Bethesda's Fallout is not Canon.

[cypher]

Im seeing a lot of confusion here in this forum after the Fallout tv show, regarding of what is canon and what is not. So i will make everything clear for you guys.

Fallout 1 - Canon
Fallout 2 - Canon
Fallout 3 - Not Canon
Fallout New Vegas - Canon
Fallout 4 - Not Canon
Fallout 76 - Not Canon
Fallout TV Show - Not Canon

I hope i have helped to clear the confusion.

[parkyperhaps]

i like when shows and tv adaptations do this, it makes it a love letter to the franchise without cramming the og plot into a film or ruining the lore n stuff.

[Hymzir]

The only thing that can truly said to be canon is Fallout 1. That game was created by Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky. Fallout was their vision, their creation.

And they left Interplay before the release of Fallout 2.

While Fallout 2 is close to their vision, and most of it is based on their design, it's not what they would've shipped if they had remained at Interplay.

The thing is, that when a work gets turned over to people who did not create the original, it ceases to be an original work and becomes a brand. And brands don't care about canon, they care about Product Identity. And this is not automatically a bad thing. People buy Fallout stuff because they want to Fallout stuff. And that means certain key features must be present for the stuff to feel like Fallout. If they're not, people won't buy it.

The bottom line is, that canon is not sacred to devs. If things need to be changed to fit whatever they are currently cooking, then so be it. All that matters is that the final product feels like the brand. Everything else is negotiable.

Legally, of course, the right holders can do whatever they wish. They can change things whenever they want. Whether you think it is canon or not doesn't really matter. Not that "canon" is a legal notion to begin with. Not like you can sue them for canon violations.

Besides, the whole notion of canon is kinda pointless when it comes to discussing brands. It is whatever sells the latest product, and the Fallout TV series has sold real well. So I guess that's canon now.

What ultimately matters is your own personal headcanon. Your individual take on the whole. As such, it is much more sensible to approach each title as its own separate interpretation of the brand, and not as concrete pieces of a larger whole.

Based on what the devs are posting on social media, it is clear that's how they see things. So relax, enjoy the show, and fabricate a headcanon of your own liking. And if some things don't quite fit your take on it, change it to fit. That's what the devs do.

[Rommel]

cypher a écrit :

Im seeing a lot of confusion here in this forum after the Fallout tv show, regarding of what is canon and what is not. So i will make everything clear for you guys.

Fallout 1 - Canon
Fallout 2 - Canon
Fallout 3 - Not Canon
Fallout New Vegas - Canon
Fallout 4 - Not Canon
Fallout 76 - Not Canon
Fallout TV Show - Not Canon

I hope i have helped to clear the confusion.

Fallout 1 - Balls
Fallout 2 - Balls
Fallout 3 - Balls
Fallout New Vegas - Balls
Fallout 4 - Balls
Fallout 76 - NO BALLS
Fallout TV Show - Balls

I hope i have helped to clear the confusion.

[Kaiju4Hire]

Actually the only non cannon thing in the show was shady sands being nuked. Everything else in it is cannon and the original dev helped with the show.

[Goof]

Kaiju4Hire a écrit :

Actually the only non cannon thing in the show was shady sands being nuked. Everything else in it is cannon and the original dev helped with the show.

its cannon now though

[DonJuanDoja]

cypher a écrit :

DonJuanDoja a écrit :

NV was the only good one the Bethesda haters like, and that would not have existed if not for Bethesda.

FO3 provided the skeleton if you will for NV and they just fleshed it out. They were basically handed everything they needed to make the game and allowed to do their own thing and they did a good job, but couldn't have done it without Bethesda.

Bethesda made Fallout popular. Without them it would still be just a obscure lesser known RPG and New Vegas would've never happened the way it did.

FO1 and 2 were good for their time I'm sure, but I missed that, and going back to play them is just well meh, not that exciting or fun.

And it sounds like without them buying it, development on the next game was already doomed. So you should be happy with Bethesda, without them, it wouldn't be nearly as good as it is today.

All that said, I do think they've headed the wrong direction with 76, but I also see all the young kids asking for every game to be multiplayer nowadays, so they kinda did what the majority of gamers ask for. From the looks of it, they even fixed it to be pretty decent and now have a pretty good rating score.

And all the talk of modders "fixing the game" just isn't true, more often than not, mods broke my game and I had way more fun playing on consoles before mods were possible on them. And just like NV, the mods wouldn't be possible without Bethesda.

So yea. They win. Sorry OP. Tough luck.

Fallout 3 is garbage.
Fallout New Vegas is the greatest game ever made, and it was done in 16 months, now imagine what Obsidian could have done if they had time and a good engine.

One of the greatest we agree on that. But again, not possible without Bethesda, and can't imagine because Obsidian didn't have the time or engine or IP or anything really without big Bethy.

What's that game Obsidian tried to make later, oh right I don't remember because it wasn't very good. I was looking forward to it I remember that, based on the same idea you have stuck in your head. Guess I was wrong.

They copied FO3 and did some better things with it. Which is pretty cool, but doesn't deserve the same credit Bethesda does.

Obsidian stood on the shoulders of giants for a few minutes and they did a pretty good job of it, but that's about it. I know because I've stood on the shoulders of other developers and did cooler things with their code base. Doesn't make me better than them though.

[Handbanana]

cypher a écrit :

Im seeing a lot of confusion here in this forum after the Fallout tv show, regarding of what is canon and what is not. So i will make everything clear for you guys.

Fallout 1 - Canon
Fallout 2 - Canon
Fallout 3 - Not Canon
Fallout New Vegas - Canon
Fallout 4 - Not Canon
Fallout 76 - Not Canon
Fallout TV Show - Not Canon

I hope i have helped to clear the confusion.

I assume you made this post because of the asinine statement the writer recently made about fallout 1. In that regard you are correct he has no authority or agency to change things in the first game.

Aside from that all fallout games are canon and in the same universe with the actual exception of tactics I believe.

Retcons are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and that writer is dumb. Everything else falls within the proper timeline.

[Shaken_Widow]

this debate was settled like 9 years ago when the game dropped.

all of the games are canon despite the little continuity errors caused from the interplay buyout.

the show isn't canon because it doesn't follow the arc and is set in an alternate universe, but it was never going to be canon, they explicitly stated that they didn't want to follow the story of the games but instead make one themselves that used the backdrop of fallout as the scene setter.

you could essentially think of the show as a playthrough of a bunch of characters that weren't set to follow a questline, but instead have their own story to act out in the wasteland.

after all i think it would be lame to just see an adaptation of the games to films, i've played literally every single one to the point i know every part of each game, i think that would spoil a 1:1 retelling don'tchathink?

[Handbanana]

Shaken_Widow a écrit :

this debate was settled like 9 years ago when the game dropped.

all of the games are canon despite the little continuity errors caused from the interplay buyout.

the show isn't canon because it doesn't follow the arc and is set in an alternate universe, but it was never going to be canon, they explicitly stated that they didn't want to follow the story of the games but instead make one themselves that used the backdrop of fallout as the scene setter.

you could essentially think of the show as a playthrough of a bunch of characters that weren't set to follow a questline, but instead have their own story to act out in the wasteland.

after all i think it would be lame to just see an adaptation of the games to films, i've played literally every single one to the point i know every part of each game, i think that would spoil a 1:1 retelling don'tchathink?

The show actually is canon. It takes place around 30 years after fallout 4 in the year 2290ish. They even consulted with the studio to make sure it fit within the timeline and to not interfere with any planed future games or content. Probably why it was set in the future so far.

Fun piece of trivia is the only location that they were told they could not mention was san fransisco. That implies that they plan on doing future content that follows up the events of fallout 2 at some point and the new city there.

[Piderman]

Kaiju4Hire a écrit :

Actually the only non cannon thing in the show was shady sands being nuked. Everything else in it is cannon and the original dev helped with the show.

Weil, this _is_ canon now and btw, the film crew came up with it, not Todd or any other Bethesta employee involved. I heard Todd first was like "Bruh, what?!", but then went with it because the idea provided some really interesting plot anchors.

[TemplarGR]

DonJuanDoja a écrit :

NV was the only good one the Bethesda haters like, and that would not have existed if not for Bethesda.

FO3 provided the skeleton if you will for NV and they just fleshed it out. They were basically handed everything they needed to make the game and allowed to do their own thing and they did a good job, but couldn't have done it without Bethesda.

Bethesda made Fallout popular. Without them it would still be just a obscure lesser known RPG and New Vegas would've never happened the way it did.

FO1 and 2 were good for their time I'm sure, but I missed that, and going back to play them is just well meh, not that exciting or fun.

And it sounds like without them buying it, development on the next game was already doomed. So you should be happy with Bethesda, without them, it wouldn't be nearly as good as it is today.

All that said, I do think they've headed the wrong direction with 76, but I also see all the young kids asking for every game to be multiplayer nowadays, so they kinda did what the majority of gamers ask for. From the looks of it, they even fixed it to be pretty decent and now have a pretty good rating score.

And all the talk of modders "fixing the game" just isn't true, more often than not, mods broke my game and I had way more fun playing on consoles before mods were possible on them. And just like NV, the mods wouldn't be possible without Bethesda.

So yea. They win. Sorry OP. Tough luck.

This is the correct response. As someone who began Fallout since the beginning, i agree with this take. The original Fallout demo was one of the first games i ever installed on my first Windows 95 PC as a 14 year old.... Up until then i only gamed on nintendo consoles as a kid. It was a revelation for me as a video game, and i rushed to get all Fallout games ever since.

The violence, the graphics, the detail, the stories, the cool characters, the tactical gameplay, i loved it.

The games were stellar for their time, but they weren't much succesful. They were relatively well known on PC Master race circles, but back in 97-98 PC gaming wasn't widespread, most people still gamed on consoles back then, especially PS1 (which i too owned back in the day). In those days, Diablo and Baldur's gate were both much more succesful than Fallout, and more well known, with Diablo also having console releases.

Sadly, with Interplay going bankrupt, Fallout was for all intends and puproses dead, which left me very sad. When Bethesda (i enjoyed Morrowind, i hated Oblivion with a passion, Oblivion has always been trash and easily the worst Bethesda game ever made) announced they were buying Fallout, i was ecstatic. I preorded 3 and wasn't dissappointed. It was all i wanted. Yes it changed the isometric turned based gameplay, but that wouldn't fly in 2008, people didn't want to play that. They did preserve the FO spirit though, just like the TV series did.

People love to hate on Bethesda for some reason. I on the other hand, despite having the "right" to ♥♥♥♥ on them since i am a neckbeard who was with FO from the start, i always had been grateful for their ressurrection of the franchise. They did it justice, yet some ignorant people still hate on them. I have began recently hating on Bethesda not because they made Fallouts, but because they aren't making them anymore, and the last one was an MMORPG that i refuse to play cause i don't like MMORPGs. And they made Starfield instead, which was a meh game. I will become a Bethesda hater soon if they don't reveal FO5 this generation....

[Goof]

Shaken_Widow a écrit :

this debate was settled like 9 years ago when the game dropped.

all of the games are canon despite the little continuity errors caused from the interplay buyout.

the show isn't canon because it doesn't follow the arc and is set in an alternate universe, but it was never going to be canon, they explicitly stated that they didn't want to follow the story of the games but instead make one themselves that used the backdrop of fallout as the scene setter.

you could essentially think of the show as a playthrough of a bunch of characters that weren't set to follow a questline, but instead have their own story to act out in the wasteland.

after all i think it would be lame to just see an adaptation of the games to films, i've played literally every single one to the point i know every part of each game, i think that would spoil a 1:1 retelling don'tchathink?

the show isnt an alternate timeline, not sure where you got that from

[ggeymer]

ok who the ♥♥♥♥ cares about that. Its a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game, not a book

[iamcorn]

Cope harder.

[esotericist]

Handbanana a écrit :

The show actually is canon. It takes place around 30 years after fallout 4 in the year 2290ish.

fallout 3: 2277
fallout new vegas: 2281
fallout 4: 2287
fallout tv: 2296

the shady sands thing is complicated, i know the chalkboard shows 2277, but i've seen quotes supposedly from todd howard that shady sands got nuked RIGHT AFTER fallout new vegas, which would imply 2282-ish.

so i'm chalking that up to cultists being unreliable narrators, myself.