Another Fallout Day has recently come and gone with little fanfare and no new announcements, not even those Fallout 3 or New Vegas remasters we've been expecting. We're getting a tenth anniversary release of Fallout 4, because apparently that's just gonna be Bethesda's new Skyrim. I only got into Fallout and Elder Scrolls back in late 2014 and early 2015, the former being because my friend bought Henry bought me New Vegas for Christmas. I was more or less brought into that franchise kicking and screaming, but once I was hooked, I was hooked BAD. You know the quest "There Stands the Grass", the one with the mutated plant monsters in Vault 22? I was up until 6am trying to beat that quest. That was the moment when I realized I'd found something special. As soon as I finished New Vegas for the first time, I just had to boot it up and play as a new character.
My birthday rolled around a few months later, and another friend bought me Fallout 3. Maybe I was spoiled by New Vegas, but I found myself not enjoying it was much. I knew some things would be different, what with it being an earlier game and all, but the story didn't click with me. Also, keep in mind that I was playing the Game of the Year edition, so I was able to do the logical thing and have Fawkes shut down the Project Purity reactor, because that ACTUALLY MADE SENSE. Anyway, I didn't hate the game, I did enjoy it, but something about it felt off. I didn't enjoy it as much as I did New Vegas. Finishing New Vegas made me want to start the game over again, while finishing 3 just made me want to start New Vegas again.
Despite this, when the announcement for Fallout 4 came another few months later, I was pumped. Admitted, I lacked a next-gen console to play the game on and PC gaming isn't my bag, so it would be a while before I'd play it. But man, it looked awesome. It takes place in Boston! A place I go to all the time! Filled with landmarks I recognize! You'd think a game like that would blow my ass away as soon as I played it.
I think you can guess where I'm going with this.
I got my first taste of the game while I was recovering from surgery in February 2016. I enjoyed some of the mechanics. Customizing weapons is a lot of fun, treating power armor as a vehicle is cool (in theory at least), Nick Valentine is a great character, and it's good to see the Brotherhood of Steel back to being a bunch of bastards. But just like 3, something still felt off. It was missing that special sauce. I couldn't quite figure out what it was until I went and played the first two Fallouts.
Fallouts 1 and 2 are Bonafide classics. I can see why they're so beloved. Elements of them haven't really aged well (Fallout 2 doesn't have a single female companion besides the one potential romantic partner if you're playing a male character) but the stories are great, the combat is satisfying, and the humor is always good for a chuckle. One of the best aspects of the game was how it approaches morality. Sometimes, the most ethical thing to do isn't the smartest. You'd think repairing and optimizing the leaky reactor for the Ghoul citizens of Gecko would be a good idea, right? Well, repairing it is, sure, but if you optimize it, it puts a huge target on their backs and after the game ends, they get overrun and enslaved by nearby Vault City (there's supposed to be a way to have them form an alliance with Vault City but in classic fashion, it's bugged and can't be achieved).
What made me like New Vegas so much is how every choice felt logical. Character A might want me to blow up Character B, but what happens if I let Character B know in advance? Could we work something out? An alliance, perhaps? It may be an uneasy one, but it would be better for the people living in the wasteland for sure. I felt like the destiny of the Mojave was in my hands, regardless of which faction I threw my lot in with. Basically everyone sees Caesar's Legion as the enemy (with good reason) and the NCR, while inept, serves a purpose. No matter which outcome you go with, it makes sense. The Legion always has to go because they're a dangerous threat not just to New Vegas, but the wasteland as a whole. The NCR has been waging war with them for years, and a peaceful solution is not in the cards.
Let's look at the factions in Fallout 4: The Minutemen, the Institute, the Brotherhood of Steel, and the Railroad. The Minutemen are the unambiguous "good guys" you always work with and they go along with whatever you do. The Institute is the Commonwealth's boogeymen who live underground and send Synths to the surface to do.... something (I'll cover that later). The Brotherhood of Steel want little more than to annihilate the Institute and their abominable synthetic humans and all who harbor them. The Railroad rescues synths, wipes their memories, and lets them live their lives as normal humans. Now, if you're like me, the logical option here would be to have the Minutemen, Institute, and the Railroad form an alliance to take down the Brotherhood of Steel, right? Well, guess what, you can't do that, even though you get to become the head of the freakin' Institute in their quest line. Nope, all questlines require you to destroy the Institute (unless you take that questline) and whomever else opposes you, save for the Minutemen. Peace is not an option.
It doesn't help that the Institute's end goal makes no sense. Okay, they made perfect synthetic humans (and animals) that are indistinguishable from the real deal. They act just like human beings, so they send them to the surface to replace key figures and infiltrate organizations. But... why? What makes a bunch of post-apocalyptic survivors such a threat to them? On top of that, the Synths themselves are treated merely as property, barely above your garden variety Protectron robot. The flesh and blood they may be made from is artificial, but it's still flesh and blood, nonetheless. It's hammered home that these synths are superior to humans and yet they aren't treated as such. So why bother making them? You witness Father dying of some illness, yet they don't make a new Synth body for him? Shouldn't the goal be to create immortal synthetic bodies for mankind? Bodies that can survive in the post-atomic wasteland?
Imagine the game that would create. On one side, you have the Brotherhood of Steel, who believes technology should only serve man, and becoming one with technology is abominable. On the other, the transhumanist Institute, who wants to upgrade humanity to survive in the harsh, unforgiving wasteland that now engulfs the planet. They're two sides of the same coin, with the Brotherhood being humans clad in power armor, while the Institute appear human but underneath, they are made of advanced technology barely understood by the masses. Each has an almost cult-like devotion to their way of life. Both sides have their points, but they're fundamentally incompatible with one another, and in the middle are the poor survivors of the wasteland just trying to get by without being eaten by Deathclaws or Radscorpions.
This take on the Institute is not unlike The Master and the FEV from the original Fallout. Obviously, the Institute wouldn't be kidnapping people... or would they? Maybe there'd be a rogue element within the Institute kidnapping people and forcing them into synthetic bodies. Maybe they'd be inserting spies in the ranks of the Brotherhood. These are ideas worth exploring. Maybe Bethesda would be able to do the same if they'd hire some actual freaking writers on their games.
You'll notice I didn't talk about any of the gameplay parts of Fallout 4, like the Power Armor being severely overpowered, the overemphasis on crafting, or Preston Garvey telling you that "another settlement needs your help" for the thousandth time. That stuff isn't what bothers me, really. Fallout is an RPG series, and while the core of it is obviously the game mechanics, it's story that truly makes or breaks an RPG. It's important to care about why you're doing what you're doing in those kinds of games. It isn't like, say, Doom, where all that you need to know is that you're a pissed-off space marine kicking demon ass from Hell and back again. I want to care about the people of the wasteland. I want to know that what I'm doing is making a difference to them.
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