The Dark Tower in Fallout

[The Big Boss]

Ok, so after reading the first four books in Stephen King's The Dark Tower series (and a bit of the fifth) i'm starting to see some big similarities in Fallout New Vegas;

1. The post apocalyptic landscape prevailant throughout the books which have scattered remanants of our own world (gas stations, plane wreckages etc.)

2. The fallen city of Lud seems very like NV itself.

3. The robot which which roams the desert in Calla and that cowboy robot which belonged to Mr.House.

4. The Western theme in both.

5. References to old songs such as 'Big Iron' by Marty Robbins.

6. Mutants.

7. Farson/Affiliation. The NCR/Legion.

That's all i can think of for now. Is it just me or has anyone else noticed this? Do you think that some of the guys behind New Vegas maybe copied some of these ideas?

 

[No_Remainders]

Do you think that some of the guys behind New Vegas maybe copied some of these ideas?

1) Post-apocalyptic landscapes are the staple of the Fallout series, so no.

2) New Vegas is meant to mimic Vegas, so no.

3) House's robot is there as a guide for you, in a way, doubtful.

4) Because before "The Dark Tower", the western theme DIDN'T EXIST. [/sarcasm]. No.

5) Hold on, so, because there were a few old songs in the game which also happen to be referenced in "The Dark Tower" series, it was copied? I highly doubt this.

6) Mutants, like the post-apocalyptic landscapes, have always been in the Fallout series, so, once more, no.

In other words.

 

[Quinadin]

I think I want to read The Dark Tower now. I also think that having a post apocalyptic western setting, eventually ideas are going to look the same, without actually being inspired by or copied.

Captcha: Religious endstall?

 

[somonels]

1. Wow a genre is similar
2. Fallen cities tend to be
3. wow a remaining automaton from a fallen high-tech civilization, just wow
4. really? really?
5. They have old songs, mostly form a bygone era of a fallen civilization.. really?
6. In a post-apocalypse setting? Preposterous!

Copied from The Dark Tower? No, just generic.

Where are the giant robot bears? The spiderlings, the "raping ghosts," travel between worlds? Where is the last key, the pusher, the child? Where is the rose and where is the King with Crimson eyes?

TURTLES
TURTLES
TURTLES
all the way down.

 

[FalloutJack]

I'm gonna say that if King himself hasn't seen a pattern, and he be a smart man, it isn't there.

 

[The Big Boss]

Ok, i get where you're all coming from. But what i'm trying to say is that these themes were in The Dark Tower before the Fallout series had even begun. And as far as i know prior to The Dark Tower a post-apocalyptic western theme DIDN'T exist.

 

[bushwhacker2k]

1. Wow a genre is similar
2. Fallen cities tend to be
3. wow a remaining automaton from a fallen high-tech civilization, just wow
4. really? really?
5. They have old songs, mostly form a bygone era of a fallen civilization.. really?
6. In a post-apocalypse setting? Preposterous!

Copied from The Dark Tower? No, just generic.

Not saying NV or The Dark Tower are bad, but perhaps it's true that it's just a case of similar settings rather than a direct copy.

 

[viranimus]

Is it a direct connection? Prolly not. Do you have a source material to make a pretty awesome mod using the GECK engine? I do think so.

 

[ChupathingyX]

The original Fallout games took inspiration from the Mad Max films, New Vegas continued that.

There is quite a lot of evidence to support that, however, I have never heard a developer of a Fallout game say they were inspired by Stephen King.

 

[somonels]

Ok, i get where you coming from. But what i'm trying to say is that these themes were in The Dark Tower before the Fallout series had even begun. And as far as i know prior to The Dark Tower a post-apocalyptic western theme DIDN'T exist.

*Throws a pie*
ALL the above were started, at the very latest, by the Atomic War threat in the 60s. The genre was done to DEATH for a long time before King started to pen down another one.

1. Wow a genre is similar
2. Fallen cities tend to be
3. wow a remaining automaton from a fallen high-tech civilization, just wow
4. really? really?
5. They have old songs, mostly form a bygone era of a fallen civilization.. really?
6. In a post-apocalypse setting? Preposterous!

Copied from The Dark Tower? No, just generic.

Not saying NV or The Dark Tower are bad, but perhaps it's true that it's just a case of similar settings rather than a direct copy.

The Dark Tower did do something different with the genre, he imagined something new and enhanced the setting to become something that could be considered good. NV, and Fallout 3, did nothing with the genre, it is generic and mediocre for a post-apocalyptic western, and it's good by video game standards.
I don't like King's DT pentology that much myself, anymore, but that's mostly due to my dropping like toward his writing style.

 

[Roland Deschain]

I agree completely with you.

1.In the DT books they speculate about whether there could be "An ENCLAVE of civilization" in book #3. (I mean how common is the word enclave???)

2.Roland mentions "Mutants such as cows with two heads or three legs"
(Recognize the "Brahmin" from fallout?)

3.The name of the third DT book is "The Waste Lands".
Not a far stretch from the "Capital Wasteland" of Fallout.

4.When Roland and his Ka-Tet arrive at the little town of River Crossing and see the garden there they describe it as "A small garden of Eden where life had grown from nothing".
(Does it sound like a certain creation kit maybe?)

 

[Muspelheim]

Dark Towers probably provided inspiration for Fallout. Or they've got a common source of inspiration. That's how creative effort works.

 

[Eddie the head]

Fallout games call out to pop culture all the time. Half the fun of them is all the bizarre references they make. They reference all sorts of things, including Lassie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Flowers for Algernon, Pitch Black, The Shooting of Dan McGrew, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and even an abandoned game idea about time travel called Johnny Four-Aces, which is beyond obscure.

I just beat Old world blues so forgive me for saying this but there is also the brain guy at the end that keeps using the word raisin instead of reason, I got to figure it's a reference to this.

Spoiler: Spoiler for Space

 

[Hero in a half shell]

Well the makers of Fallout were pretty open with the fact it had been inspired by Mad Max, but they never said anything about the dark tower. The western theme isn't apparent in the earlier Fallout games, so that's kinda a mute point.

However I will say that if you see similarities it could be a shout out, intentionally borrowed as a homage. In the first game there was leather armour which was identical to Mad Maxes clothes, plus Dogmeat, so you could model your character after him. The most powerful small gun in the game is a red rider BB gun, in obscure reference to an old movie we've all forgotten about or never seen before.

They've always been really open about where they get inspiration for content, and I've never heard of them mentioning the Dark Tower, so I'm going to have to say certainly in the larger scale it's just common tropes shared because both series are about a post-apocalyptic world. The smaller references (Brahmin having two heads with that quote you gave) could be a homage, but it's unlikely due to them never mentioning it.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

a mute point.

[nitpick] It's a moot point, not a mute one. And technically moot means 'open to debate' so often that phrase is misapplied. [/nitpick]

Haha, whoops. I really never knew that.

Is it any coincidence that I just applied for a job in I.T.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

I expect there are a few similarities... if any of the Devs had read the DT series (which likely 1 or 2 had) then they would be more than inclined to put ideas they liked into their game, as long as it fitted with the lore...

Hell, any DT fan would!

The fact that you can become a Gunslinger yourself, journeying accross the desert and adventuring...! Is there a lobstrocity mod yet?

 

[snekadid]

I agree completely with you.

1.In the DT books they speculate about whether there could be "An ENCLAVE of civilization" in book #3. (I mean how common is the word enclave???)

2.Roland mentions "Mutants such as cows with two heads or three legs"
(Recognize the "Brahmin" from fallout?)

3.The name of the third DT book is "The Waste Lands".
Not a far stretch from the "Capital Wasteland" of Fallout.

4.When Roland and his Ka-Tet arrive at the little town of River Crossing and see the garden there they describe it as "A small garden of Eden where life had grown from nothing".
(Does it sound like a certain creation kit maybe?)

1. enclave is actually really common in scifi, fantasy and general fiction from long before Stephen king owned a pen and is still used to this day.

2. if it is then king stole the inspiration first, because of the pollution issues in the USA in the 1960's there were alot of stories about mutated cows, sheep, dogs, frogs and anything else that drank from the polluted water sources then reproduced. Hell, it got so bad that erie actually caught fire.

3. yes... because wasteland isn't a common term today for deserts and other regions which are considered inhospitable or unforgiving.

4. .... this ones just retarded.... honestly, do you not know that the term garden of eden comes from christian religious text, most notably the bible? Saying that the fallout series stole the name from DT is like saying the creators of curious george was obviously inspired by King Kong because where else could they have gotten inspiration for a humanoid covered in fur.