Making extensive use of the 1988 title wasteland, precipitation changed the landscape of PC western Role Playing Games. The combination of contemplative apocalyptic fiction and dark comedy set it apart from other story-based titles on the market. The level of freedom it boasted was almost completely unparalleled.
Unsurprisingly, it helped pave the way for a series that would take a page away from their ravaged protagonists and try to adapt to the changing world. The adage of the series is that “War never changes“, but the franchise has continuously seen various upgrades, mutations, and traits. Some of these changes have been for the better, while others have brought down the karma of the series.
10 Some rejected reputations were downright tacky
The game’s old-world feel is enhanced by the beautiful Vault Boy artwork and the many perks and reputations players can build during the campaign. Part Uncle Moneybags Van monopoly and share Goofus & Gallantthe Vault Boy mascot adds to the darkly comedic undertones of the series.
But as great as these illustrations are, some wisely didn’t 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 wisely chose to use the Hated reputation art instead.
9 Brotherhood Of Steel Fails To Bring Console Gamers To Court
By the mid-2000s, the industry was moving away from PCs and Interplay was struggling in the market. Much to the chagrin of fans and critics, the publisher canceled Black Isle Studio’s third precipitation title code name From neighbours. Interplay then commissioned a top-down action RPG titled Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel in what appeared to be an attempt to court console gamers.
The game deviated from the franchise’s open-world structure and took over the engine from Snowblind’s Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance. Unfortunately, it received a mixed response from critics and was panned by fans. When Bethesda took over the series, they would later consider this game non-canon.
8 Bethesda has completely forgotten the ethos of the series
During the reign of Bethesda precipitation, the writing staff seemed to deviate further from the ethos of the post-nuclear apocalypse franchise. In a blatant disregard for the anti-nuclear war themes that permeated the first two episodes, 3 has giant robot Liberty Prime just casually throw Nukes to help the hero.
Fallout 76 was conceived as a spin-off PvP title where players would basically blow each other to smithereens; the complete antithesis of why fans enjoyed this story-heavy RPG franchise. In fact, Bethesda was surprised by how many players adhering to the title managed to create their own fun through role-playing.
7 Fallout 2 made a bad first impression
While the first game allowed players to organically learn the game’s mechanics, the sequel took a significant step backwards. Fallout 2In the executive-mandated tutorial section, players must prove their worth as the chosen one by surviving a temple fraught with peril and an optional battle with a guard.
While players with a high enough voice control can persuade the guard to resolve the issue peacefully, the game will be over long before it starts if they allocate their points incorrectly. The developers have announced that they regret the inclusion.
6 Fallout 3 Even more so
Fallout 3‘s opening commits much the same sin as Fallout 2, but from the other end of the difficulty spectrum. While defenders of the tutorial applauded it for its blending of storytelling and gameplay mechanics, others criticized it for holding the players’ hands and failing to give them meaningful moral choices.
Critics such as Harris Michael Brewis criticized 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 completely patches this entire opening from the game.
5 Dead Money was brilliant to the point where fans really had to play it
Dead money was the first of New Vegas‘ DLC stories, and it tried to take the franchise into the realm of survival horror. Almost every aspect of this DLC shines, such as the superb writing, the haunting atmosphere and the excellent voice cast.
Unfortunately, the annoying backtracking, trial-and-error design, and trademark bugs drag the experience down and keep it from reaching the heights of other horror franchises like Silent Hill or Resident Evil. Chris Avellone lamented that the final product fell short of its intended purpose of scaring players, claiming: “The Survival and Tension aspects trump that in the end.“
4 The quality of the writing saw a significant dip
While the Bethesda-developed titles are not without their moments, the consensus among fans is that the writing wasn’t exactly the same quality as Black Isle and Obsidian’s efforts. The final clashes with John Henry Eden and Colonel Autumn don’t even add to the debate with The Master from the first game.
In addition, factions like the Brotherhood of Steel and the Enclave became highly 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 stay away from their home gates
The home versions of the games have almost always been buggy, with poorly optimized ports being the inferior ways to play with a country mile. This problem has plagued Bethesda’s other franchises such as the Elder Scrolls games, but it seems like it hasn’t disappeared anywhere in recent years.
The PlayStation 3 port of Fallout 3 suffered from blurry textures and a much worse frame rate, but the port of New VegasGOTY edition for the same system turned out to be even worse, as the game actually got buggier as they progressed. Performance issues remained with home versions of Fallout 4resulting in lower ratings.
2 Upon release, Fallout 76 was a buggy and meandering mess
It’s almost impossible to adequately describe how borderline is broken and buggy Fallout 76 was during the first launch. Even the simple act of going into power armor led to a hilarious bug where players were transformed into a weird deformed abomination. While the hairpins weighed nothing in previous entries, in 76they were 0.1 lbs – much bigger than their real world weight.
This undoubtedly led to many players becoming overloaded. Due to the online nature of the game, the VAT system was heavily reworked to a significantly worse version. The game also suffered from the lack of NPCs, quests, or storytelling.
1 A bag showed the cracks 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 make a special edition of a big video game on a big budget. While the advertising clearly promised customers a canvas duffel bag, those who bought it received a purely nylon bag.
Customers who expressed their complaints were told that the canvas bag in the ad was only a prototype and that it “too expensive to makeBethesda tried to please customers by giving them some free in-game currency – just 500 atoms.
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