this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2026
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Fallout
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With the exception of Interplay (as in Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel), creatively Bethesda have done the least in making Fallout what it is.
I'm enjoying the TV show because it really illustrates how Bethesda really doesn't get the setting, but other people do.
Edit: added clarification. Also, it's my opinion and talking about sales figure that I was already well aware of don't really change my mind regardless.
Edit2: Apparently Lemmy isn't better than Reddit, that's really disappointing. I would have thought an opinion other than "sales are all that matters" would have been good for discussion but instead I'm just farming downvotes.
i missed the word "creatively" when i had first read this comment. my bad π€£
done the least? fo3 was a smash hit and brought in tons of fans, which set the ground work for new vegas which is the darling game of the entire franchise, then brought in even more fans with fo4
fo1 and fo2 were great games but not nearly as popular. wouldve been sad to see those 2 eventually forgotten to time like many other 90s rpgs
My definition of doing good things with an IP is based on whether I think the resultant creative works are good, not on sales or popularity.
Fallout 3 was a perfectly fine game. I put about two hundred hours into it. It was a mediocre Fallout game.
I really dislike New Vegas but that's due to the setting (I detest Vegas and everything related to it).
Fallout 4 tries some new stuff, some lands, some doesn't, and I had a lot of fun with it.
Creatively I don't feel Bethesda provided much.
well i guess we disagree, say what you will about the gameplay of fallout 76 but it has provided some of the coolest lore and locations in the entire series. no joke. the lore in that game is awesome and they did a really good job with it
the dunwich stuff was also incredibly interesting and (iirc) a bethesda concept
super mutants were done before in fo1 and 2 yes, but the story of them being from a vault experiment, and now super mutants are scrambling to find more humans and more "green stuff" (fev) is what i think a really fun idea. plus theyre really funny to hear talk to each other. the radio stuff was also a great creative decision, and three dog is a legendary character of the franchise
the synth stuff from fo4 is really cool too
also, bethesda made the tunnel snakes and the atom cats, objectively the 2 coolest factions in gaming history (π)
I think those are mostly excellent examples. I mean, you're objectively wrong about Three Dog π but the fact that I have an opinion at least means they tried.
My favourite parts of Fallout 4 were when they were brave enough to write new stuff rather than ticking boxes. I loved the synth side of things. I don't really care for any of the Dunwich stuff but that's okay, that's just a simple "gothic horror is something I can take or leave".
I don't really love the radio. I mean, the music is excellent as it is (I have a MiniDisc full of tracks from the games), but in game it really doesn't hold a candle to the haunting beauty of the music from the first two games (I've got an MD of that too!). The music thing mostly irks me because it's old music - as in, it's old to us and so by the 2070s it's absolutely ancient. I wish they'd commissioned new music in the style of the old stuff instead. America might have had cultural stagnation in some ways but surely there was significant commercial appetite for new music, even if the musical style remained the same? (It doesn't quite make sense but I do enjoy the loung singer from Fallout 4 having a song on the radio)
I've not played more than about an hour of Fallout 76 as I didn't like the online aspect, the lack of NPCs (at the time), and the lack of slow motion VATS. I don't single those out as objectively bad, just that they were things that I personally don't care for. I'm glad they've done some cool stuff with it since, I just wish they'd been that brave in Fallout 3!
In closing I'm going to throw out the one thing that I hate that Bethesda got rid of and provided nothing to replace:
The text description box.
When I was playing Fallout 1 and 2 I looked at the world as more of an abstraction. Faces weren't discernible (talking heads aside) so I would just see a raider, a farmer, etc.. Locations could reuse assets. I'd then read the text box in the bottom corner to get my character's interpretation of the scene. That stuff brought the world to life in a way that simple 3D graphics haven't managed for me. I really have a soft spot for isometric/similar projections with pre-rendered graphics...
No kidding. Fallout 2 sold roughly a half million units during its main run.
Whereas fallout 3 sold 4.8 million units during its first fucking week alone.
People is this thread are smoking fucking crack and trying to rewrite history.
No, we're just not measuring success the same way.
I consider a creative work to succeed or fail based on whether I think it's any good. If you view creating games as a primarily capitalist exercise then sure, the original games obviously didn't do as well.
Of course, it might be that you prefer the newer games, in which case you have a different opinion, which is how creative stuff works!
I also love Waterworld, The Postman, and the really, really long cut of Apocalypse Now. I've no idea how they performed commercially but I found them amazing cultural contributions by the teams involved. I wouldn't recommend them to everyone but to the right audience they're great.
Lol no. If Bethesda hadn't taken up Fallout, it would have been forgotten in the dirt with Brotherhood of Steel, or Van Buren.
They brought Fallout to a more modern audience with 3, making it fully 3D and putting you right into the action. Imo, if the series has stayed isometric, most people would have forgotten about it after Tactics. It's just the natural evolution of games.
Lol no.
The indie market isn't drowning in fully 3D games, is it?
Probably. But it also wouldn't have had Bethesda's cack-handed interpretation of the setting. It's why I'm enjoying the TV show - they seem to get basic stuff like "the Brotherhood of Steel are not The Good Guys - they're more complex than that" and "Fallout doesn't need super mutants to be Fallout".
I'm not surprised that making the setting more simplistic, switching genre, and ploughing an enormous advertising budget into it resulted in better sales. The games weren't bad, but Fallout 1 and 2 were great.
To compare it to other mediums - what's most popular tends to be blander but the things that try their own thing have the most loyal fans. People were queuing up to watch the various Avengers films but you don't meet many people who watch a lot of movies who would say they're their favourite films. They'll usually be fans of something that appeals to their sensibilities but didn't set the world on fire when they came out.
Crucially I don't want you to think I hate the Bethesda games. I don't. However it never felt to me like they "got it". They're more theme parks than interactive narratives. I'm glad lots of people get to enjoy them but they don't hold a candle to the first two - in my opinion.