Editorial On The Road Again: Setting Fallout 4 @ California Literary Review

[Crooked Bee]

Tags: Bethesda Softworks; Fallout; Fallout 3; Fallout 4

Some time ago we linked to a piece at the California Literary Review blog about why Boston doesn't belong in Bethesda's possible Fallout 4. The second part of that editorial is now up, analyzing what other settings might or might not belong in the game. Here's something on Texas:

Yeah, Texas. Where the West meets the South. The home of all George Strait’s exes would make a perfect setting for Fallout. You not only get the intensely independent (often aggressive) patriotism of the state, but also keep the Western desert culture, too. However it comes with a unique Texan twang mixed in to it all.

I’m imagining Raider sniper fire from abandoned oil derricks while I herd Brahmin in a Ten Gallon hat here. Bighorner (or hell, Super Mutant) rodeos. Former Caesar’s Legion members putting their Big-5 Armor to use and actually playing football! Still to the death of course – this is Texas, they take football seriously.

Besides, the place just feels right, you know?

Plus, any game set here could reestablish the Desert Rangers, the coolest faction from New Vegas (originally from Fallout‘s progenitor, Wasteland), as an independent burgeoning power thanks to Tycho, a ranger from the original Fallout, having been this way before.

[...] Still, the bigger issue I see with Texas is one of long term storytelling. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a proponent of endings – definitive conclusions create potency – and this goes for Fallout as well. Somewhere down the long and lonesome road, the journeys of our Chosen Vault Dwelling Wanderers should end.

But how? And more importantly for this article, where?

Well, consider the (as of New Vegas) continuing Eastward expansion of the NCR and the theoretical Westward expansion of the Lyon-led East Coast Brotherhood of Steel; you have the perfect setup for an ultimate conclusion between the two factions – or three if you factor in Walking Texan Desert Rangers. THAT conflict sure would make for an interesting ultimate battle now wouldn’t it? Especially since they’re all (pretty much) “good” factions, creating a maximum moral quandary factor rather than an obvious choice of siding between the “flawed, but mostly decent guys” and the “indisputably not-nice puppy kickers”.

The logical site of this theoretical end war to determine the fate of Fallout forever would be in the middle of the slowly rebuilding nation, and the natural spot considering all of the other factors would be . . . ring-a-ding-ding, baby! Texas.

So while I DO want to see a game in the state of Big Hair and Bigger Guns, I also don’t want it to be just yet, since it doesn’t just make sense for a Fallout game, so much as it does for the Last Fallout Game.

Until then, it’s probably best to heed Will Ferrel’s advice, and not mess with Texas.​

Read the full thing here.

Spotted at NMA

 

[Jaesun]

lol Fallout 4.

 

[l3loodAngel]

lol Fallout 4.

Yeah, New Vegas was non-cannon so it was forgotten. Now it has to go back to it's roots.

 

[Infinitron]

lol Fallout 4.

Yeah, New Vegas was non-cannon so it was forgotten. Now it has go back to it's roots.

Sadly, most Fallout 3 players think this.

 

[Gruia]

how about the F2 ones?

 

[UnknownBro]

Yeah right, because the setting is so important in the Fallout universe... after Fallout 3.

 

[l3loodAngel]

how about the F2 ones?

Nobody gives a shit about those prehistorical games. It's the FO3 that reinvented the Franchise.

 

[Micmu]

Whoop-tee-fucking-doo. Who gives a fuck where betshitsda's Allout is gonna take place?
It could be Mars or Moon and it would make fuck all difference.
They can, and will, place any lulz in any place and that's that.
Why the fuck are they even wasting time and space with countless "editorials", essays, thoughts and shit and whatnot about some really dumb, irrelevant action game for the lowest common denominator?
LOOK AT ME BETSHITSDA'S GAMEZ ARE FOR INTELLECTUALZ!11

 

[MicoSelva]

Are these articles written for a reason other than author's compulsion to present the world with his (her?) wishful thinking? I doubt Betehsda will care about what he wrote. I know I don't.

 

[JarlFrank]

Talking about what FO4 should be is all nice and good, too bad that it will be shit.

 

[Excidium]

Posting here just to show how much I don't care about Fallout 4

 

[Jaesun]

 

[Metro]

Why is shit like this in California Literary Review? Not that I know if it's a reputable e-publication.

 

[sser]

Uh, Texas is huge with a lot of different kinds of land. You can't just say, "Put it in Texas!" without explaining where. Vast stretches of it are deserts or plains with nothing out there. Comanche and Apache used to kill just about anyone between El Paso and Fort Worth. North Texas is damn near barren during the summer in some places. Southeast Texas is actually fairly lush and humid. Waco used to be one of the biggest cities of west of the Mississippi, but that changed because of the paths of the railroad. DFW got its early bearings on account of the path of the railroad and their location between west and east, not because there's anything particularly interesting about the land itself (the eventual oil discoveries aside). Southern Texas can be a hellish tract. Like walking on Christian brimstone, but with leering Mexican cartel wandering about. I think you could make an interesting, topical setting out of southeast Texas. Maybe have the oceans rise up and create islands out of the shoreline. And have Mexicans running drugs and ancestral natives scalping folks. It would be a nice variance of things to do. Boston... well, Boston is whatever. Dunno why Boston would even be considered given they already have Fallout 3 on the east coast. Not that I have any high hopes for any game from Bethesda these days. They are capable of doing so much with the resources they got, but just never get anywhere close to their potential.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Meh, with Bethesda at the helm, rest assured game will be


with a healthy dose of


and a finale of


making us want to


instead of

 

[Sabriana]

Fallout 4 already exists. I know that because I'm looking right at it. It's called FNV. They can try to deny it all they want, its not going to go away. Especially because FNV is quite a decent installment, and FO3 is garbage.I guess counting to five is quite an intellectual feat that not everbody can achieve.

So where ever they want to set it in, if it comes from Bethesda writers (now there's a contradiction in terms), I'll do my usual thing, and wait until I can pick it and all its DLC and add-ons up for 5 Euro. By then, the modders likely have fixed what is fixable.

Hell, both, my Oblivion and FO3 games have mod folders that are significantly larger than the actual games. It's fun experimenting with mods in those games, because I'm not at all worried about "breaking" the game. They're both already broken as hell.

If its outsourced (like FNV) I'll be a tad more interested.

 

[Spectacle]

Fallout 4 already exists. I know that because I'm looking right at it. It's called FNV. They can try to deny it all they want, its not going to go away. Especially because FNV is quite a decent installment, and FO3 is garbage.I guess counting to five is quite an intellectual feat that not everbody can achieve.

New Vegas can't be Fallout 4, because that would legitimize Failout 3 as part of the series.