100% agree. A youtuber once summed up the setting pretty perfectly imho. They said something to the effect of “Fallout isn’t just a post-apocalypse. It’s an example of retro futurism. Specifically, it’s the year 2077, as the people of the 1990’s imagined the people of the 1950’s imagined it. But then, that society got nuked, and the post-apocalypse imagined by the pop-culture of the 80’s and 90’s rose from it’s ashes.”
3’s more standard “post-apocalypse vibes” don’t really nail the vision of the original Fallout. This is especially a negative if you are coming at Fallout from the standpoint of a long time fan. Like I said in my first rant,
“New Vegas has richer world-building, themes more aligned with Fallout 1 and 2, and a more realistic sense of a society rebuilding after centuries”
And yeah, it seems pretty obvious that 3 was meant to be set much earlier in the timeline originally. With Rivet City being the most advanced in agriculture simply by having a small hydroponics lab, most of society surviving by scavenging, attempts to cleanup and rebuild at an extremely early stage.
I assume that for folks who prefer 3, these are not hills they particularly care about, and that the more generic post-apocalyptic vibes (that were really in vogue when 3 was released) hit the exact fantasy they wanted to play through.
But I wholeheartedly agree with your points.
VerilyFemme@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 hours ago
There’s an added layer to the West Coast games past 1 as well: they’re post-post apocalyptic. We have nations now, the world is rebuilding.
TaterTot@piefed.social 3 hours ago
Very true, and that’s on of my favorite elements of the West Coast lore. Honestly, if I could change only one thing about Bethesda’s approach to Fallout, it would be their dogmatic approach to keeping the world locked in time.
I actually enjoyed the show, and am even trying to remain optimistic for season two, but resetting the world building on the West Coast just to keep the apocalyptic tone really made me sad to see. Killed off a story I loved that had been slowly building since my childhood.
VerilyFemme@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 hours ago
Bethesda has a lot of lore issues, but their main one is that they set pretty much all of their games far too late in the timeline. If you want to tell a post-apocalyptic story, that’s fine.
It doesn’t make sense for anything to be living in a place where the water has been poison for 200 years. Fallout 3 would fit perfectly before Fallout 1 on the timeline.
They knew it didn’t make sense for there to be like 3 half-assed towns in Boston after 200 years, so they created The Institute. Who are so all-powerful they wiped the Commonwealth of any real progress toward society, yet have no clear goals and are extremely incompetent. Set it around 60 years after the bombs, maybe take out the Synth plot and replace it with actual, nonconvoluted slavery, thus expanding on the themes of 3.
To me, the show is a collage of scenes that I like, with quite a bit of stuff that I really dislike. There’s really cool ideas in it, and I honestly do love how they reference some of the universal experiences that we get when playing those games. But the treatment of the lore, in general, is honestly borderline disrespectful.
Now, they’ve announced that in Season 2, “…every faction might think they’ve won.” To emulate, “…the story of history depend[ing] on who you ask.” Which, yknow, New Vegas already showed with the vast and varying opinions of its characters, as well as quite literally showing the effect of historical debate with the in-game debate about the Bitter Springs Massacre.
I’m waiting to see how they pull it off, but I can’t see how all the factions could think they’ve won if Mr. House is alive, seeing how you have to assassinate him for 3 of the endings.
Also, Caesar has an incurable brain tumor and you either kill Lanius or talk him into abandoning the front entirely in 3 of the endings. I don’t see how the Legion could ever be doing good. Maybe Macaulay Macaulay “Mr. McCulkin” Culkin Culkin is their new leader.
TaterTot@piefed.social 2 hours ago
Yeah, I totally concur, a lot of the stories they want to tell fit so much better closer to the bombs.
I also think Bethesda’s need to make sure every story contains the core elements of Super Mutants, the BoS, Deathclaws, Radscorpions, etc is another key issue they have with the lore. When I played 1 and 2, it felt like I was seeing just a small slice of a world that could have any number of crazy new things in it. But now that it’s basically the same thing coast to coast, the world feels stale and predictable.
And you pretty much summed up all my thoughts on the show. The ‘collage of fun scenes’ made it enjoyable. But it was also beyond disrespectful. Throwing away the world built up in 1, 2, and NV just to make it match the key elements of 3 and 4 is… super fucking shitty.
And I really don’t see how they can make it seem like every faction in NV can think they won without also completely invalidating the significance of the choices in NV. I’m honestly already resigned to Bethesda just killing off that as well tho, so I hope they at least still have a fun collage of scenes.
TaterTot@piefed.social 2 hours ago
Oh, just saw your edit, but no apologies necessary. If the small essay I’ve written between all my comments is any indication, I just like talking about fallout. So thanks for the rant actually!