We Need A Fallout Game Before Fallout 5

Summary

There's no easy answer on which Fallout game to start with.
But hype from the TV show will have gone by the time Fallout 5 arrives.
The solution? Make a smaller Fallout game.

If you've never played Fallout but loved the recent Amazon TV series, the good news is 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:there are lots of games you can play. There's the most recent, MMO 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Fallout 76, which everyone hated at the time but seems to be thought of a lot more fondly these days. Or there's the last mainline entry, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Fallout 4, which everyone hated at the time but seems to be thought of a lot more fondly these daꦆys.

Then there's 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Fallout 3 and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Fallout: New Vegas, which a lot of people would call 'the older games', the two most popular entries - though some dislike 3 for the major tone shift and New Vegas was beset by technical issues. Then there are the actual older games, Fallout and Fallout 2, which are the opposite - everyone says they're great but no one really plays them. So a lot of choices, all with fairly large caveats. Oh, you want a new game? That's a good one!

Eventually, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:we are going to get another Fallout, right after we get another 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Elder Scrolls. What's that, you ask? It's Skyrim. Yeah that was the last one. I know it came out over a decade ago. You'd think they'd be nearly done on the sequel then, but no, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:they have barely started. Which means they haven't started at all on Fallout. It wouldn't surprise me if it didn't come out until 2030. And I'm talking about Elder Scrolls there, not Fallout. That'll be even longer. Hope your enthusiasm lasts until then!

Where Do You Even Start With Fallout?

Fallout TV Show Ella Purnell as Lucy MacLean.

Fallout is seeing a spike in its popularity, and we know it’s returning for a second season. Whether it sticks to the binge model or goes more episodic now it has an established audience remains to be seen, but it seems fair to bet that it will retain a large chunk of this new audience into the future seasons. These are people who, like with 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us, will think of t✤hemselves as Fallout fans despite having never played any of the games.

This is how television adaptations work. They bring stories to a wider audience who celebrate them without having hands-on experience with the source material. You can be a fan of, say, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Hunger Games or 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Disco Elysium without having read the books. But many people will go back and check out the source material once they've fallen for the adaptation. With The Last of Us, this is easy - it's a linear story based on the first game, which was recently remastered ready for these very fans. New Fallout fans will not have such an easy choice.

Fallout 4 and 76 have seen the biggest surge since the show dropped on Prime, and that makes sense as they're the newest - but few would argue these two represent the best version of Fallout. But then, the two original games are far less approachable for outsiders, and New Vegas is the least compatible with the show given the debates about how they eachꦰ fit together in💫 the canon and New Vegas ditching the vault dweller origin. That leaves Fallout 3, which we arrive at﷽ not through its own merit but via process of elimination - hardly a glowing endorsement.

Note: Fallout Shelter has also picked up in popularity, a mobile game that- you’ve already stopped reading, have🦄n’t you. Anyway it’s a management sim with no real story, so again, not a great choice.

Fallout 5 Should Not Be The Next Fallout

It's a problem much bigger than Fallout in gaming right now that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:dev cycles are just too long. It's impossible for any kind of trend to happen except by chance, and while games remain a big part of the cultural conversation, they struggle to reflect that culture when they're so far behind it. Obama was President when development began on GTA 6. Maybe Xbox and Bethesda have bet on Fallout's success and have already assigned one of Xbox's studios on making a smaller Fallout game while we wait for Fallout 5. If not, they need to sign that off today.

The next Fallout game doesn't need to be the massive sprawling RPG that Fallout 5 will be, and it cannot hope to carry any momentum from the show if it is. Fallout could end up being the biggest show in the world, and it still wouldn't matter by the time Fallout 5 came around. Imagine how little you'd care if someone revealed a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Game of Thrones gam🎶e today. The iron is hot, but it will have cooled to ice by the time Fallout 5 arrives.

This doesn't mean hawking Fallout's rights to the dev that pitches the lowest budget for a sloppy rushed mess unworthy of Fallout's name, but there is a middle ground. There are plenty of talented studios under Xbox's branding that could make a very good Fallout game in the next couple of years, ready for season two. That game couldn't be a 50 hour RPG, but that's not all Fallout can be.

You only need to look at 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Persona 5 to see how many different, high quality games can come from the world an RPG establishes. I don't think we need a Fallout rhythm game any time soon, but there's lots of potential for a more linear and narrative adventure game, a visual novel, a horror title, and a bunch more. A management sim where you oversee a vault's survival, anyone? (If you want this, you actually do want Fallout Shelter).

Fallout doesn't need to be 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:from the perspective of a Lucy, and e♔ven if you stick with that, there are other ways to tell her tale than a multiple consequence RPG that offers huge maps to get lost in.

I'm still wary of video game adaptations, so it has been a pleasant surprise to see Fallout succeed like this. And I'm glad people are being drawn to the games because of that, but it feels like the barrier for entry into Fallout is much higher for newcomers - especially when no one can even agree where the start line is. Fallout season 2 is coming soon, and though it won't be Fallout 5, hopefully a new game is too.