Lore Question: are (most) if not (all) the Fallout games in the same universe?

[Alexis Wasilla]

something that was never clear to me, granted that I only ever JUST played Vegas and still haven't gotten through it all yet, but are most or some of the Fallout games connected? Are they like all in the same timeline, like some big nuclear war happened and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up everything or is there some like, specific few fallout games that are connected but others arent?

[CalhounMKZ]

For all intents and purposes 1-4 and NV are. Possibly Brotherhood of Steel Tactics as it travels through The Pitt.
76 is intended to be but there are those in the community that will argue otherwise.
Shelter just pulls from the general lore and environments.

[RequiemsRose]

They are all connected, though the companies behind development have changed over the installments so some bits of lore got retconned, overlooked, or otherwise ended up conflicting in some ways. Some of the games are considered to be more canonical than others though (like the vast majority of fallout 76 does not count as canon to the overall lore, only some of the basic concepts like vault 76 being a control vault as that is a detail supported by lore in fallout 3 as well). There are even references to previous entries as the series progresses. The entire series takes place after "The Great War" when the nukes were dropped in 2077, Fallout 3 takes place in the year 2277, and New Vegas takes place in 2281, so one of the references you can end up finding here in NV is the Wasteland Survival Guide. In Fallout 3, its a massive quest line you take part in to help create this guide with an NPC, by New Vegas it's a skill book you can potentially find as you explore the wastes.

[Salamand3r-]

The mainline games are all considered to exist in the same canon. That's FO1, 2, 3, and 4.

FO76 is not, or at least was stated as not being on release, part of the main canon.

NV is more of a grey area. It's likely that some of the events and characters will be considered canon, but likely not all the details if they get in the way of a story Bethesda wants to tell.

Tactics is mostly non-canon. The existence of the Midwestern BoS and their airships are directly referenced in FO4, and the official canon status is that the some of the larger concepts "happened", but none of the details. Anything not directly referenced in a mainline FO game may or may not be canon.

BoS is likely not canon in any way.

Fallout Shelter - not having a story anyway - is obviously not canon.

[WillieSea]

'Canon' is funny in how it works. The 'current owner' of the franchise gets to decide what is canon and what is not.

FO:Tactics 'was' canon with the first owners of the franchise. Then Bethesda bought it, and now Microsoft owns it.

Who knows what Microsoft will decide the canon is. Most likely whatever makes them the maximum amount of money and to heck with game-play.

[Salamand3r-]

Originally posted by WillieSea:

'Canon' is funny in how it works. The 'current owner' of the franchise gets to decide what is canon and what is not.

FO:Tactics 'was' canon with the first owners of the franchise. Then Bethesda bought it, and now Microsoft owns it.

Who knows what Microsoft will decide the canon is. Most likely whatever makes them the maximum amount of money and to heck with game-play.

I don't think Tactics was ever fully canon or meant to be. It wasn't made by Interplay/Black Isle and took a lot of liberties with the lore. It directly conflicts with a lot of Van Buren design documents, and that was in development at the same time by the actual IP owners.

Tactics, much like FO76, was designed to capitalize on the name of the IP and take iconic elements, but not really contribute much to mainline canon.

It has tons of weapons and technology that we see nowhere else in any of the games before or since, features working vehicles in a way that we haven't seen before or since, and doesn't make much sense with the rest of the lore.

An expansionist BoS faction with huge fleets of land and air vehicles, the manufacturing facilities to produce more in bulk, and thousands of conscripted and indoctrinated soldiers would have had a profound impact on the entire Fallout universe. It would have been ridiculous in terms of tying the hands of any future games had it been intended as mainline canon.

[WillieSea]

Originally posted by Salamand3r-:

Originally posted by WillieSea:

'Canon' is funny in how it works. The 'current owner' of the franchise gets to decide what is canon and what is not.

FO:Tactics 'was' canon with the first owners of the franchise. Then Bethesda bought it, and now Microsoft owns it.

Who knows what Microsoft will decide the canon is. Most likely whatever makes them the maximum amount of money and to heck with game-play.

I don't think Tactics was ever canon or meant to be. It wasn't made by Interplay/Black Isle and took a lot of liberties with the lore. It directly conflicts with a lot of Van Buren design documents, and that was in development at the same time by the actual IP owners.

Tactics, much like FO76, was designed to capitalize on the name of the IP and take iconic elements, but not really contribute much to mainline canon.

Well, hate to say it but you are wrong. Only Bethesda made the decision that the previous work with the BoS games were non-cannon.

Fallout Tactics and its tabletop component, Fallout: Warfare, were disregarded by Bethesda Softworks during the development of Fallout 3.
Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel is treated as non-canon by Bethesda Softworks.
Canceled games, such as Van Buren, Project V13, Fallout Extreme, Fallout Tactics 2 and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel 2 are non-canon, unless aspects of these games are confirmed by other canon sources.

[RequiemsRose]

I personally love lore but I have to admit it's a mess in this franchise. I mean you'd expect a certain degree of mystery or inconsistency in a post apocalypse where the best news sources are trade caravans and the occasional radio host but already there are major inconsistencies between entries and sometimes a single game will contradict itself. Some of it is the IP changing hands and each new dev having a slightly different vision for it, some of it is just that there's a ton of info to keep track of so it occasionally falls through the cracks, and some of it is just plain mistakes, lack of attention, or laziness (like putting post-war loot in places that were supposedly sealed since the bombs fell. mechanically it makes sense, random loot tables, but lore-wise it doesn't and you just have to accept that sometimes).

[Salamand3r-]

Originally posted by WillieSea:

Originally posted by Salamand3r-:

I don't think Tactics was ever canon or meant to be. It wasn't made by Interplay/Black Isle and took a lot of liberties with the lore. It directly conflicts with a lot of Van Buren design documents, and that was in development at the same time by the actual IP owners.

Tactics, much like FO76, was designed to capitalize on the name of the IP and take iconic elements, but not really contribute much to mainline canon.

Well, hate to say it but you are wrong. Only Bethesda made the decision that the previous work with the BoS games were non-cannon.

Fallout Tactics and its tabletop component, Fallout: Warfare, were disregarded by Bethesda Softworks during the development of Fallout 3.
Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel is treated as non-canon by Bethesda Softworks.
Canceled games, such as Van Buren, Project V13, Fallout Extreme, Fallout Tactics 2 and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel 2 are non-canon, unless aspects of these games are confirmed by other canon sources.

According to the wiki. And there are no specific references anywhere from Taylor or Avellone that Tactics was ever considered canon. If fact they *directly* refute it being canon by not referencing *any* of the Tactics events or material in Van Buren documents (which again, was being developed at the same time) or in Fallout Bible material.

It's conspicuous in its absence from both pre- and post-Bethesda purchase materials.

I'll also quote myself above - it would have been phenomenally stupid for them to consider it canon for these reasons, and Avellone is not stupid.

Originally posted by Salamand3r-:

It has tons of weapons and technology that we see nowhere else in any of the games before or since, features working vehicles in a way that we haven't seen before or since, and doesn't make much sense with the rest of the lore.

An expansionist BoS faction with huge fleets of land and air vehicles, the manufacturing facilities to produce more in bulk, and thousands of conscripted and indoctrinated soldiers would have had a profound impact on the entire Fallout universe. It would have been ridiculous in terms of tying the hands of any future games had it been intended as mainline canon.

Tactics would have written the FO universe into a corner. The NCR already did that to an extent on the West Coast, which is one of the reasons Bethesda chose to set their games in the east.

Edit: Here's a Chris Taylor quote literally saying that Tactics had strayed from the canon -

That doesn't mean I take any less responsibility for my duties on FOT and my failure to keep the FO lore as close to canon as possible