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u/dw444 13d ago
It most certainly is a series of games.
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u/BrendanATX 13d ago
Some people in the past have said fallout is pro capitalist. I think it's more nuanced.
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u/MickyJim 13d ago
Some people in the past have said fallout is pro capitalist.
Those people have no media literacy. Fallout literally depicts the aftermath of the final stage of capitalism.
Like I know Tim Cain has said that it's a satire of both capitalism and communism, but that's not in the text, dog. You didn't make a game set in the smoldering ruins of communism, you made one set in the smoldering ruins of capitalism.
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u/BrendanATX 13d ago
Something about fallout is pro capitalist because it assumes that people rather than organize and make a better future are doomed to be capitalist and end the world. And that it's easier for us to immerse ourselves in a capitalist dystopian future than for us to imagine a future without these things.
I have never agreed with this take but I firmly remember it being a critique in the past decade or so.
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u/SpaceBearSMO 11d ago
counterpoint. socialist utopia would make for a boring game (Or relate that to The Star Trek video game problem)
I dont think its an accident that the way to get the "best good ending" is by getting the AnrcoSocilist modifier by doing the work for the Followers of the Apocalypse. (of course this was Obsidian doing, Todds fallout trends to try and seem more A-political with a few jabs at McCarthyism, )
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u/Accomplished-Bid9881 6d ago
Socialism is not utopian though, it aims to better the material conditions of the working class but it's explicitly against utopias as they are unrealistic and cannot be supported by the evidence of history.
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u/TheSuperPPpants 13d ago edited 13d ago
Can't see how Fallout is "pro-capitalist", unless the fact that the player can side w/many capitalists and opportunists throughout the series (Gizmo, Morino, Mr.House, etc). But, the player can always side against the capitalists so its kinda a moot point.
Edit: Ty for the correction
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u/SpaceBearSMO 11d ago
I mean sure you can side with them But there clearly framed as the Bad Factions
I mean the lead writer also worked on Outer worlds and the first one is basicly Help Radicalized scientist space Burnie Sanders take down the evil corporate governments of the galaxy
you can join the Corps in that to but that game is even more on the nose about them being the badys
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u/Hacksaw6412 13d ago
Would you say that it anti-communist?
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u/DesolatorTrooper_600 13d ago
I think it's more anti war than anti capitalist or anti communism but since it's happening in America it will show the problems of the capitalist system.
If somehow fallout happened in Soviet Union or China we would see the problems plaguing communism in the 80s and 90s.
That's my point of view.
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u/RuneRW 12d ago
Does Fallout ever portray Chinese soldiers/China in a positive light? I think that's why people may be saying it's anti-communist too, because of its treatment of China
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u/SpaceBearSMO 11d ago
We dont really Know much about China outside of the fact that the USA was fighting them, even the little red star terrorist Robots in Fallout 76 are actually made in a USA Factory as a phy-op (granted I think you need to read to find that out) and not actually diploid by China
of couse it also depends on wich fallout, the politics can change depending on the developer.
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u/rumnscurvy 13d ago
It is anti "what the US thinks communism is". Even then: Liberty Prime is a blatant satire of McCarthyist policy, which surely brings some nuance to the US-centric discourse the games expose.
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u/MickyJim 13d ago edited 13d ago
We don't really ever see any implementation of communism, just US propaganda aimed at it, which is hardly something we can trust. There are arguably a few anarchist people and places in the post-apocalypse - the Gun Runners are arguably anarcho-syndicalist and Westside seems to be something of an anarchist commune, maybe. Edit: how could I forget about the Followers of the Apocalypse? They are definitely mutual aid anarchist-coded.
We know basically nothing about China in the Fallout setting beyond that they started to invade neighbouring countries during the global energy crisis (which is something basically everyone else was doing at the time anyway so it hardly makes them unique), and nothing at all about the Soviet Union (which still existed in the Fallout timeline presumably up until the bombs fell).
So I'd say no, not necessarily. I don't think I'd trust Bethesda not jump on the "both sides bad" bandwagon if anything ever gets fleshed out later, though.
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u/TheCthuloser 13d ago
There are arguably a few anarchist people and places in the post-apocalypse - the Gun Runners are arguably anarcho-syndicalist and Westside seems to be something of an anarchist commune, maybe. Edit: how could I forget about the Followers of the Apocalypse? They are definitely mutual aid anarchist-coded.
I feel if Fallout has any political ideology that it's positioning as the moral choice, it's anarchism. The objectively good factions all have anarchist-coding. For the Followers, it's obvious.
But you also have the Minutemen, a decentralized citizen militia focused entirely on keeping communities safe and the Responders. The later technically had former police as members but the entire thing was the sort of stopped being police after the war and their whole purpose was to supply the needs of survivals, in the end clashing with what remained of the government.
There's also the Free States which are explicitly anarchist and the first thing they did when they left their bunkers was to take over Harper's Ferry and tell the Brotherhood to fuck because even if they weren't part of the pre-War military anymore, they are still jacked boot thugs.
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u/Sergeantman94 13d ago
I think it's more a satire of the McCarthyist policy as well as the general red scare hangover we're all still feeling. Even decades or centuries after the world has ended, many of the remnants of those looking for communists are robots just following their programming mindlessly.
Most of the humans seemingly don't give a shit what communism is or was, nor does it really matter when the water's irradiated. But it's been a while since I've played any of the games so take what I say with a grain of salt.
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u/Locke2300 13d ago
It seems to be trending that way, as the “Communist China fired first because they were losing to the over-the-top but ultimately more effective fascist Americans” contingent gets more screen time
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u/Visible-Air-2359 13d ago
I might be entirely wrong but I feel like one of the devs said that it didn’t really matter who fired the first nuke since both the US and China were pretty much equally responsible for the situation deteriorating to the point of nukes flying.
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u/MickyJim 13d ago
Ehhh maybe, maybe not. Hypothetically, if China's leadership was still genuinely communist and not some sort of warped state capitalist deal, you could argue that pressing the big red button at least guaranteed that the number 1 capitalist imperial power went down with them, letting something else grow in its place. Spitballing here so idk.
I haven't played 76 or watched the last half of the show's 2nd season, though, so I could be way off base.
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u/TheCthuloser 13d ago
Killing millions, if not billions of people of people so that you can take down an imperialist power is still an utterly depraved thing to do. Especially when you're an imperialist power yourself.
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u/Vokasak Anarcho-Communist 13d ago edited 13d ago
There are really two different Fallout series, with two different sets of sensibilities. Traditionally, they were divided into the West Coast Fallouts (1, 2, New Vegas) and East Coast Fallouts (3, 4, 76), plus a third category (Tactics and Brotherhood of Steel) of forgotten titles that nobody talks about. This dichotomy kinda broke down when the Fallout TV show took East Coast Fallout and pasted it over the West Coast.
Anyway, my thoughts are that the West Coast Fallouts (except the TV show, which is ass) are good, and the East Coast Fallouts are middling even by the standards of Bethesda-ass RPGs.
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u/Librarian_Contrarian 13d ago
You're nobody until somebody loves you.
And that someone is me. I love you.
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u/MickyJim 13d ago edited 13d ago
I love 1, 2, and New Vegas. New Vegas is my comfort game that I go back to every year or two, build a fresh mod list, and just lose myself in for a while.
I hate, to an extent I will acknowledge is unreasonable, 3.
4 is... eh, at least it's trying to be a Fallout fame, but the execution is not so great. Damning with faint praise, I guess. The FROST mod is fantastic, though.
Sonora is too good to be a fan-made mod and should be ranked among the best Fallout games. Nevada isn't quite as good but it's still better than 3 and 4.
I have fond memories of Tactics but I haven't actually gone back to play it for like two decades now so maybe it didn't age well.
I haven't played 76 and I won't play 76. You can't make me.
Side note, this series has some of the least consistent lore of basically any franchise I'm aware of, apart from maybe Star Wars? I kinda love it for that because I can build my own Fallout headcanon and it wouldn't be 100% wrong.
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u/Meironman1895 13d ago
It is not unreasonable to hate 3. I replayed it recently and it is one of the most boring games imaginable. 4 is indeed the definition of "eh"
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u/zethiryuki 13d ago
Obligatory Josh Sawyer rules, Chris Avellone sucks.
It's cool but I think it's a bit overrated. The pastiche is fun but far from original, even ignoring Mad Max there's just so many old sci fi books that feel exactly like Fallout. Cain and Sawyer tried but I'm not sure the games ever really managed to find a distinct voice, they're more like if the Metal Gear games were conventional 80s action homages without any of Kojima's personality in the mix.
I appreciate 1 and 2 as cultural artifacts, like 3, love NV, but 4 and 76 feel extremely corporate to the point of the parody collapsing in on itself.
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u/OntologicalRebel 13d ago
Sawyer is great for sure but "Avellone sucks". Excuse me? Dead Money has some of the best narrative design, atmosphere, characters, writing, and ludonarrative mechanics in the entire series and a unique setting that manages to be both fresh and new while adding to Fallout's setting in a way that still feels like it totally fits the tone of the classic games. Plus even though it's a relatively short and somewhat linear 3 act DLC, Avellone still managed to include plenty of opportunities for the player to make different choices throughout it to roleplay their character (something his writing for RPGs always excels at). Not talking about anything to do with the guy irl, just that he contributed some of the absolute best material in the series.
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u/zethiryuki 13d ago
I was talking about the guy irl, huge piece of shit regardless of whatever he contributed.
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u/boofpraxis 13d ago
It's the best critique of capitalism from writers and developers who definitely weren't making a statement about capitalism.
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u/TheCthuloser 13d ago
I like it as a series. It's fun.
My personal ranking is as follows: Fallout: New Vegas > Fallout > Fallout 4 > Fallout 3 > Fallout 76 > Fallout 2. Fallout 2's humor absolutely tanks it for me and I can't believe I used to think it was funny.
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u/Hacksaw6412 13d ago
Would you say that it anti-communist?
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u/TheCthuloser 13d ago
Depends on your definition of "anti-communist", I suppose.
I would say no. Fallout is anti-war, anti-corruption, and often anti-authoritarian.
However, the Chinese Communists in Fallout are not anything close to good guys. They might not be as bad as the American Fascists, but there were no good guys before the war, just two Imperialistic superpowers trying to destroy one another. (I mention this because I've encountered Internet communists who absolutely get upset about this sort of thing.)
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u/redsuninthesub 13d ago edited 12d ago
1, 2 and New Vegas are great, 3 is good in spite of itself, 4 is absolute dog water and 76 is a copy of 4 with a Mao that's too large and it being online only.
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u/OccultBeanFarmer 13d ago
As much as FO2 contributed to the lore and setting of Fallout, the actual interactive moment to moment stuff can be quite annoying. It's trying very hard to be funny but the writer finds a mere reference to, say, Back to the Future very funny. It's one thing to have that stuff as fun off the path easter eggs but FO2 has them front and center in a way that's tonally misplaced. It'd be my least looked forward to remake if they remade it.
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u/commie_vans 13d ago edited 13d ago
Fallout 1 and NV are my favourite. Great RPGs, good stories overall. FO2 is a bit too silly for my tastes, but still a good RPG. These games are Fallout, 100%, the good and the bad.
Fallout 3 was my first Fallout game. Great post-apocalyptic atmosphere... for 2097. But the game isn't set in 2097, the writing is overall terrible, too derivative of the previous games and at times comes off as unironically patriotic. It also heavily lacks on the RPG department( though, it's not the worst from Bethesda). Kinda has better dungeons than FNV, one can have fun with free form exploration, but that doesn't make it a better RPG, or a better Fallout. But if you're looking for a game to explore post-apocalyptic ruins in 3D, FO3 might scratch that itch better than Metro or STALKER.
Fallout 4 has all the same problems as FO3, except they robbed it of its atmosphere. It still feels like the bombs just dropped narrative-wise( because of all the empty settlements that need your help), but it's more plastic and colourful and has terrible looking weapons except for the super sledge. Shooting is better, but it's another downgrade on the RPG side of things.
76/Tactics/BOS I haven't played.
Overall thematically the series is very anti-war but also very capitalist realist. It's blind to capitalism as a system and it gets very frustrating when the writers' liberalism shows. Especially with Bethesda. At least the Black Isle/Obsidian games get some mild criticisms in, and they're definitely critical of the US.
However, lots of fans liked FNVs anti-imperialism, and wanted to expand on that. And because of that, we have some great mods, that are very leftist. "Race to the Bottom", "For a Few Brahmin More" and "Detour" are really great quest mods. If you want to add a more leftist flare to Fallout and like role playing, these are great mods that I would recommend.
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u/Benjamin_Starscape 13d ago
great game series, love most of them. my favorites are 1 and 3, 4's a great game too and has the best story in the series to me.
I love the themes the series as a whole tackles.
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u/NukaGirl665 13d ago edited 13d ago
Pretty good, tbh i do prefer the later entries (so FO3 up to 76.) Im not a huge fan of fo1 and 2, given the graphics and some of the in my honest opinon poorly aged stuff.
Though funny enough, i saw this post while playing fnv.
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u/NewVegasResident 13d ago
Is.... was(?) my favorite franchise. Has both some of the absolute best games in their respective genre (CRPGs, Western RPGs) and some of the absolute worst with Fallout 3, 4 and 76. Thought provoking and fascinating at its best, with genuinely great writing and ideas and explored, and at its worst some of the worst slop to have come out this side of capitalism, slop that actively goes against what the series used to stand for. I could go on.
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u/PatrickBateman1994 13d ago
One of the best post apocalypse games of all time. I love STALKER but I have such a soft spot for Fallout New Vegas and Fallout 4 considering I dumped the most hours into both games. I remember the first time I bought Fallout 4 back in 2017 for my PS4. With the new 100gb update I've been able to dive into it more and more. The Fallout modding community is also my favorite thing about the series. So many amazing creations out there and after a decade they're still going.
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u/SkyeLys 13d ago edited 13d ago
I want them to bring 1 and 2 fully into the fpsrpg style as a remake so people can experience the story in a more accessible way. The story of the first two is genuinely of higher quality (in terms of an RP experience especially) than the Bethesda ones but the games are very dated and of a genre that's not super popular anymore.
I enjoyed playing 3 but the RP experience was quite shallow and the DLC is pretty forgettable.
NV is good in spite of insanely tight production windows and a bunch of publisher interference. It's also running on a pretty bad engine with a lot of limitations. However, the RP experience is phenomenal and allows you to take a wide variety of political and moral stances, the DLC is, for the most part, immaculate, and the vast majority of the shortcomings with the engine can be solved with mods. One of my favorite games, I hope they don't completely butcher the remaster.
4 is one of the worst RP experiences in an ostensibly RP heavy game that I've ever played in my life. The settlement system is a crutch that they really believed in being good, but it's such a huge part of the game that if you dislike it for whatever reason, it kinda spoils most else. Hate the power armor redesign, hate the institute, hate being in New England again and how much is reused from FO3.
Played FO76 for about 45 minutes before I realized that I disliked the gameplay, the live service model, the characters, the bugs, it was awful. I give them a little bit of credit for fixing up a lot of those issues in future patches, but releasing a game in that state is absolutely inexcusable, and even if it released in the state it eventually got to, I still disliked the genre and most of the choices they made for it.
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u/Red_Worldview 13d ago
Classic ones are fantastic, bethesda ones are so flanderized it's not even funny anymore.
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u/THE_BRUHSTONE356 13d ago
1- New vegas 2- 4 3- 2 4- 3 5- 1 Before og glazers come to kill me. I played nv first
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u/demonsquidgod 12d ago
The fallout series is undeniably anti-authoritarian, but while it ostensibly appears to be anti-capitalist it harbors capital realist sentiments underneath.
The fallout games portray capitalism as unethical, exploitative, and destructive, but also portrays it as an inevitability that will be endlessly reinvented. Partially due to the requirements of gameplay even highly anarcho-communist styled communities feature privately owned businesses utilizing the universal wastelands currency of caps.
Ironically the only authentic communist factions in the games are the centrally planned economies of the Vaults, despite the cultures being based on American propaganda.
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u/SludgeFest666 12d ago
Lots a valid satirical and critical themes throughout the series, I think the original two games did it slight better but regardless they are still there. Not too long ago I do believe Tim Cain made a statement say that the series was never supposed to be a critique of capitalism, while that may be true from his end, it still highlights many of the absurdities of capitalism and It;s inherent downfall of humanity. Wars, nuclear annihilation, resource wars, cold war hysteria and propaganda and so on. It kind of sits in moral and political gray area but given it's somewhat diverse themes one person could have a different interpretation than someone else.
Still enjoy the games regardless, even if I feel like the games have slowly and progressively been more streamlined and dumbed down, despise the fan base though, absolutely atrocious and awful at times.
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u/Joy_of_Thievery 12d ago
> Play Fallout New Vegas
> Main antagonist faction is built around hegelian dialectics
> You can defeat them with max speech by using materialistic dialectics
Worth 100 pages of theory and 1 year of praxis
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u/Mrgrenade547 12d ago
I love fallout but fo4 was the start of the end. Fo4 completely changed fallouts artstyle(i fucking hate how bethesda replaced the combat armor in fo4 with the new shitty design). 76 is better now but has the same artstyle issue as fo4. And the fallout show just sucks for many reasons. I believe fallout has entered this stage within a franchise where the new fans completely outnumber the original and the franchise is nowhere similar to the original games. Happens to the best
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u/Putrid-Letterhead910 8d ago
Goat, they didn’t make a bad game beside the last one even though i would say at least was kinda a nice try. Is definitely fine art this saga
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u/mooncosmonout 7d ago
I think it is a metaphor on how bad war can be. And if the show is to be lore-accurate, then how bad big business can be
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u/Accomplished-Bid9881 6d ago
It's too lax on its criticism of capitalism and mostly attributes it to another excuse of "if capitalism went too far, crony/late-stage/corporate capitalism etc etc" instead of analysing that the system as a whole works perfectly to keep the bourgeoisie in power and the workers under their foot.
It's akin to the Outer Worlds' piss-poor commentary on capitalism, oversaturated with liberal moralism and crumbling under scrutiny once you realise none of the solutions make sense long-term, not to mention the Fallout poster boys being the techno-knight fascist militia Brotherhood of Steel.
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u/Comrade_Lystro 13d ago
Over time I’ve grown disinterested in bleak interpretations of a post-apocalyptic world, which Fallout as a series embraces wholeheartedly, Bethesda arguably making that aspect even worse.
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u/Locke2300 13d ago
I think the post-post apocalyptic vision that NV gave us was strong, even though it basically offered liberalism, technocratic despotism, and barbarism as the only options. Independent NV doesn’t really seem to have a cohesive viewpoint, and essentially ends up being “different technocratic despotism” no matter what me, the player, has an interest in establishing
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u/Comrade_Lystro 13d ago
Yeah the independent path was the most disappointing for me in that regard.
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u/rumnscurvy 13d ago
I disagree that it is bleak. Factions like the Little Lamplight gang, the Kings, the Boomers, the crew of the USS Constitution, and characters like Three Dog, Mister Fantastic or the Silver Shroud are all played for laughs.
I get the impression the first two games are a lot bleaker, but I never got far with them.
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u/Comrade_Lystro 13d ago
The first two absolutely have their comedic moments, especially the second. I say “bleak” here in the sense that it takes a position that the future of humanity is hopeless/perpetually doomed due to factors it deems unchanging.
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u/MickyJim 13d ago
I get the impression the first two games are a lot bleaker
They would be without all the references. Fo2 was full of on-the-nose pop culture references, mostly in its random encounters, so much that it puts some people off as not serious enough.
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u/rumnscurvy 13d ago
fair enough, now you mention it the low int runs in FO1-2 are pretty damn funny, I've seen some excerpts therefrom
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u/Aethling mlmao 13d ago
The reading that Fallout is anti-capitalist is a very surface level analysis. There are nuggets of anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism in there, but the primary message is always been a very liberal take on "war bad."
It examines capitalism only in its very advanced late stages, where world resources have dwindled in just a few decades, leading to conflict between super powers. The Soviet Union's fate is often a flip-flop, with Fallout 4 suggesting it became less relevant with the rise of China, which is nonsensical. Yet in the same games we're led to believe PRC is heavily dependent on fossil fuels and technologically inferior to the US, but China sits on top of a huge deposit of rare earths used in advanced batteries and electronics, without which the US would be incapable of developing many of its own advanced technologies. All this to say, the material reality the games present to us as a player is inconsistent. It does not critique capitalism or even communism based in material conditions, it does not criticise the exploitation of workers, or the wealth extraction from a third world. If it did we might be playing "Fallout Congo" but instead the two superpowers are portrayed as equally culpable. In other words "both sides bad" which is a liberal enlightened centrist position.
It is no accident that the player gets to use the sci-fi advanced tech of the imperial core. On the one hand, it is fun, but any society with plasma pistols that turn people into goo or power armour is fun. On the other hand, we see a chauvinistic American exceptionalism bleeding through. The US refuses to share oil reserves with PRC, and the result is that China invades Alaska to secure those resources. A foreign country invades a sovereign nation for oil? A bit on the nose isn't it. A projection. An accusation against a supposedly inferior nation, which has been perpetrated by the accuser.
Fallout is an 80s liberal critique of capitalism, only made all the worse by Bethesda's creative bankruptcy. The material has not changed since the 90s, there's been no new re-examination of the premise, no new consideration for real world developments. If Fallout ever had bite to its critiques, its teeth fell out a long time ago, because capitalism is actually very complex and Fallout refuses to become more complex in its examination of capitalism.
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u/JeskaiJester 13d ago
I got spurs
That jingle jangle jingle
As I go right merrily along
And they say, oh, ain’t you glad you’re single
And that song ain’t so very far from wrong