Why The World Of Fallout Couldn't Actually Exist | Lousy Lore

Have you ever been playing Fallout and encountered something that just left you scratching your head because there's no way it could possibly happen? well it happens a lot more than you'd think. gather round the campfire as we share stories of survival in the world of Fallout and why they are so problematic.

[SaltyChickenDip]

I think the biggest problem is that Bethesda does not understand how long time is. They act like 200 years is 20 years and 20 years is 2 years.

[DomWeasel]

There's a mod (Edit: Hunkered Down I believe is the one) where someone rebuilt all the settlements in Fallout 4 to look like they could survive the winter. And it really was as simple as replacing the gaping holes in the walls and roofs. There's still a shantytown vibe but one that people could actually live in long-term as they do in real-life.

[LordMackus]

It's kinda hilarious that the most realistic post-apocalyptic settlement in Fallout we could possibly have would require porting over wood-and-stone houses from Skyrim.

[Delta-eslg]

Ironically, Fallout 1 and 2 did this extremely well, considering Shady Sands went from a small farming community of survivors to the center of a minor nation in a few decades.

[mrdavies]

I still think the most egregious example of this happened in Fallout 3 when helping Moira write the Wasteland Survival Guide. The point where she asks you to check out the local supermarket for food and supplies 200 years after the bombs fell.

[FishyButters]

I hated that I couldn’t fix up any of the houses in Sanctuary but the game kept pushing how “great of a settlement” it was

[snarkymoosesshack]

I love how Bethesda completely ignores the historical reality of Farmers being REALLY bloody important people in past eras, because of their skills and knowledge. Yet in Fallout they're treated as simple idiots.

[tmike]

You should have mentioned the skeletons. In FO4 you come across a diner that is actually being operated. Inside, there is someone behind the cash register ready to take your order. After your purchase, you turn to find a seat... only to find skeletons already sitting at the tables.

[YourTaciturnFriend]

"I've lived in this house all my life, like my parents and grandparents before me. What? Move the 200-year-old skeleton out of the bathtub, clear away the rubble and fix the roof? Why??"

[dakinademino]

Worst part of the Fallout settlement lore is when you enter a house and find a 200 year old skeleton rotting away in the corner while the occupants are eating dinner right next to it.

Fallout 4 killed itself when I was told that I had to build the entire settlement, farms included, for the settlers because they couldn't be assed to do it themselves.

[jackprice]

Obsidian understood the scale of time and the area surrounding New Vegas was uninhabited frontier until Mr House rebuilt the strip 15 or so years before the events of the game. Even then, we see things that make sense. Goodsprings and Novac are clean, maintaned, and populated mostly by people who grew up there. The NCR has farms and military bases in strategic locations. Freeside is considered a slum by the people living there and is a damn sight better than any settlement in Fallout 4. The Legion wage a guerilla war as they are technologically and fiscally outmatched. The area is desert, so the people there rely on outsiddle cattle barons for a stable supply of meat.

[TacoWrath]

I've never understood why these post-apocalyptic settings love to have buildings/shelters with all these huge, gaping holes in them. When I used to sort packages at UPS, there was a trailer door behind me that had a small, fist-sized hole in it. In the winter, that little hole was enough to make it feel like there was an open freezer pointed at my back the whole night, and it drove me absolutely crazy.

[richardcreasey]

I would add that it also really breaks immersion to see what would probably be extremely valuable locations like corvega plant, saugus ironworks, and vault 95 just...lazily occupied by some bandits. Like, the sheer value of a functioning metal-working plant in a post-apocalyptic setting cannot be understated. It would be controlled by a sizeable force and there would be a significant settlement built up around it, because trade would be a thing.

Also, for there to be a miracle addiction-removing machine in a vault that people have only heard rumors of and for there not to be more than just some bandits in the area, is just dumb. There would be a whole settlement based around it which would be making serious bank on curing addictions.

[nebeskisrb]

I played fo4 earlier this year for the first time and the gameplay was pretty much what I expected and wanted.

However, when I went to the family house that begins Far Harbor questline I was irked that on the second floor, In a room someone regularly sleeps in, there are several missing floorboards, leaving a dangerous hole.

This family lived in this house for at least 10 years yet nobody at Bethesda thought they'd bother to fix a serious hazard like that.

[TheStardustConspiracy]

Another example is the the house of Frank in the last of us series, he basically built a little neighborhood in the apocalypse granting him an opportunity to settle with someone he loved, they were so self sufficient and good that they even dedicated themselves to art. And somehow in fallout unless the player drastically changes the community, nothing happens.

[sixthdragoness]

The best reset to zero setting I've experienced in apocalypse fiction is Horizon Zero Dawn, it actually explains why things reset to essentially the stone age and has only progressed so much from that despite being in a world full of highly advanced robots that mimic natural life near perfectly. It has layers upon layers of explanation as to why all knowledge and social progress vanished.

Fallout is stuck in it's aesthetic, which is a shame because it's original aesthetic was much more in line with a recovery period than the later entries further down the timeline. Bethesda should really keep the games in the first 10-30 years if they want to keep the look, even then the upper part of that is pushing it. The architecture in the isometric games is far more believable than the cobbled together shacks that couldn't stand up to a couple years of moderate storms before needing to be completely rebuilt from the ground up.

[Fishhunter]

It’s like Bethesda forgot that it gets pretty cold in New England in the winter.

[voxlknight]

Here in Serbia, if you aren't living in a big city, you more likely than not to have chickens. You can even go to larger towns (2-5k population), and the people living in the Serbian equivalent of suburbs are likely all raising at least a couple chickens. Granted, this is because of the massive inflation that happened in the early 90s (ask anybody who lived here circa 1994 for the gory details), so it's like what you said. People could barely afford to buy food, so investing in a couple chickens became a life saver. Combine that with the fact the rural people never stopped raising them in the first place, and now pretty much everyone outside Belgrade, Novi Sad and Nish has them.

[AquariumGravelEater]

Honestly, a story that starts from day 0 like the survivalist in NV that goes on to rebuilding a society or at least a strong community would be a great read if it was written like that intro. I'm just a sucker for reading stories where its not all about blasting raiders, but instead is stuff like how does one deal with radiation with 1800s tech.

[RaccoonRepublic]

My biggest pet peeve with most video game worlds is the lack of economic realism. Real economies have farms, production, logistics networks. And a realistic game world should portray that, too. If every farm is abandoned or overrun by zombies, the question of how the average person meets their basic needs becomes immersion breaking.

I really loved this video's depth, thoughtfulness, and touching on the important role language plays in society - and why censorship is so dangerous.