Part of what makes Fallout games special is the sense of loneliness, that you're the only one with the weight of the world on your shoulders. That all changed in Fallout 76, but before that, original developer Interplay toyed with the idea of making a Fallout MMO, and one of the original co-creators had some serious doubts.
In an interview with our friends over at PC Gamer, Tim Cain explains why he doesn't think Fallout works as an MMO. The idea came after he'd already left Interplay, but during one of several meetings he had with the company, he said, "I'm super cautious about this and for multiple reasons."
One of them was the fact the acronym would spell out FOOL, but also, "I said, 'We've designed a game where you're going out in the Wasteland by yourself […] And you want to convert it to a game where you come out of your Vault and there are 1,000 other blue and yellow vault-suited people running around. You realize that's a very, very different setting and game and kind of player? And you want to switch it from story-driven to mission-driven.'"
Being alone is so core to Fallout that three of the four mainline games actually name our character in a way that really drives home how isolated we are. Fallout 2 has the Chosen One, Fallout 3 has the Lone Wanderer, and Fallout 4 has the Lone Survivor.
"I'm like, 'I'm just telling you, Fallout wasn't designed to have other players. The Vault Dweller felt special, felt like the weight of the future of the Vault depended on them. You just can't throw in a dozen others, 100 others, 1,000 others, and think it'll be fine.' I think Fallout 76 feels very different [from] Fallout 3 or 4, for no other reason than you're playing with 1,000 other people," he adds.
Cain highlights an issue I've long had with most MMOs. I don't believe I'm the special chosen one destined to save the world when I see dozens of chosen ones all crowding the same quest-giving NPCs as me. It completely takes me out of the story the game is trying to tell.
Interplay didn't appreciate Cain's feedback, though. "They were like, 'You're being very negative,'" he says. "And I used to repeatedly go, 'I'm not saying don't do this. I'm saying you have your work cut out for you, and you're making decisions that are making your work harder. So don't get mad at me.'"
I can actually see a Fallout MMO working if the story was centered on a Vault designed to repopulate the US after the bombs fell. Thousands of Vault Dwellers being let loose on the Wasteland, all working together sounds like an interesting variation on the formula. And Cain has said previously he wanted to try different genres for Fallout.
The PC Gamer article does note that Fallout 76 is focused on rebuilding civilization, but I've never played it, so now I'm thinking I should give it a whirl. I was put off by all the issues at launch, but maybe it went the No Man's Sky route and improved over the years.
If you're hungry for more Fallout, check our ranking of the best Fallout games ever. My favorite is Fallout 3 because it made me feel properly lonely and has such a stellar atmosphere.
