I hope they don't ever get rid of the "Barren Wasteland!"

Fallout is based on a pulp science fiction view of the future - as well as a pulp science fiction version of what the world would be like after a nuclear apocalypse. This is not meant to be a "realistic" setting by any means. (In other words, Fallout is purposefully more "Star Wars" than "2001: A Space Odyssey.") Plenty of other games do the more modern take on the genre, or take the hard-sci-fi approach of attempting to logically extrapolate the conditions that would more realistically exist following such a catastrophe. Fallout is supposed to be more unique in it's iconic setting. This is one of the things that sets it apart.

Umm, you do know that FO4 takes place in OCTOBER. The trees and bushes aren't dead. That is exactly how New England looks in autumn. Just saying. Wow.

Pretty much this. The "Barren Wasteland" is all part of the setting, everything in the setting is over the top or a parody. Fallout has nothing to do with realism as it follows SCIENCE! And does not follow our world logic, don't know why people keep forgetting that.

The game ~starts~ in October, but I've already been through December (neat XMas decorations in Diamond City!) and I think I'm into April now and nothing has changed.

I use a Touch Of Green mod that adds, well, just a TOUCH of greenery. There are still dead trees and so on, but it is amazing the difference that little touch of green here and there make. Before the mod, the world was just so ~bland~. Everything was a muted gray / brown and it was actually hard to distinguish the shape of the land and so on, because everything was the same. Now, with this mod, the world looks more vibrant and easier to see differences in terrain and so on... it still looks decrepit and busted-up in most places, but it's not so eye-blinding boring.

I dont think seasonal adaptations apply here. The seeds survive in the ice cold because they've adapted to the seasonal changes in that region. I agree that Nature always finds a way (take it from a person who once wanted to become Sir David Attenborough when I say I absolutely love the wonder that is nature), but the circumstances presented in in the Falloutverse makes it unlikely that the world will recover in such a way, and I highly doubt a green world will return in prime targets during the nuclear exchange (maybe far off in Siberia or Brazil).

As I understand it the nuclear holocaust resulted in millions of tonnes of ashes spreading into the atmosphere, blocking out sunlight and killing almost everything that needs oxygen, and this nuclear winter lasted four years. The seeds can only hibernate for so long before needing to pop out and rebuild up their reserves of carbs. When they finally do come out the plants will suffer from the lack of a good source of oxygen, lack of sunlight from the ashes blocking the sun, and that quite a lot of deadly heavy metal isotopes will be present in the soil IF a ground level explosion took place (see Chernobyll explosion, one of very few, if only one, that resulted in deposits of heavy metal isotopes in the soil). There is no way that plants will survive near the explosion sites.

To top it off, plants have a cycle they follow which is triggered by seasonal changes, the loss of seasons and an environment they have adapted to for thousands of years caused by the nuclear holocaust will adversely affect their ability to grow well, and may cause them to die (its why some plants NEED greenhouses to survive if you want to cultivate them, you need to provide them the environment they are adapted to).

That nothing will grow near explosion sites is incorrect. Real life events have shown that it will, and within only a few years after detonation.

The affect on the weather patterns will of course have a major impact, more so than the explosions and radiation itself. However, if there's water and there's sunlight, plants will eventually grow. They will spread and grow from areas that were not hit, and over time the planet will be green again.

This is a https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2015/4/24/1429867486454/961c9c46-940f-476b-a9a8-f243615d1c2b-2060x1236.jpeg?w=620&q=85&auto=format&sharp=10&s=7349e5339303da0bcaf68851629ad3d1from 2015.

And keep in mind that only a couple of bombs hit the Boston area.

You've ignored everything else I've said.

I commented on everything you said. What did I ignore?

Your point of there being no plant life due to it being killed by lack of oxygen is proven wrong by the presence of trees and plants in Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas.

In Fallout 2 we saw some life returning to the wasteland, as compared to Fallout 1. It was a wildly different ecosystem than the one before the war, but there were plants and animals.

Shame that this gradual development has been halted.

It bugs me that 200+ years after the war everything looks as if no more than a few decades have passed.

Why are there people living in a diner that has skeleton from a war victim in one of the seats? It's idiotic. Verisimilitude and atmosphere are one thing, but let's be reasonable about this.

I, for one, do not miss those venom-spitting flesh-eating plants!

I apologise, just re-read your comment. I'm working at the moment (in a pharmacy and just had a patient shouting at me cause the idiot the night before didnt give them their medicines correctly) so probably took it out on you.

But I still think the idea of a green world within 200 years is not going to happen.

Chernobyl is a great case since its one of few ground level explosion sites and as I understand it the animals from the region have been sighted as returning for the past 10-20 years, but Chernobyll, Nagasaki, Hiroshima, etc. are all isolated cases. None of these cases happened when simultaneous explosions took place worldwide, IE no nuclear winter or global climate changing event took place (thats not to say the world wasnt effected by those explosions, having heard of cases of teratogenicity or cancers contracted in Scotland after Chernobyll). Plants cannot survive in radically changed environments, its like if you've ever tried to grow a fruit that doesnt grow in your country, its not going to work. It'd be like taking a coconut palm tree and planting it in a UK backyard outdoors, it's not going to grow, and I'd imagine the climate changes resulting from the nuclear exchange would be significant enough to prevent vegetation from growing back effectively.

In fallout lore you are right in that the lack of oxygen didnt kill off plants as seen in FO1, 2, 3 and NV, but in real life I would imagine that would not be the case.

No worries, mate! No one can say exactly how the Fallout situation would impact the climate, IRL. Plant and wildlife does mutate, though, to adjust to changes in living situations. Major mutations takes more than a few decades or centuries, typically, but some life adjusts remarkably quick.

And I'd imagine the wildlife would have to eat something (typically people in Fallout, but still, lol).

Oh, and palm trees actually do grow in England, btw =). Not sure if they grow coconuts, though..they'd probably have to be carried up from Africa by migrating swallows.

They do? My neighbours haad one and had to set a heater under it, plus they had to water it more consistently than any of their other plants.

They've moved to Brighton since so cant really ask how they did it, but maybe its just Londons horribly polluted air where they cant grow.

You would think so but in real life we have been known to those same things with storage of hazardous material. We had the Love Canol in the Late 70's.

Also Lake Erie was a massive dumping grounds for sewage and hazardous waste in the 50's and 60's. I remember in the later mid 70's as a small kid we went to Lake Erie on the Canadian side and my Dog that loves the water so the lake and then started to run for it and then we noticed him stopping halfway there and then beelining back to us and past us running back to the car. We then smelt the lake and it was horrible. Both Canada and the States did look into cleaning up the lakes over the decades and it is much better.

http://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000002566509/love-canol-a-legacy-of-doubt.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtNH0E4XSdQ

We also have quite a bit of towns having issues with Drinking water with the most recent being Flint Michigan

If the green world not going to happen within a few years, all animals and humans will vanish too. Food-chain would collapse and within a few decades you won't have oxygen in the atmosphere anymore. But I guess playing as an anaerobe bacteria or something like that won't be much fun ...

Humans and animals surviving, but the vegetation not, that won't happen

In Cornwall and some of the channel islands for sure. Maybe in Brighton too?

Don't forget the Hanford site in SE Washington State, where a lot of work occurred for the Manhattan Project. Still radioactive waste there and health issues, even after 70 years.

Yes and there are many other sites that we know or do not know of.

I totally agree. Thing is the wasteland is based on mad max where the oceans have evaporated and the desert look worked for California but makes no sense for Boston. Where's the snow? It's freaking Boston.

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This.

And this.

Rule of Cool. Stylistic choices. Atmosphere. It's not supposed to be a "realistic" depiction of how it would be 200 years after a nuke war. It's supposed to be a blasted wasteland, so it is.

I think's more unrealistic that people have been stuck in the culture and mindset of a pseudo-1950s for over 120 years despite the massive advancement in technology and quality of life, but hey what would I know...

Then of course there is this.

The simple fact is that everything about Fallout 4 - visually and content-wise - is way more "5 years after the blast" and not "200 years after the blast." The vegetation, lack of decay (I can accept "they had better non decaying materials back then!"), lack of nature taking the commonwealth back over, the fact that there's so much loot/junk still where it was left after the blast, and the fact that not one settlement (including diamond city) ahs done one thing to clean up their environment; all of the decay, dust, debris from the war ... all of that's still lying around and everyone is quite happy to trip over it as part of going to bed.

This is completely "recently after the blast" and is completely out of sync with "200 years."

As I recall, the "Art of Fallout 4" book has a comment from one of the devs at Bethesda that states they have a strict rule that there can be no green plant life unless its a post-war mutation.

or a carrot I just planted the day before.