Yeah, I agree that wild intelligent deathclaws would be speaking their own language. Even if they'd started talking English having been taught it by whoever genetically engineered them for intelligence and speech, I'd bet they'd develop their own incomprehensible patois within a couple of generations of going feral, and an entirely alien language in a couple more - if only because the capacity of some birds (lets say the https://youtu.be/VjE0Kdfos4Y?t=35) to produce sounds is far in advance of the human. And if intelligent deathclaws were engineered with the capacity to mimic human speech, why not give them the best mimicry around? I mean, we're talking Fallout Military budgets here, the sky's the limit .

Does anyone know how long deathclaws are supposed to live, how quickly they reproduce?

And lets not forget having a conversation with our brain as if its some kind of separate sentient entity.

Talking Deathclaws are far, far less strange than some of the things that have been presented in this series. Honestly I'm all for it. Provided they are done well and don't just become a goofy gimick.

Does anyone remember the plant that could speak in Fallout 2?
it was ridiculous xD

So in F4 the MIT will play major part in it so the most advanced faction other than the BoS which make androids like it's a piece of cake should could make talking deathclaws or inteligence supermutants or cyborgs/cyberdogs, so it's pretty damn sure we should see some of it in the game.I wonder wats new will there be a talking tree perhapse(oops we see that too already)?

Nah, that would be a MWBoS Squad, Claw Squad. Mother, Krldraav, Shriek, and Shaav. Give them Stealthboys to make them even more dangerous. Although, Shaav's foul breath may give them away.

Here's the talking Deathclaw, Goris!

Lol, just watched the most recent episode of Shoddycast's "The Storyteller". Looks like the subject of the next episode is...Talking Deathclaws!

indeed.

To be fair though, OWB was basically "that stupid wacky place", kept in its own self contained bubble, just so it wouldn't really interact with the "normal" game world.

Wild wasteland perk on the death claw, but should be short, silly, and only occur in a random encounter

Plus the Fallout universe is frankly crazy in all aspects.

If anything, it should turn out that the Deathclaw swallowed a radio.

Or wearing one of those fancy vocal collars.

Bonus points if they let you change the vocals.

We already had talking Deathclaws it will be nothing new, it's in no danger of being being out of place. Fallout setting is just a big pile of ridiculous and parody of everything. And don't try to bring up the fact that they have a different mouth structure so they can't talk, Fallout uses SCIENCE! Which basically means that it's more of "Everything goes!" mentality that has no bases on our world.

How can anyone say that a talking death claw isn't possible?
It's a bio-engineered creature in a world of SCIENCE!.
You want a talking deathclaw? Boom, now you've got the genes needed to form a larynx.

Now. How to make it work well would be the question.
There were hairy talking deathclaws in Tactics. So, it would really depend on what Beth considers canon in Tactics- or rather what they would decide to make Canon, they could set up a story of deathclaws migrating east over the years, or that they are tamed by the CWBoS, and brought with them ,as they move east- Something along these lines is possible. But it would need to be handled neatly, instead of ham fistedly.

brain extraction is not limited to OWB. There plenty of whacky crazy SCIENCE stuff in FO, OWB or no OWB.

No, but OWB wasn't simple brain extraction, nor do other instances of brain extraction allow for the physical body to talk to the brain as a separate entity.

Never disagreed with that notion.

True, but its still canon, and Big MT has a huge impact on the overall story-arc in Fallout New Vegas.

If done correctly, I don't think talking deathclaws would be automatically out-of-place. As long as the death-claw in question isn't turned into a gimmick. Like suddenly the deathclaw has a posh british accent and his favorite book is War and Peace.

But for instance, a single deathclaw or a small pack gets increased intelligence/sentience over time as a result of a very rare mutation (which IIRC is the suggested reason in Tactics). Gradually the deathclaw learns to mimic human speech using harsh guttural sounds and only semi-understanding. Eventually, it can hold limited conversation laced with inhuman utterances and filled in with some rudimentary sign language/non-vocal communication.

Honestly that wouldn't be out of place at all. And could work quite well.

I think the best way to handle it would be, as someone else has mentioned, tinkering by the Institute. Maybe it's a cyborg, maybe it has a human brain, I dunno, but I don't particularly care for the idea of a Deathclaw that just naturally happens to be capable of higher thought.

He speaks with a soft Yorkshire accent and his name is Martin.

Even worse. The Institute could have made Synth Deathclaws. With the voice of Cortana. "I'm only here to help you, John" It said; as the lower abdomen was lacerated to oblivion.

I feel like a Cyborg/human-brain Deathclaw is going to start to wander very quickly into gimmick territory IMO. Like suddenly a Deathclaw is given the brain of a five year old girl and acts accordingly.

I'd personally prefer a rare mutation of some sort. Perhaps a pack of Deathclaws were subsisting off a water supply laced with mentat residue and over time the chemicals began altering their intelligence in a select few along with hitting their population with some unfortunate side-effects, such as increased brood mortality or erratic tendencies in some.

And then the speech just evolves very adhoc and mostly mimicry at first. Until gradually it becomes very limited conversational abilities.

Still far-fetched, but certainly not even close to the craziest thing we've seen.

Coming from a game with alien technology of all kinds in the base game, energy weapons which melt people into goo, talking rats, armor which essentially turns a person into a walking tank when worn, radiation affects some people by making them immortal and turning them into ghouls, and a virus which turns people into giant, sterile green giants where most are dumb as rocks while others are far intelligent to any human, alongside one particular guy who fell into a vats of FEV goo and turned into the esker mutant blob from Aki... well, you get the idea...

Anyways, It strikes me as odd that 'talking-animals' are considered 'out-of-place' in the Fallout world where technological marvels and mutations with extreme effects on all beings are almost the norm. For one, most animals have been affected by radiation which has wild effects in this world, we also have the Enclave and other highly technological factions and areas in the wasteland. Their experiments and technology, alongside the effects of radiation and FEV could create a feasible explanation to how some creatures are able to gain higher intellect and the ability to communicate. Maybe some Enclave scientist escaped from Narravo with the data of their working with death-claws and was able to replicate the talking Death-claws once more. Either way, I played Fallout 2 last out of all the Fallout games and talking Deathclaws were not out-of-place to me in the slightest. It would ultimately depend on how it is handled, but it is possible and definitely not out of place in this universe.

To me anyways.

Anyhoo, I love the idea of a talking a Deathclaw companion, intelligent or not, I think it could be done in a lore-friendly way and would be pretty awesome to have a Deathclaw at your heel, giving some quip about the Wasteland or pointing out things in dumb, broken English.

That, and I want to marry it.

Heck, there are tons of ways it could be lore friendly. Surviving talking deathclaw from FO2 (Goris, or descendent), hairy deathclaw translocated to Boston for study by the Institute, accidental or deliberate re-creation of intelligent deathclaws by exposure to FEV, deathclaw with AI built in, deathclaw with human brain built in, entirely artificial 'deathclaw' style android (hey, Institute students like to have a laugh now and again)...

The trick is finding a way that it could be lore friendly and also in keeping with the tone of a particular game and also feel fitting to a whole bunch of people who may only have ever played FO3

I don't like the idea of a talking deathclaw because in probability the conversation would be boring. Things he likes to eat, things his claws can shred, places he likes to pop out of. He'd be boring.

Now a conversation with a Mirlurk, that would be insightful.

Totally! We need a very well hidden drunken mirelurk merchant that has 10,000 caps and is well supplied with booze!

Err... you mean the S'lanter? Those were more or less just cut do to time/memory constraints due to the need for the animations and the guy who was behind the whole Burrows lore left Black Isle, weren't they...? I do realize the development lead was against it but honestly at this point with Bethesda pushing the alien lore and being very adventurous with gameplay mechanics and whatnot it would be very easy to make giant intelligent mutant raccoons fit even more so now than back then. Plus I feel you are more or less just saying this because you hate furries or something.

>AwesomePossum
>Hates furries

Nah