Fallout: Australia?

[PrototypeC]

Fallout: Canada would be stupid, even if the country hadn't been annexed by the U.S.; so why would Fallout: Australia be any less stupid? What could happen there that would matter in the Fallout universe, that we haven't learned before?

I think Fallout: London is a cool idea, but it'll never, ever happen. I think the same era humour and self-referential country parody could only be applied to that one place outside the U.S., and it would be a shame to miss it, but that's just how it is. The idea of a non-American Fallout is an unpopular one, therefore it will never be made. Deal with it.

 

[Internet Kraken]

What is it with you guys and wanting a Fallout game outside the USA? It would strip Fallout of pretty much everything you associate it with. A game in Australia would have mutated animals, and that's it. Nothing else associated with the Fallout series could exist there. I understand why you'd want a post-apocalyptic game in your country, but why Fallout?

Seriously, think of one major thing you associate with Fallout. Odds are it can't exist outside the USA.

And before you say "we need some diversity in Fallout", remember that America is an incredibly diverse country. You could span across a dozen games with going through the same environment.

 

[InevitableFate]

Australia doesn't need radiation and viruses to be a deadly wasteland of death and poison.

Three words: Bird. Eating. Spiders.

And no mutant could ever be as bizarre as the Platypus.

Besides I'm half convinced Australians are immune to radiation... and poison... and bullets. Pretty much just invunerable really.

Basically nothing would have changed.

 

[Wondermint13]

No..

 

[Liiizard]

Fallout outside the USA would never be as charming. The art style is all based on the 1950s American vision of the distant future of 2002.

The whole 50s thing was honestly a creation of Bethesda in Fallout 3. Certainly there are some thematic throwbacks to the 50s from the beginning, but in Fallout 1 and 2 it was supposed to be America and the world as it was, extrapolated to a future that was completely possible from where we are right now. The whole alternate timeline thing was something Bethesda created because a lot of people were very uncomfortable with a full 3d rendering of Washington DC being demolished so they wanted to put some distance in there. From what I understand, in Fallout 1 and 2 the 50s throwbacks were more a cultural commentary, suggesting that modern society hadn't come that far from the regressive 50s, and that we were just as much at risk of apocalypse today as then. This being the 90s, everyone was filled with optimism during the brief lull between the cold war and 9/11. They were trying to be downers. At least that's my interpretation, I could be wrong.

In any case, the only thing keeping a Fallout game from being set anywhere outside the US is obstinate adherence to tradition for its own sake. I personally hope that one day everyone can experience their hometown in post-apocalyptic wonder. I grew up around DC - the vault is situated almost exactly on the neighborhood where I grew up. It was one of the most entertaining video game experiences of my life, and I hope everyone can experience it one day.

I think some of the best locations would be:

New York - a series of fortress enclaves fighting over pieces of old technology, ghoul and mutant infested subways that are the only way to travel without dealing with territory and politics - great potential

Mexico - centered around Mexico City, it would be especially interesting if it wasn't directly hit, and was actually doing better than the US, though it would still have been covered in radiation and have all kinds of strange wildlife (chupacabras, anyone? They may not be real now, but no reason they won't be after enough radiation...)

Australia - reasons posted above, though like with Mexico maybe it wasn't directly hit but still had to deal with nuclear winter and no vaults

China - see how the other side of the war went, with a Chinese version of the Enclave ruining everyone's life - maybe even have a situation where the Enclave is openly taking over everything, and stuff is more bleak - no NCR out here to fight the man. Could lead to some interesting moral choices - do you help the Chinese Enclave, even though they're oppressive, since they provide people with basic order and protection? Or do you fight the system, joining with slavers and other undesirable enemies of the state and possibly destroy entire communities in the name of your Anarchic crusade?

 

[Lord Kloo]

Well if you look on the news it's already looking like an apocolypse over there so all Bethesda need to do is just photograph the place..

OT: It looks too much like the desert in NV so its a no from me :/

 

[CD-R]

It has Mod tools go make it. Someone was working on a version that took place in Egypt.

 

[Azrael the Cat]

I'm (a) from Australia, and (b) imbued wih a deep-seated contempt for America, but I actually have to agree that FO is intrinsically American. From the first game onwards, a major element of the series has been the 1950s retrofuturism, and that's a really US thing - it was a time when the US was growing economically and leading the world in standards of living, and so you have this patriotic jingoism laid over a post-apoc setting.

If you put it in Australia you'd have nothing but ordinary post-apocalyptic, which is quite a different feel and setting. That kind of ultra-modernist nationalism is completely alien to Australia - if someone was to pull out a flag and start waving it about in 1950s Australia, they'd get told to stop acting like a '**** yank'.

Besides, we already have out own post-apocalyptic setting: Mad Max. Now Fallout 1 and 2 had a lot of Mad Max elements to it - specifically from the 2nd Mad Max film (The Road Warrior), with dogmeat, the design of the metal armour, the town barricades, the idea of tribals (from the end of the film) and the design of the spears and so on. Even the leather armour is taken from what Max wears in MM2. The car in FO2 is US rather than Australian 50s, but a lot of the fan clamouring that a car be included in the second game was, at the time, because of all the car battles/chases in Mad Max 1 (there's the huge road battle at the end of 2nd one, but it's not really the same idea).

In that sense, there are Australian elements in the first two Fallouts. But once you take away the US jingoism (and really, there simply isn't an Australian equivalent of that - for us, the flag-waving stuff is pretty much the domain of racial hatred and other far-right groups) and you've got Mad Max rather than Fallout.

 

[n1ght5talker]

Most of Fallout's charm comes from the ongoing joke of people's perceptions of America; the conspiracy theory style military organisations, the gun crazy locals and the self important nature of the populace allows the game many avenues to explore whilst seeming somewhat plausible.
Fallout: Australia wouldn't have as many guns, the people would try to reach political solutions and we'd all be down at the pub drinking side by side with the mutants. Maybe head'n out to shoot a few mutant 'roos with beer in hand. 4 people on the back of a Ute, crashing through the bush shooting anything scared out of hiding by the sound and the searchlight.


In Fallout: Soviet Russia the mutants hunt you!

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

So, inspired or stupid? or both!

It sounds painfully cliched and hackneyed.

Besides ... Australia already has battery acid lakes and 80% of the landmass is already barren with lots of venomous things. You don't need anything else to give you a picture of a world that hates you and want you dead.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

Would work with their trend of desert stuff, but only if they have mutant glow words, and a giant mutant glow worm boss like they had with the ant queens.

 

[Throwitawaynow]

Fallout: Anywhere but USA, everyone is dead no vaults instant gameover, would you like to retry and level a radscorpion? 5 minutes and you get sucked underneath the earth, or are stuck in a wall. Have fun.

 

[VanillaBean]

You had me at mutant kangaroos.

 

[Hunter65416]

Well I think it sounds awesome, kangaroo mutants, a ghoul infested sydney opera house, and I micheal Atkinson tomb stone that says I called it.and then describes in 3 paragraphs how this is video games fault.

 

[Infinatex]

I think it would look pretty cool to be honest. Maybe something like this:

 

[InevitableFate]

Australia is already a wasteland filled with mutated humans and strange animals. I want a Fallout: New York. It could be entirely city-based, have a faction control each borough, and a bit of upstate and Jersey. You could start out in yonkers or something. Make up an excuse as to why the bombs didn't directly obliterate the city, and it's all set.

I'd like a New York as well. Not being American I'd like to hear some more about the outside world, but at the same time I recognise that the Fallout franchise is quintessentially American, and that removing it from that environment probably wouldn't be successful. We know that, at least, there are survivors in Britain because of Tenpenny and, for the same reason, they have the technology and organisation to cross the Atlantic. It's not farfetched to consider Europe having an equivilent to the Vault system, but unlike the USA's, not a social experiment. Follow on from that and Europe could be as ordered as the NCR with technology approaching that of the Enclave.

Regardless, New York is a perfect opportunity for some exploration of post-war Europe while remaining in America. Traditionally it was the first city people crossing over saw, so if one rogue British guy could make it to DC there's bound to be a larger presense there.

 

[Mr.PlanetEater]

Can we stop with these threads, it's getting quite annoying and ridiculous that people still aren't accepting that the Canon of the series would be completely Shattered and the Franchises years of back story building completely tossed into the bin if it was set anywhere but America.

Please just respect that fact that canonically Fallout has to be in America or else it's not Fallout, it's like me saying they should make a Halo game set in Hungary where you don't fight the Covenant but you're still the master chief. It goes against all Canon and would therefore just destroy all the back story that the Halo games have built (though rather poorly).

I'm not saying a post apocalyptic game in Australia would be crappy in fact I think it'd be damn fun but just make a separate IP for that, or make an series that would canonically/back story wise allow you to travel all over Europe and South America/Antartica/Whatever continent you please.

Seriously someone should get to work on that I'm now actually wanting to see what could be done with that, and in the mean time can we stop with this silly idea of Fallout being able to still be 100% Fallout outside of America...Please? :>

 

[Flig]

I doubt that Fallout is going to be leaving the states anytime soon, they'd have to abandon the entirety of the backstory they've generated so far from the past 3 numbered titles(plus NV, Tactics, BoS, and whatever spin-offs I'm missing), since it never mentions anywhere except the U.S. in any sort of detail. If they plan on leaving the U.S. my bet's on either annexed Canada, or China.

China is gone. Fallout: Extreme covered that.

Well considering that Extreme never made it past concept development...

Besides you were only suppossed to go exploring in a small section of China, near endgame, so there's plenty of landmass left.

But, yeah, like I said before placing it outside the U.S. would strain the backstory, I mean it's possible, but improbable. Though I would enjoy visiting Hawaii to see how those little islands faired...

 

[amyous]

Australia is already a wasteland filled with mutated humans and strange animals.

Interesting. I wonder why I've never met any of these mutated humans.

 

[Vault101]

Its already been done..hell it pretty much defined the genre its a movie called Mad Max