Is Fallout 4 a post apocalyptic game?

[Seal Enthusiast]

Sure the question sounds stupid on the surface, but the great war happened 210 years ago in game terms, with most characters being so far removed from the old world that it's more of an idea and legend rather than an actual memory for everyone other then the player character. When does the post apocalypse stop actually being the post apocalypse and become it's own thing altogether?

[Seacaller]

In comparison to before the bomb, it's post apocalyptic. I think post apocalyptic will remain until order is restored and radiation is cleared

[Razer]

In Fallout games Post apocalypse becomes its own thing. Also, the main character will not be the only one with memories from the past. Having played previous fallout titles you would know this.

Now something can be said about Fallout 4's world state. Normally people would band together and rebuild, but in Bethesda's Fallout universe this doesn't really happen. Sure some people build a shanty town, but that's about it. In previous Fallout titles (Fallout 1 and 2) people live in much better houses and actually build something themselves. Granted Fallout 4 has a reason for being this way, but it's not a super solid reason. All of it kind of feels like the Great War happened very recently and not 200 years ago. You'd expect people to have simply rebuilt everything, this happens in the real world at least.

But Bethesda;s Fallout is what it is. It's a handful of people making ends meet in a post apocalyptic world where raiders, ghouls and super mutants are infinite and make life a living hell for anyone trying to survive. People don't rebuild houses, nor clean up anything. Everything is makeshift and disgusting.

[Razer]

Originally posted by Seacaller:

In comparison to before the bomb, it's post apocalyptic. I think post apocalyptic will remain until order is restored and radiation is cleared

In the real world radiation clears up a lot faster than in Fallout, but there's really no reason for people to live in ♥♥♥♥♥♥ shanty towns and disgusting environment for hundreds of years.

[Liquid Inc]

Originally posted by Razer:

But Bethesda;s Fallout is what it is. It's a handful of people making ends meet in a post apocalyptic world where raiders, ghouls and super mutants are infinite and make life a living hell for anyone trying to survive. People don't rebuild houses, nor clean up anything. Everything is makeshift and disgusting.

Your in boston, full of super mutants, raiders and more, and, later the BoS and the exploding vertibirds piloted by idiots.
What is the point making your house look nice and furnished, when you've got all that around to destroy it? Also more reason for people to come and loot you...

Originally posted by Razer:

In the real world radiation clears up a lot faster than in Fallout, but there's really no reason for people to live in ♥♥♥♥♥♥ shanty towns and disgusting environment for hundreds of years.

Because no one cares; there's far more important things to contend with than making your street and house look pretty.

I admit they went a little too far on the dead grass and tree's, but the general dilapidation of most buildings is what i'd expect when your in such a place. No one's going to have the ability to shore up buildings, bridges and walls, and who would spend their time doing so when a super mutant's likely to nuke it for fun?

[Xenon The Noble]

It's a reflection of our modern attitude that we're all gonna die anyway from something so why bother. It comes from the lack of natural selection pressures to remove the "hopeless attitude" gene.
After 200 years the people should be quite the opposite of how they're depicted. None of this "oh, I'll just sit around in the mud until the supermutant eats me". Nope, those people would have died out long ago.
It's as fake as the physics. It's just a game and not a simulation.

[Dr.Abscondus]

It's just a game. I did not know that.

[Razer]

Originally posted by Pookie101:

Originally posted by Razer:

In the real world radiation clears up a lot faster than in Fallout, but there's really no reason for people to live in ♥♥♥♥♥♥ shanty towns and disgusting environment for hundreds of years.

And who exactly is going to build brand spanking new houses? Who is going to wire it for electricity? Plumbing? What about working sewage?

All those skills we take for granted are basically lost.

When you are concerned about literally where your next meal is coming from and whether or not a giant mutant monster is going to devour you I can sort of excuse not bothering to pick up trash

People learned that at some point. Information is still out there. You can learn it again. Not everyone looks at something and gives up because they can't call someone to do it for them.

Not saying they would build perfect houses off the get go, but after 200 years there should have at least been some development. And people would have cleaned up the mess, not sleep next to a frikiin skeleton and dirt and mold.

All those things you're mentioning are true at the start. When people needed to get by in the beginning. After 200 years those things should no longer be a thing. Or at least not in the same degree. People built entire cities with their bare hands and some janky ass tools in the dark ages.

It's like fantasy books and stories. They tend to talk about 1000 years ago things, but in the current day they're still swinging a sword and riding a horse as if in 1000 years there would be 0 progress. It just doesn't make sense. Super unrealistic. We just accept it because video game. That's it. So don't try to counter it with video game or fantasy book logic, because that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the real world.

You can look up vids on youtube of a single dude going into the wilds with no tools and build a hut that's 100x better quality than what the Fallout 4 peeps were able to pull off.

[Liquid Inc]

Originally posted by Razer:

People built entire cities with their bare hands and some janky ass tools in the dark ages.

There was a lot of other things they did too, and many are on a similar level of what your complaining about...
Throwing your "waste" in a bucket, out of the window into the street below, for instance...

The trouble with comparing the 2 times is that your example of the dark ages had fights, but everyone was typically the "same"; Swords, shields, bows being widely used. No mini nukes at one end and pool cue's at the other....

To destroy someone's town, which usually had some form of wall, it required a siege crew. In FO4, you just need a drunk vertibird pilot or a fat man launcher....
About the only house that has been repaired is cabot house, and that's only because they're basically half vampiric, given cabot uses his father's blood to extend their lifespans...

Originally posted by Razer:

You can look up vids on youtube of a single dude going into the wilds with no tools and build a hut that's 100x better quality than what the Fallout 4 peeps were able to pull off.

Were they being shot at while they made it? had a hungry super mutant willing to rip his legs off while he searched for wood?
Did they have the risk of a group of Mirelurks looking for a meal showing up?
Did they have to take shelter from radiation storms? or take a few days out while chugging radaway?
Plus countless other things...

The wilds in reality are far less dangerous than they would be for the little settler in FO4. Given all the eco warriors who simply play at it while still flying on holiday, i doubt that guy saw any animal at all? Im not sure there's much of a comparison here really.... the 2 environments are so far disconnected that it's not even comparable beyond "he saw a tree!".....

[Twelvefield]

People talk about the The Dark Ages... really a product of modern history books. There were plenty of social, technological, commercial, and spiritual advances over that time, it's not that things slowed down for a thousand years so that we could sit in cold mud. Well, unless you looked like John Cleese, in which case, then yes, that happened.

Point being, a post-apocalyptic age could easily last a thousand years. Some places are going to be more backwards than others as well. Fallout is simply too small a sample size to make the generalizations people have made.

However, I guess we can consider this: the two most reliable technologies available to the mass population are lanterns and guns, in that order. As long as this stands, there's going to be a lot of gravestones and little light.

[Razer]

Originally posted by Liquid Inc:

Originally posted by Razer:

People built entire cities with their bare hands and some janky ass tools in the dark ages.

There was a lot of other things they did too, and many are on a similar level of what your complaining about...
Throwing your "waste" in a bucket, out of the window into the street below, for instance...

The trouble with comparing the 2 times is that your example of the dark ages had fights, but everyone was typically the "same"; Swords, shields, bows being widely used. No mini nukes at one end and pool cue's at the other....

To destroy someone's town, which usually had some form of wall, it required a siege crew. In FO4, you just need a drunk vertibird pilot or a fat man launcher....
About the only house that has been repaired is cabot house, and that's only because they're basically half vampiric, given cabot uses his father's blood to extend their lifespans...

Originally posted by Razer:

You can look up vids on youtube of a single dude going into the wilds with no tools and build a hut that's 100x better quality than what the Fallout 4 peeps were able to pull off.

Were they being shot at while they made it? had a hungry super mutant willing to rip his legs off while he searched for wood?
Did they have the risk of a group of Mirelurks looking for a meal showing up?
Did they have to take shelter from radiation storms? or take a few days out while chugging radaway?
Plus countless other things...

The wilds in reality are far less dangerous than they would be for the little settler in FO4. Given all the eco warriors who simply play at it while still flying on holiday, i doubt that guy saw any animal at all? Im not sure there's much of a comparison here really.... the 2 environments are so far disconnected that it's not even comparable beyond "he saw a tree!".....

You're still not making any convincing arguments. Just throwing video game logic at the discussion. Bethesda's approach is already different from the first games. They actually had towns made of stone and such. Because that's what people 200 years after the war would have done. Rebuild. Make defenses. Try to live comfortably. Stay away from Raiders and super mutants. All your logic comes from hollywood and video games. Not from the real world where people aren't totally inept and give up at the slightest mishap. 200 years is a long time. Your points hold up for maybe a few year tops. Nearly anyone can build a decent house if they put their mind to it. Even you. The commonwealth in Fallout 4 is not a safe place. No one would actually try to live there. People would move away and build something where there's no super mutants lurking about. Not build a hut with 2 planks right next to a Raider den and a super mutant hideout, grow some crops and complain they're being attacked all the time.

And to the point of keeping clean. That's not to make things just look pretty, it's hygene. Something that's incredibly important if you want to survive. Living in a gross and disgusting environment is likely more dangerous than anything that's walking around outside your settlement. People would keep clean as much as possible. They do this everywhere. Even tribes in the jungles of Afrika.

But go ahead, believe people would just not be able to do it. It's too dangerous, under attack 24/7. People are completely inept. Can't build anything. Can't clean anything. Just total misery. It's true in your mind, so it must be true for everyone else.

The fact that you have so little faith in what a human is capable of is very quaint.

[DouglasGrave]

The question is, are people living in a world that's still broadly under the influence of the apocalypse that happened? If yes, then it's a post-apocalypse game. If they're not and the effects of the apocalypse are mostly over and unimportant, then it's not a post-apocalypse game, since it's not defined in relation to the apocalypse.

Fallout 4 is definitely still a post-apocalypse game, with people living in the ruins of the world that was destroyed and dealing with the consequences of its destruction.

While technically anything that happens after an apocalypse is "post-apocalypse", it's only really meaningful as a description of the nature of the game if the results of things being destroyed continue to have a significant effect.

[Liquid Inc]

Originally posted by Razer:

You're still not making any convincing arguments.

"i don't agree thus you are an idiot and i don't like you"?

That's a really good discussion point, thank you /S

Originally posted by Razer:

Just throwing video game logic at the discussion. Bethesda's approach is already different from the first games.

Nope, just looking it at a different way to you and you don't like it.

Originally posted by Razer:

Because that's what people 200 years after the war would have done.

Would they? I question that. Real world logic shows that's not even what would happen (Take a look at the slums in India for instance)
People don't always hold "looking pretty" in high regard. If it does the job, then it is good enough.

Originally posted by Razer:

Try to live comfortably. Stay away from Raiders and super mutants.

And when they come to you?...

Originally posted by Razer:

All your logic comes from hollywood and video games.

No it doesn't.
I don't even watch films so that side of the argument is bogus. This is just you refusing to accept other people have differing opinions on what people would do in a theoretical situation than you do.

Originally posted by Razer:

Not from the real world where people aren't totally inept and give up at the slightest mishap

They are totally inept. Most people don't even know how to spell or cook anymore. I don't have much faith in humanity or myself, and you'll never change that.
I don't hold myself much higher than literal dog crap, and i'm not much smarter than that either..

Originally posted by Razer:

Your points hold up for maybe a few year tops. Nearly anyone can build a decent house if they put their mind to it. Even you.

Nope. i know very little about tiling walls or how to be a stonemason, and im not going to be doing so.
I would build out of the easiest possible materials to find, and that would be it. I wouldn't be using red brick and slate.

Originally posted by Razer:

The commonwealth in Fallout 4 is not a safe place. No one would actually try to live there. People would move away and build something where there's no super mutants lurking about. Not build a hut with 2 planks right next to a Raider den and a super mutant hideout, grow some crops and complain they're being attacked all the time.

You make do with what you have. If you move so do they, since they prey on people. If there's no one around, then there's no point for a raider as there's no one to raid.
that's just common sense...

Originally posted by Razer:

And to the point of keeping clean. That's not to make things just look pretty, it's hygene. Something that's incredibly important if you want to survive. Living in a gross and disgusting environment is likely more dangerous than anything that's walking around outside your settlement. People would keep clean as much as possible. They do this everywhere. Even tribes in the jungles of Afrika.

Sadly there are no deer about to make soap, and i doubt that using radstag as a substitute would be a suitable replacement; it would probably be full of radiation at a minimum.

How would people "keep clean" then? The water is polluted beyond any reasonable use, the animals can't be used to create soaps and other cleaning products, and the simple act of throwing away a skeleton is going to do nothing.. if touching it doesn't cause more problems than leaving it alone.

Originally posted by Razer:

The fact that you have so little faith in what a human is capable of

"i'll strangle myself for fun on tiktok" or "i'll use my phone while it's charging in the bath tub" are such great examples of human intelligence

My personal lack of faith in myself or others aside, almost every point you've made has been your personal views, and, anytime someone has disagreed, they are wrong and have no intelligence. This is arguing from ignorance, or perhaps arrogance, but nothing more.

[Seal Enthusiast]

Well regardless of how much the wasteland should or shouldn't be built up, what is stranger to me is that the overall societal and cultural development (or I guess I should say regression) of wastelanders is non-existent in-game. After multiple generations now of people living in the post apocalypse, I would expect a lot more insular tribes with a few more civilized trading societies sprinkled in, such as the societies we saw in fallout 1 & 2, but the wastelanders in fallout 4 are like if Karen and Kevin from down the street got really into leather and hard drugs and started razing their neighbors' houses to the ground. In fact, I don't think a purely raider society would last for 200+ years, but would become more of a raiding/trading/subsistence mix, similar to the more primitive societies of our own past.

[Angry Nord-Grunge Syndicate]

As i see it post-apocalyptic fiction is a setting where for whatever reason governments and society collapses, whether zombies, disease or nuclear war.
And it will remain post-apocalyptic until those are restored.

As for why Fallout has not managed to do so. It's a particularly pessimistic setting where factions are unable to work together and in rare cases they are, some third party messes everything up.

[Mathius]

Originally posted by Razer:

Originally posted by Pookie101:

And who exactly is going to build brand spanking new houses? Who is going to wire it for electricity? Plumbing? What about working sewage?

All those skills we take for granted are basically lost.

When you are concerned about literally where your next meal is coming from and whether or not a giant mutant monster is going to devour you I can sort of excuse not bothering to pick up trash

People learned that at some point. Information is still out there. You can learn it again. Not everyone looks at something and gives up because they can't call someone to do it for them.

Not saying they would build perfect houses off the get go, but after 200 years there should have at least been some development. And people would have cleaned up the mess, not sleep next to a frikiin skeleton and dirt and mold.

All those things you're mentioning are true at the start. When people needed to get by in the beginning. After 200 years those things should no longer be a thing. Or at least not in the same degree. People built entire cities with their bare hands and some janky ass tools in the dark ages.

It's like fantasy books and stories. They tend to talk about 1000 years ago things, but in the current day they're still swinging a sword and riding a horse as if in 1000 years there would be 0 progress. It just doesn't make sense. Super unrealistic. We just accept it because video game. That's it. So don't try to counter it with video game or fantasy book logic, because that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the real world.

You can look up vids on youtube of a single dude going into the wilds with no tools and build a hut that's 100x better quality than what the Fallout 4 peeps were able to pull off.

Your whole argument is baffling and ignorant. Look at the homeless people in San Francisco today that can't get out of their current situation for one reason or another.

But yeah, in a world with nuclear waste everywhere, an atmosphere that has a destroyed climate as well as different variants of viruses and experimental substances floating around the air, with zero law enforcement or substructure they would be able to just pick themselves up by their bootstraps. /s