If grass eaters didnt survive then meat eaters would have eaten each other, i think basically its the reason you cant repair a perfectly good motorbike and ride it, the games buggy enough than trying to ride or drive around. But theres nothing to stop horses from being around, they arent that fragile, they only shoot them for having broken legs because the owners dont want to fix the leg because the upkeep on horses is damned expensive, easier to pay for a bullet than vet fees and feeding a lame horse, i know lots of horse owners, i worked for a saddler had this arguement way to many times. When the horse was introduced into north america it thrived and multiplied, and mutated animals didnt appear overnight.

I read somewhere (may have been Fallout Bible) that horses are extinct. So, an oversight by the panel artist probably.

Ya horses were used by many armies WW2 its kinda what happens when you run outa gas (sigh didnt the Poles do a mounted charge vs tanks at the start there even as they had no other option but surrender).. or roads.. Not sure but I think the U S finally Phased out there Mule teams just before the Vietnam conflict soo there ya go. If they are not in I am sure we will domescate something new heheh.. I wonder would a single headed brahmin be considered a mutant hmmm.

I don't like the idea of horses in Fallout simply because of the fact that fantasy nerds have been dreaming of it ever since they heard that Elder Scrolls company was making a post-apocalyptic RPG.

It makes sense from a logical standpoint when I'm not just trying to spite fantasy fans.

It also seems strange, the narrator says horses are extinct because ive walked over every inch of the countryside looked under every rock and never seen a horse, even now with everything intact they are finding thing they thought were dead, how did they ever find out, since they cant even cover the whole ground of the US or canada/USA or mexico that horses are extinct, they have scientific teams scouring the countryside doing studies on extinct species, just because they havent seen them in areas that are listed in the fallout games doesnt mean they are extinct, maybe its one of those statements that needs clarifying, they are extinct in the regions listed in fallout 1, 2, 3 and 4 but there could be herds in areas not yet covered by the games. Extinct meaning (of an animal or plant species) having no living representative; having died out, so it means all living horses on the planet earth. And if horses died off so would have cattle so brahim wouldn't have had a chance to mutate, cattle would strip area's of feed would have been easily cleared by cattle and they would have eaten themselves into starvation, living in an area where theres farms both cattle and sheep, these herbivores would strip areas bare of what little plant growth that would survive after a nuclear winter.

I'll reiterate the theory I came up with when this came up before.

Chance, who is a Great Khan, has been brainwashed with the culture of the Khans from history, the same ones who rode around on horses conquering half of Eurasia. Since he is drug-addicted and psychologically damaged, the history that Chance learned from the Khans entered into his recollection of the events.

Also, Nevada has America's highest population of wild horses. If they aren't there, chances are they aren't anywhere.

And a horse that is healthy enough to be ridden has to eat a LOT and slurp up the military's rations of non-irradiated water (unless they're mutant horses, but that wasn't what they looked like in the novel, furthering the theory that it was just Chance being crazy), it'd be very difficult to come up with the resources for a cavalry brigade even if horses did exist.

I think your argument for how useful horses would be in the FO universe is exactly why they were made extinct. They're too useful. Humanity would be in much better shape if all its beasts of burden and livestock had survived the war... but where's the fun in that? Then Fallout simply becomes a western... with power armor and energy weapons. If radscorpions and cazadores and everything else bad wasn't such a threat, then Fallout wouldn't be much of a setting for a game.

Fallout isn't supposed to resemble the world of the 1860's, it has to be much harder than that, it's a 'brave new world' where man has to struggle against the consequences of his past actions. Man is being punished for his sins, and he must pull himself up by his irradiated bootstraps to survive it. Where before man had horses, sheep, chickens, and pigs to provide fast transport, warm clothing, and food, he now has ugly, slow two-headed brahmin.

I don't think it was simply the difficulty of programming horses into FO1 (if there was any difficulty in doing that) that kept them out of the game, I think they just don't fit the setting.

No what im saying is, is dont put horses in so we can ride them or have cavalry charges in the game, as a matter of fact i think that would make the game boring, what i enjoy about fallout is the walking about finding things, and riding a horse isnt that stealthy and honestly there would be so many times in the game were you would be looking for a new horse after the raider ambush just turned it into bloodied slush, same reason why theres no repair skill for vehicles, lots of intact vehicles around but you dont get a repair skill so you can drive around the wastelands. If a ww2 bomber can survive at the bottom of a lake for over 200 years and be made airworthy over the ad break, then im postive i can mcguyver a truck or bike to transport me around the wastelands. What im saying is either state why plainly and clearly why and if they are extinct and the logic behind it, especially since there are cattle, and brahim can pull wagon trains same as a horse can, same reason why in south east asian countries they use oxen to work the fields because there are no horses, but there are no horses because they are not indigenous to the region. In australia they used cattle to haul logs in logging camps, even when horses were available, but they were better for hauling heavy loads.

Horses were introduced by the spanish, and flourished in huge herds in north america when let loose, again its just my arguement that if horses die off after the war alot of the reason why horses would die would be the same reasons why cattle would die, if buffalo were in larger numbers in the US they would probably have a better chance of surviving because they were indigenous animals and could survive cold weather and low fodder, whereas domesticed cattle wouldnt, if the reason why horses didnt survive was because it would make life easier for survivors is a poor premise. And again carnivores would have problems because unless they have a decent supply of meat, they wouldnt survive either and deathclaws being high on the food chain would strip areas either making themselves extinct, or making their populations numbers very low due to lack of a food supply caused by themselves or unless there was a creature that was large enough and reproduced fast enough to keep carnivores alive.

This is incorrect, as horses were used during the COIN operations in Africa.

Sorry, are you saying it's a poor premise because it's not realistic or because a sufficient explanation is not given in game? It's not realistic for the culture of the 1950s to exist unchanged for 127 years, but it's part of the setting. It's not realistic for high doses of radiation to turn humans into ageless ghouls, but it's part of the setting. It's not realistic for radiation to turn animals into giant aggressive versions of themselves, but it's part of the setting. It's not realistic for a global thermonuclear war to *not* cause a nuclear winter, but it's part of the setting. It's not realistic for two-headed bovines to survive and replace mono-headed bovines as the dominant domesticated animal, but it's part of the setting. Explain how an animal with two heads would function, realistically. Explain the evolutionary advantage having two heads gives an animal. Or maybe it wasn't natural selection, maybe all the radiation caused all cows everywhere to magically have the exact same genetic mutations.

Should they have to explain in detail the extinction of every species? Should we encounter an NPC who somehow knows and can explain why canaries (if they are extinct) died out while the crow survived? What about rainbow trout? What about pigs? What about raccoons? Skunks? Sloths? Bees? Antelopes? We're talking about a computer game here, not a comprehensive study of the effects of nuclear fallout on various flora and fauna.

I don't really understand how having them in the game but not ride-able is a better premise. Does the PC have some sort of equine phobia? Does the PC simply not know how to ride a horse? If that's the case, why not learn? It would be like having working cars in the game but still forcing the PC to walk everywhere for no explained reason.

How could the reason for not having horses in the game be due to engine limitations when the same engine was used in Oblivion which had ride-able horses? And I will again point out that horses were not in FO1, FO2, or Tactics either.

From Fallout Bible #8:

It seems to me that the frame rate of Fallout 3 and especially NV isn't the best, hell the game pauses when I'm running near Vegas. I doubt that the engine could handle higher moving modes of transport in THIS game. In any case it doesn't make sense for them to remain out of the game. Regardless if they have appeared before they need to be in Fallout 4. The massive distances the NCR has to walk is somewhat pathethic. If the Great Khans had horses they'd be badassess. If the Legion used horses...[censored] the world would be much different. Honestly if in FO2 you could have a car I don't see why horses can't be in FO4. (And maybe a car or two please). Speaking of cars if they're able to keep vertibirds, airplanes, plasma weapons, laser weapons, the hoover dam, most computers, most robots, why hasn't a faction restored cars mass scale? Or even just for top officals? Like the NCR president would ride in a car and have a vertibird. Just ideas I suppose.

Giant, angry, mutant sloths. Screw lore/canon, I want these in my game!!

Just so this is on-topic- sturdier, little rugged mongrel ponies should have survived. I'd love to have a horse in FO3 or NV. They're likely a little more agile and faster than Brahmin as well, plus the tail hair of horses could have a few uses I'm sure. I'm a horse-person though, so I'm biased.

Actually thinking of it now the plumes on roman helms is horse hair, i hope ceaser didnt have any helms with plumes, or maybe he found an alternative like, geez what animal that was in the game survived that would simulate a horse plume.

Yeah I'm with you on that, but I'm fully of the view that alot of breeds would have survived right here in America. If Brahmin could survive being a slow prey animal (that would be food for everything), Horses would have no problem. In my view when the cars died, horses would become the new gold.

I haven't heard anything argued here or in the history that suggests a Valid reason as to why horses would not have survived, and can only conclude that the early Fallout games were made by non horse people, who made some assumptions and it just stuck forever (like the QUERTY keyboard). In truth though, if Brahmin survived, so would horses.

Miax

Horses in the Mojave wasteland would remind me of the very critically good "Red Dead Redemption". But we have to remember that these horses must be either A; mutated in some form or fashion (Such as Brahim are two-headed cows, dogs have lost a majority of their hair and grown accustumed to new stronger teeth, and insects have grown times 10).

But it would make sense for the Eastern Coast to have horses to ride on, since there must obviously be more then just we are presented in the games. But if they are like the other animals that have gone through the nuclear-war then they will, most likely, be hostile or territorial. You don't see every dog coming to glomp you or the geckos to just stand there and look adorable. So you'd have to tame them, which would be a good animal perk. Taming animals to make them your own.

But anyways; it could be possible lore wise. Espically in area's like the NCR Baja or the Nevada frontier.

Horses grown times 10? Let's just hope they also mutated to include an elevator on one of the sides, you know for mouting.

Horses would be cool in the Fallout universe. If they include smokeable cigars my Clint Eastwood roleplay would be complete.

They need ponchos too.

Wanawaaaaaaa... wa wa naaaaaaaa.

Yeah, why not, it was nice in Oblivion

Unless the horse as species got FEV survival enhancements like brahmin, I'd doubt they'd do well in the Wastelands. Horses require A LOT of feed to stay healthy, let alone alive. Then again, we pump them full of snake venom to make antivenom, so who knows how they'd make out?

A tribe of Slags hidden in them thar ol' rickity mine using mutated pit ponies.
Then having them bred up by selection for other uses.
Beastmasters.
Vault or enclave experiments.
Many reasons why they could have survived.

Clippity clop.
Clippity clop.. neeeeigggh.
The beast has come.
My little pony strikes the land.

I read this book,i forget what,but it had oxen pull old ruined trucks that had the engine and stuff like that torn out,i would love to see a Brahmin dragging a truck around....what a sight!

Vault says that Chris Avellone once said in an interview that horses are gone but then "All Roads" has horse so its a hard call.

Maybe the Shi brought them back. They are a faction of scientists/researchers and they know alot about genetics. They have the tech to do so.

From what I read of the Fallout Bible, it would appear that Chris Avellone was referring specifically to horses within the Core Region (Though I'm pretty sure he probably meant the whole world), which means that horses may not necessarily be extinct in other parts of the country.

the likelihood of horses being completely eradicated from the fallout universe after the great war would be unlikely but would have probably been mutated or are very rare. they may not exist on the continental u.s. but they might still be alive on other continents.