Songs of innocence and experience.
“Will you still want the same things, when you become a different animal altogether?”
It’s interesting to return to now.
All of which begs the question: what is the essence of Fallout?
Everyone seems to agree that the TV show gets it.
But what is it, exactly, that the TV show gets?
Why is Fallout’s post-apocalyptic vision so particularly appealing?
What does it have that other post-apocalypses don’t?
For 170 years, American society is all black-and-white televisions, jingle-scored commercials, Corvega sedans and robot butlers.
It’s definitely a theme.
Then there’sFallout: New Vegas, where your character has no relationship with the vaults at all.
More broadly, you could argue that such a journey from innocence to experience isn’t specific to Fallout.
When Fallout released in October 1997, western CRPGs were at their lowest ebb in years.
Games like Doom and Command & Conquer offered fast-paced action with a thrilling side of taboo-breaking.
They were edgier, grislier, quicker on the trigger, and overwhelmingly popular as a result.
In this context, Fallout was exactly the evolution the RPG needed.
This is far from a new perspective, either.
Critics at the time were equally aware of Fallout representing a new strain of role-playing.
“But before you dive in vomiting: listen up, it’s really good fun - honest.
Second, it’s very much an adult game.
But it also lies in how it views its own world through that flippant, acerbic 1990s lens.
Whatever else you might take from it is a bonus.
It’s a different animal altogether.
Yet at the same time, it is undeniably Fallout.
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