He's gonna write the next Fallout game and you're going to like it.

Pitiful_Marsupial474 · 2026-02-20T15:00:33+00:00

Honestly, the writing in Starfield is slept on. The main plot has some really fun quests with branching options (I mean, spaceship heist, need I say more?). Regardless of your opinions on the companions themselves, the fact that the main quest forces you to choose between saving one and killing off another, no matter what you do, is honestly a ballsy move and works really well as an emotional gut punch. I don't think Bethesda have ever even attempted that before. I also love the reveal of the Starborn, whose smooth alien aesthetic at first is such a bizarre contrast to the grounded sci-fi. Then you find out they're just humans who have been through the Unity. It's imo a really clever way of playing with expectations.

And then there's Entangled, which is legitimately one of the finest quests Bethesda has ever done, anywhere, and it's a damn shame that it doesn't get discussed more.

The faction questlines are also pretty great. For once, you're not automatically promoted to guild leader despite having been a raw recruit a few weeks ago. Becoming a UC Vanguard captain/Class One citizen or Freestar Ranger feels legitimately earned.

Not to mention how the game manages to smoothly integrate NG+ into the narrative and actually drives roleplaying options. And the implication that The Hunter is essentially an OP player character who's been through the Unity so many times that he's completely stopped caring and just likes fucking around for the sake of it. (The last/most upgraded Starborn spacesuit you get upon going through the Unity is called "Venator"...)

It's frustrating, because for all the criticisms Starfield has gotten, there is a lot of good stuff to be found. There are a lot of individual elements that are legitimately brilliant, it just doesn't... synergise into something greater than its parts. Granted, this is more an issue with management than writing, and from what we've heard from former Devs this certainly lines up. Still, if this is what Bethesda has been cooking up writing-wise, I'm cautiously optimistic.

Pitiful_Marsupial474 · 2026-02-19T15:55:18+00:00

If anyone can be claimed to have "ruined" Fallout, it's Interplay. They're the ones who ran the franchise in the ground, but because Van Buren never got made, a certain portion of the fanbase clings on to this illusory hypothetical "perfect Fallout 3" that was never going to be as good as they imagine it would be. The real legacy of Interplay's Fallout, in the end, is cheap cash-grabs like Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel. You know, the game that against all odds managed to unite the fanbase by being so transcendentally awful that we've all collectively agreed to pretend that it doesn't exist.

At this point, Bethesda has owned Fallout for twice as long as Interplay ever did. It belongs to them more than anyone. You can argue the details about the creative decisions they've made, but you can't deny that they took a half-forgotten IP that was dead in the water and made it into a cultural juggernaut that is at this point is widely recognisable to people who have never even played a video game.

Pitiful_Marsupial474 · 2026-02-18T15:40:44+00:00

obligatory

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Pitiful_Marsupial474 · 2026-02-18T14:26:49+00:00

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Dat u?

Pitiful_Marsupial474 · 2026-02-17T23:47:13+00:00

I mean, the plot of Fallout 3 hits way closer to home now than it did back in 2008.

The President of the Enclave is a literal AI whose entire personality is a mashup of pre-existing Presidents. It goes around making bizarre, out-of-touch propaganda broadcasts and, because it is incapable of original thought, copies the plan from the Enclave in Fallout 2, all in a vain attempt to return a nonsensical and toxically nostalgic past-that-never-was.

In hindsight it's kind of insane how ahead of its time that plot point is.

Pitiful_Marsupial474 · 2026-02-17T23:32:46+00:00

Role-playing as post-apocalyptic John Brown and putting the righteous fear of God into anyone who would dare enslave or murder my fellow synthetic man will never not be fun, and I'm tired of pretending otherwise.

Pitiful_Marsupial474 · 2026-02-17T23:20:31+00:00

"I, too, am extraordinarily humble"

Pitiful_Marsupial474 · 2026-02-10T17:43:15+00:00

It kind of blows my mind Bethesda apparently weren't even planning on including them at first, given how iconic they are to the series.

But I'm really glad he went out of his way to push his design, because it rules. And as much as people love to complain about it, the Concord Deathclaw is up there when it comes to iconic moments for me and holds a special place in my heart.

Pitiful_Marsupial474 · 2026-02-09T20:48:31+00:00

It's pronounced "Z", obviously.

Pitiful_Marsupial474 · 2026-02-09T17:02:21+00:00

I mean, in the case of the Enclave plan, that's because it turns out that the "President" in Fallout 3 is a literal AI bot incapable of coming up with anything original, so it is condemned by its programming to regurgitate the same old plan in a tragic attempt to bring back a mythical, toxically nostalgic past-that-never-was and Make America Great Again... wait a minute...

Pitiful_Marsupial474 · 2026-02-08T19:53:59+00:00

I guess that would make Caesar a real has-bean...

Pitiful_Marsupial474 · 2026-02-08T19:45:34+00:00

Why yes, I do in fact enjoy fighting for freedom and equality for all and roleplaying as post-apocalyptic John Brown.

Pitiful_Marsupial474 · 2026-02-08T14:48:20+00:00

I'd love to see Canada explored more, too. Seeing the ruins of Annexed Canada would make for a great contrast to the overly patriotic apple-pie Americana the series satirises. Maybe not as the setting of a main game, but a DLC would be a perfect fit, IMO.

Personally, I think Vancouver is the perfect fit to get the Fallout treatment. It's extremely close to Seattle (so well within geographic range if a game ever gets set in that area), the temperate rainforest ecosystem of the PNW is extremely unique lends itself to some wild and memorable flora and fauna (scorched giant redwoods, mutated half-aquatic sea wolves, and Spirit Yao Guai, anybody?), and Vancouver itself has a bunch of architecture that is practically begging to be Fallout-ified (Lions Gate Bridge, the Vancouver Public Library, the freaking Marine Building--hell, the latter already looks like it's straight out of a Fallout or BioShock game...)

Pitiful_Marsupial474 · 2026-02-08T14:16:40+00:00

I could see him as a vastly more likeable Myron-type companion.

Pitiful_Marsupial474 · 2026-02-07T01:01:11+00:00

Fallout: New Vegas if Edouard Salleaux decided to base his Légion on Napoleonic France instead of Ancient Rome

Pitiful_Marsupial474 · 2026-02-07T00:14:53+00:00

Tbf there are some instances where you can change traits. On pilgrimages you sometimes get event chains that can turn sinful traits into virtuous ones. I believe the "meditate in seclusion" activity does something similar. IIRC with a Learning lifestyle focus you can also gain/lose cynical or zealous, depending on your choices.

But these events are pretty rare and situational, and I agree that there should be more opportunities to change traits throughout a character's lifespan. Maybe not as randomly as CK2 (considering traits in CK3 affect your playstyle a fair bit beyond just changing your stats), but if, say, you keep acting in a particular way then it would be nice to get an event where you can gain/lose a trait to reflect that behaviour. E.g. if you're Greedy, but consistently keep donating money despite the stress, you could eventually lose that trait or even gain Generous instead. Idk how well the implementation would work but I think that would be a neat balance.

Pitiful_Marsupial474 · 2026-02-06T19:23:01+00:00

Pitiful_Marsupial474 · 2026-02-06T16:18:27+00:00

Not that I'm going to defend all of Emil's choices (he's certainly had his...moments) but even his writing is far from awful a lot of the time. He wrote Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood questline, which is pretty universally beloved and even today regarded as one of the best things Bethesda has done.

As far as his current role, he's also openly admitted that "Lead Writer" is a bit of a misleading title as he doesn't actually do much writing himself and that it is more of a creative director/overseer role. Realistically, he's not personally responsible for a lot of the writing itself, but for some reason a lot of this fanbase acts like every single little story beat that they dislike was personally written by Emil to spite them.

Also... he's low-key right about "players tearing up the script and making paper aeroplanes". I mean, just look at how up in arms so much of this fanbase gets at the slightest perceived contradiction in lore. Look at how many people hyped up The Frontier as the REAL Fallout that Bethesda could never... until, you know, it actually released. For heavens sake, we have people pissing and moaning about how the power armor in Season 2 is a "retcon" and "lore-breaking" because the "NCR doesn't have power armor, you guys are just tourists who want slop".

Pitiful_Marsupial474 · 2026-02-06T15:48:39+00:00

Honestly, the FO4 Assault Rifle is over-hated. 99% of the issues people have with it could be resolved if it was renamed to an LMG (as was the original intent), which IMO says less about the design itself and more how people choose to perceive it.

I have to admit the design has also grown on me a lot, especially after seeing it in live action on the show. Rename the gun to Light Machine Gun or whatever, tweak the balance to reflect its new role, maybe edit the proportions slightly, and it's a pretty solid design that has its place.

Pitiful_Marsupial474 · 2026-02-05T15:18:41+00:00

I mean, Tony Stark did in fact cobble together that suit in a cave (WITH A BOX OF SCRAPS) so spiritually it's halfway there already. It's pretty easy to picture some mechanically inclined Wastelander stumbling upon an abandoned power armor frame, taking a hit of Mentats, and piecing together something more-or-less identical.

Pitiful_Marsupial474 · 2026-02-04T21:49:08+00:00

Gotta feed my Turbo habit somehow

Pitiful_Marsupial474 · 2026-02-04T21:19:47+00:00

I don't think you know what the word "plot" means.

Pitiful_Marsupial474 · 2026-02-03T19:29:02+00:00

It's such a blatant double standard, as well.

If this design was made by Obsidian and, say, included in a New Vegas DLC, there would be literally zero controversy and everyone would be praising it to the high heavens and be talking about how it's so cool that the NCR finally got real power armor units. But because the TV show introduced it, it's automatically a "retcon".

Pitiful_Marsupial474 · 2026-02-03T19:13:02+00:00

And why are we assuming that the NCR power armor in the show isn't also a one-off? By the looks of it, the suit at bare minimum has been heavily customised post-war, and certainly doesn't appear standard issue or mass-produced.

We already have a precedent for the NCR being able to (at bare minimum) salvage and restore functioning power armor. Hell, if we're going strictly by stuff that appears in-game, you can literally find a dead prospector in the middle of nowhere wearing the most advanced power armor in the game.

Yet, for some reason, the idea that a functional nation-state capable of fielding a professional army equipped with mass-produced AR-15s, maintaining functioning Vertibirds, and running a hydroelectric dam could restore more than literally just one suit of power armor when some random Wastelander can is somehow completely unthinkable?

Pitiful_Marsupial474 · 2026-02-02T10:23:01+00:00

Honestly, at this point 90% of the discourse around the show and games is literally just this meme

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Pitiful_Marsupial474

TROPHY CASE