Fallout 4 has its fair share of synth detectives and food paste, but it still needed something more during its initial development period, according to lead designer Emil Pagliarulo.
Pagliarulo tells Rock Paper Shotgun in a new interview, "The game was missing something, as far as one of the overall themes." Fallout 4 takes place in a post-war, post-cannoli version of Boston, and when Pagliarulo was growing up in the city, he remembers having a vague fear of "the boogeyman," mob boss Whitey Bulger.
"I remember having a conversation with Todd Howard that there should be this overriding sense of paranoia that people have, and they don't know who to trust," Pagliarulo continues. Ultimately, developer Bethesda used anxiety to shape Fallout 4's grisly narrative about the citizens of 2287 being tricked, kidnapped, and replaced by the unjust Institute swapping humans for perfect droids.
"It's very film noir crime-ish, in a very Boston sense too," Pagliarulo comments on Fallout 4 criminal Eddie Winter, whose full head of white hair remains flawless even after hundreds of years of skin necrosis. "It's all tied together" to Whitey Bulger and his real-life Winter Hill Gang, says Pagliarulo.
But, once again, something is missing. So in Fallout 4, it was important that, "throughout all the bad stuff and paranoia, people are still trying to rebuild society," says Pagliarulo. "When you look at Fallout 3, everywhere from Rivet City to Megaton, everybody's just getting by. But in Fallout 4, people are trying to grow beyond that a little bit."
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