret, and a lot of themes from Westerns. While the revenge story has a Las Vegas gangster vibe to it (after all you were buried in a shallow grave in the desert), it's also not out of place in a good Western with elements of betrayal and rivaling gangs and a conspiracy to be uncovered.

Or, to put it another way: FO3 is about the past as it recycles the past. It pits Brotherhood of Steel versus the Enclave. FO4 is also tending towards being about the past, as all three major endgame factions are either directly tied to the synth technology (and hence the surviving Institute), or again, the Brotherhood. And you might likely end up blowing up two major technological marvels before ending the game. (Well done you.)

FO:NV is a mix of old and new, with one major faction (Mr House and/or the Yes Men) relying on Old World technology, but that's the Wild Card. Most of the story is about the clash of new civilizations.

Beyond the Clockwork

One thing you could fault FO:NV is how it feels like nigh-everything is about its central themes. There's a certain freedom of just exploring the map in FO4 and enjoying some of its randomness and chaos. Yes, the people of the Boston area have been shit at doing most anything. But this gives you at times more of a post-apocalyptic chaos feel than FO:NV does. FO4's thrills may be cheap thrills, but they are thrills. When it comes to the feel of an open world game, FO4 might have more of that than FO:NV, which feels more like a story game at times. FO4 locations may often have little story behind them, but they were designed as game challenges. I still remember fondly going from roof to roof in a town overrun by ghouls, feeling all clever and smug about it when that still was exactly what the level designers planned, LOL.

You can't escape the story in FO:NV. In FO4 I never really bothered much with it to begin with. Exploration play was a lot of fun, and the ability the put your own settlements and scavenging opportunities make the game really geared toward it. (Leave it to Bethesda, though, to riddle this part of the game still with bugs and bad design for such a key element. Try building a settlement in vanilla without mods. It's a pain.)

To be fair, bugs were a major issue for FO:NV, especially upon release, marring its general reception. But given that so many interacting elements exist within FO:NV that you want to take advantage of, the bugs in the original game were especially jarring to the player.

I think in general FO:NV is a step up from FO3 in terms of presentation because it feels better to me. More is happening, and the world feels more real and less, well, pukey. Opening it these days still feels dated, the gunplay limited compared to FO4, and often empty and less alive. We've been spoiled by games like Witcher 3 and much more since then, after all. Compared to what is possible today, locations like New Vegas seem a bit empty and forlorn. There's no question, FO:NV as is seems dated.

Conclusion

But the point I wanted to make isn't so much about its merits as a game, though that's the vehicle the story is told through. Games are by their nature, stories turned inside out. In a story, all the decisions are made. In a game, stories can be told by limiting you. Some games limit you to only gameplay, fixing the story in place. ("Save the princess by playing through all levels.") But RPGs like FO:NV make an art form of working with limitation that creates a sense of freedom and choice.

As a story, FO:NV bundles many possible outcomes while running you through key points in the game all the same. Your choices make the story turn different ways within the given boundaries. You can't escape the sense of this game having been designed from the story outwards, and that's why it's considered as a classic of the genre. It preserves the spirit of its predecessors, keeps on expanding their world, and manages to do that within the constraints the game designers faced - time limits on development, budget constraints, and not working within their own engine.

In a sense, it's quite a milestone of game development that FO:NV exists at all. Studios have failed over projects like this.

As a game using the same engine as FO3 and placed in the gap within FO3 and FO4, it still manages to feel different from both, more wide open. FO:NV manages space differently, so when it cramps you in (like entering a vault) it really feels cramped in. You get used to its wide open spaces, so when things tighten, suspense increases, too. In comparison, my last time playing FO3 was having enough after one too many jump scare encounter that its level designers set up again and again.

We will see if there will ever be a story like that told in a Fallout game, again. Open world games tend to subvert and sideline story, as quantity requires a parallelism of many level designers that undermines creative control. Fighting this tendency and having a good feel for vibes, themes, and stories is a challenge. Maybe that's why so many remember FO:NV so fondly.

[aflo]

seeing these mtg fallout spoilers are a stark reminder of how bland and unoriginal the fo3/fo4/f76 lore is (especially since those are way overrepresented in the set vs fnv/fo1/fo2 cards)