Fallout: interesting things you should know

We have collected the most curious facts about the franchise: from different concepts of the first Fallout to a reference to Douglas Adams.

Before the first Fallout, Wasteland came out

Fallout is not the first Interplay game to tackle the aftermath of a nuclear war. In 1988, with the support of publisher Electronic Arts, the studio introduced the RPG Wasteland, which took about five years to develop. In it, the players took on the role of the commander of the “Desert Rangers” squad, maintaining relative order in the territory left from the United States.

Despite the fact that Wasteland turned out to be commercially successful, it did not work out with sequels: Fountain of Dreams, on which a completely different team was working, was not advertised as a sequel, and the Meantime project was completely closed. Therefore, Interplay decided to make an analog of Wastelands, focusing on the same principles and themes. And in 1997, the first Fallout came out.

For Fallout 4, 170 thousand lines of dialogue were written

Before Fallout 4, all the main characters were not very talkative – they were simply not voiced by anyone. In the fourth part, Bethesda finally decided to change this and invited two actors, for each of whom they wrote as many as 13 thousand lines of dialogue. It took about two years to record them. 

Dinosaurs may have appeared in Fallout

Now, at the mention of Fallout, the post-apocalyptic Wasteland immediately comes to mind, full of abandoned and partially damaged houses, funny robots, dangerous and not very mutants, as well as other freaks of nature. As it turned out, this was not the only setting that the developers were seriously considering.

Initially, they planned to make a traditional fantasy RPG since the genre flourished in the 90s. Then they had a crazy idea – to allow gamers to play as dinosaurs. We remind you that we are still talking about an RPG! However, both concepts were ultimately dropped in favor of the nuclear end of the world.

Fallout 2 has a reference to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Fallout 2, like its predecessor, is full of mysteries, most of which are quite obvious.But there are also much more inconspicuous ones. There is a reference to the work of Douglas Adams – “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”

You can find a crashed soft-boiled whale and petunia flowers scattered around it in the game. Those who are not familiar with the work of Adams, of course, will not notice anything unusual in this. But there was a scene in the book where an activated infinite improbability engine turned two nuclear missiles into a surprised sperm whale and a vase of petunias – both unfortunate enough to kill themselves on the ground.

The original Fallout 3 was also an isometric RPG

Following the success of Fallout 2 in 1998, Black Isle Studios, a division of Interplay, has been working on a full-length sequel, codenamed Van Buren. Like the first two parts, the third one was supposed to be an isometric RPG, where the main character and also an escaped prisoner had to stop an impostor scientist who decided to commit genocide.

But soon, the project was canceled, Black Isle was disbanded, and the rights to Fallout went to Bethesda. However, there is a demo of the original Fallout 3 online.

Mutant Harold is the most famous character in the series

Surely Fallout fans will remember Harold because he appeared in almost all games in the series, from the first part to the third license plate. This is a mutant with a real tree growing out of his head – by the way, the character calls him Bob or, when bored, Herbert!

One could observe how the tree gradually absorbs Harold from game to game. In Fallout 3, the hero is already completely overgrown with it. The character remained forever north of Washington, chained to one place. 

Fallout has been loved by true fans of the genre and is expected to be popular for years. It provides players with everything they need: amazing pictures, true emotions, an exciting story. If you haven’t tried it yet, we strongly recommend trying yourself and opening new horizons.