Taking many cues from the 1988 title Wasteland, Fallout changed the landscape of PC western Role Playing Games. Its juxtaposition of contemplative apocalyptic fiction and dark comedy helped it stand out from other story-based titles on the market. The level of freedom it boasted was almost entirely unmatched.
Unsurprisingly, it helped pave the way for a series that would take a page from their ravaged protagonists and try to adapt to the changing world. The series' adage is that "War never changes," but the franchise has constantly seen several upgrades, mutations, and traits. Some of these changes were for the better, while others brought the series' karma down.
10 Some Rejected Reputations Were Downright Tasteless
Adding to the game's old-world feel are the delightful Vault Boy illustrations accompanying the many perks and reputations players can accrue throughout the campaign. Part Uncle Moneybags From Monopoly and part Goofus & Gallant, the Vault Boy mascot adds to the series' darkly comedic undertones.
However, as great as these illustrations are, some of them wisely did not make it to the final release. One particularly infamous example was the original Childkiller reputation art that artist Brian Menze expressed regret and disbelief in creating. The final product sensibly chose to use the Hated reputation art instead.
9 Brotherhood Of Steel Failed To Court Console Gamers
By the mid-2000s, the industry was veering away from PCs, and Interplay struggled in the marketplace. Much to the chagrin of fans and critics, the publisher canceled Black Isle Studio's third Fallout title codenamed Van Buren. Interplay then commissioned a top-down action RPG titled Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel in what seemed to be an attempt to court console gamers.
The game deviated from the franchise's open-world structure and took the engine from Snowblind's Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. Unfortunately, it was met with a mixed response from critics and panned by fans. When Bethesda took over the series, they would later deem this game non-canon.
8 Bethesda Completely Forgot The Ethos Of The Series
During Bethesda's reign of Fallout, the writing staff seemed to veer further away from the ethos of the Post-Nuclear apocalypse franchise. In a flagrant disregard of the anti-nuclear war themes that permeated the first two installments, 3 has giant robot Liberty Prime just casually tossing Nukes to aid the hero.
Fallout 76 was conceived as a spin-off PvP title where players would just basically blow each other to smithereens; the complete antithesis of why fans enjoyed this narrative-heavy RPG franchise. In fact, Bethesda was actually taken aback by how much players who stuck to the title managed to create their own fun by role-playing.
7 Fallout 2 Made A Bad First Impression
While the first game let players organically learn the game's mechanics on their own, the sequel made a considerable step backward. Fallout 2's executive-mandated tutorial section tasks players with proving their worth as the chosen one by surviving a temple filled with hazards and an optional fight with a guard.
While players with a high enough speech check can talk the guard into resolving the problem peacefully, the game will be over long before it even starts if they misallocate their points. The developers have gone on record regretting its inclusion.
6 Fallout 3 Even More So
Fallout 3's opening commits pretty much the same sin as Fallout 2, but from the other side of the difficulty spectrum. While defenders of the tutorial applauded it for its blending of storytelling and gameplay mechanics, others decried it for holding the players' hands and failing to give them any meaningful moral choices.
Critics such as Harris Michael Brewis lambasted the opening section for being set in a small area in an open-world RPG whose selling point was freedom. Fans even went out of their way to create a mod that patches this entire opening out of the game entirely.
5 Dead Money Was Brilliant Up To The Point Where Fans Had To Actually Play It
Dead Money was the first of New Vegas' DLC stories, and it attempted to bring the franchise into the realm of survival horror. Almost every aspect of this DLC shines, such as its sublime writing, haunting atmosphere, and excellent voice cast.
Unfortunately, the tedious backtracking, trial-and-error design, and trademark bugs drag the experience down and keep it from reaching the heights of other horror franchises such as Silent Hill or Resident Evil. Chris Avellone lamented that the final product fell short of his intended goal to scare players, claiming, "The Survival and tension aspects ended up trumping that."
4 The Quality Of The Writing Saw A Considerable Dip
While the Bethesda-developed titles aren't without their moments, the consensus among fans is that the writing didn't exactly boast the same amount of quality seen in the efforts from Black Isle and Obsidian. The final confrontations with John Henry Eden and Colonel Autumn don't even begin to hold a candle to the debate with The Master from the first game.
In addition, factions such as the Brotherhood of Steel and the Enclave became severely watered-down versions of their former selves, lacking much of the nuance and fascinating ideology that made them so interesting in the previous games.
3 Fans Should Steer Clear Of Their Home Ports
The home versions of the games have almost always been buggy, with poorly optimized ports that are the inferior ways to play by a country mile. This problem has plagued Bethesda's other franchises, such as the Elder Scrolls games, but it doesn't seem like it's gone anywhere in recent years.
The PlayStation 3 port of Fallout 3 suffered from blurry textures, and a far inferior framerate, but the port of New Vegas' GOTY Edition for the same system proved even worse as the game actually became buggier the further they progressed. Performance issues continued to plague home versions of Fallout 4, resulting in lower reviews.
2 Upon Release, Fallout 76 Was A Buggy And Meandering Mess
It's almost impossible to adequately describe how borderline broken and buggy Fallout 76 was during its initial launch. Even the simple act of going into power armor led to a hilarious bug where players were transformed into some weird misshapen abomination. Whereas the bobby pins in previous entries didn't weigh anything, in 76, they were 0.1 lbs – far exceeding their weight in the real world.
This undoubtedly led to many players getting over-encumbered. Due to the game's online nature, the VATs system was heavily reworked into a considerably worse version. The game also suffered from the lack of any NPCs, quests, or storytelling.
1 A Bag Showed The Chinks In The Fallout 76 Power Armor Edition
The $200.00 Power Armor Edition of Fallout 76 will go down in history as an example of how not to do a special edition of a major big-budget video game. While the advertising clearly promised customers a canvas duffel bag, those who purchased it were met with a mere nylon bag.
Customers who voiced their complaints were told that the canvas bag in the ad was just a prototype and that it was "too expensive to make." Bethesda tried to placate customers by giving them some free in-game currency- a mere 500 atoms.