As much as I enjoy F:NV as a game, I've been increasingly noticing that this game often feels more like some broken 3rd world country with some strange/advanced tech and mutations. Not so much a post-nuclear America. Certainly, it's a fine line and I keep second guessing myself on this. I'm comparing it to games like F1, F3, Metro 2033.

I'm just curious what everyone else thinks.
When you're discussing it point out specifically what identifies this game as post-nulcear America.


Taken from a further post. SO that people just reading it won't have to slog through the rather polarized and sometimes dumb arugments.
Posted Today, 12:59 PM




That actually furthers what I'm getting at. I don't feel like we're really exploring a "post-nuclear world".... Yeah, logically it fits with the F1, and F2. BUT it's missing the critical anarachy, grittiness, and desperation of the previous titles. Oh and creepiness, F:NV is never creepy - ya you've got a couple of places, maybe - Vault 11? C'mon remember the hub in F1? I was creeped out by EVERYTHING there, actually - everything in F1 was creepy to some extent. F3 was even more of that - every building, vault, and even the wasteland itself was atleast somewhat creep - skulls under every box, grim office buildings, etc etc

I think too many of the original fallout players are defending F:NV because they see themselves as better understanding the series. While this may be true, all those classic gamers are forgetting what made F1-2 so good. It wasn't the NCR, it wasn't the brotherhood of steel, or any of that. It was that there was a whole different civilization/world. Fallout 1-3 were different because they were ADVENTURES in a POST-NUCLEAR world. F:NV is a game, in a whatever-mash-up world. By all regards it is the best GAME, perhaps it even follows the "story" better than F3. Yet, it has lost the thing that made Fallout, Fallout. - And that is, erm "fallout."

This argument floating around about the "realism" and "logic" behind F:NV is simply wrong. Fallout isn't great because it is "realistic" or "logical", it is great because it made something unrealistic believable. Fallout 1 and in a small way Fallout 3, are more literary than gamey. What I mean is, you're experiencing a gameworld like a novel. With each quest or exploration you opened a new chapter into a strange new world. In F:NV this isn't happening - the quests are just games, you're not participating in a Fallout world, it's a whatever-the-heck F:NV world is.

F:NV kept too much of the fluff from F1-2, but lost the core - the apocalyptic feel. When Cain is talking about the "ethics of a postnuclear world" he's not talking about the NCR, CL, FotA, BoS, Enlcave or all the others - he's talking about the intriguing scholarly/intellectual pursuit of assessing humanity in anarchy, or atleast a "resetting" of power. This has been an offshoot intellectual pursuit for quite a while... The problem is, in F:NV we've gone beyond the "resetting", now it's not too different from what was before the "resetting". One of the most critical elements to this is that there should be no central power - but look at House, CL, and NCR - they're all just too powerful to fit in the true original design of Fallout.


Fin/

TL:DR :

F:NV has everything it needs to be the sequel to F1-F2 from the development of NCR, Tribes, bos etc, but it's missing the most critical element - fallout.
fallout: the radioactive particles that settle to the ground after a nuclear explosion

Still feels post apocalyptic to me.
I doubt third world countries have a town of green and blue mutants twice the size of a normal man, a legion or roman warriors and a cult of burn victims that want to travel to outer space.

I too think its technically post-apocalyptic. However I just think that the desert setting doesn't allow for the post-apocalyptic aspect of it to come out as much as in Fallout 3. So thats why it kinda feels like its a "strange third world country".

It feels more like a cross between a John Wayne film, Easy Rider and Apocalypse Now to me, but with Robo dogs.

Man I can't wait for that film..

One man, one friend, one lonesome road, one tank of Naplam, now with Robo dogs... the wastes will not see it coming.

Certificate to be announced.

Don't forget ghoul strippers. :drool:

I think the continuation of those societies in game are more post Nuclear than anything tbh.
I mean we've had the whole Mad Mel marlarky in the previous ones, that and in FO3 with the whole retro 30's - 50's vibe.
Now we're into a post apocalyse setting, rather than a just after the event one you see before in earlier games ( despite timelines. )

It's not about rads and raiders after food and scraps to survive on, rather nations reforming.
People picking themselves up and no longer clinging on just for life, rather for a future.
It's more akin to Jericho in NV, than a boy and his dog imo.



I knew that photo would haunt me.

Hmm... I am going with 3rd world, 200 years is a long time to still be consider apocalyptic.

I would like to get out of the main land entirely, maybe visit Hawaii, or Portico (it's an American territory so why not?) maybe even Alaska, just some new setting.

Beach, snow, or rad-rain forest (where planets try to eat you! not just green trog-like things! lol), anything other then desert. Fortunately I am on a comp, wonder if there's a greenerworld and weather mod out yet...

I think it's 200 years after the war, so you're right. It's a bit like a 3rd world country. Considering the timeline, I am very grateful for the realism. A welcome change from the last installment of the Fallout series.

That said, there are a few things that don't exactly remind me of Iraq like, Deathclaws, Cazadors, complete lawlessness and an irradiated town filled with gouls soldiers to name a few.

I've been gone a while... Are people still struggling with the knowledge that the game takes place in post-apocalyptic America? It seems pretty obvious to me that New Vegas would seem much further along in terms of societal development over 200 years after a global nuclear holocaust. Why is it so hard for people to grasp that humanity wouldn't freeze in time and choose to live in unchanging squalor over attempting to forge a new future?

Oh wait, that's because Fallout 3 took place in a realm where human beings on the east coast of the US were apparently too lazy to advance as a society.

That's one of the reason why I like F:NV more. But there's also the factions and reputation system. On a side note, we only know the people in DC are were too lazy to advance, not if it's the entire east coast. Might just be because it's the nation's capital (insert comment about lazy good for nothing politicians here).

Everytime this argument gets brought up people will say... well it's 200 years after. Ok w/e but WHY did they make it 200 years after?

Bethesda jumped the series forward to 200 years after the bombs fell (for whatever reason). Obsidian wanted to place Fallout: New Vegas earlier in the timeline, but Bethesda didn't let them so they played the cards they were dealt.

Just about every aspect about FO3 was post apocalyptic FO3 was very grayish and it seemed that people always struggled to live and even the wasteland music was post apocalyptic, at least to me and NV is much more blue and happy and people have what they need the land is mostly flat and there are several orginized groups fighting there own wars.FO3 and FNV almost have nothing in common which is pretty good but i sometimes miss that post apocalypticniss. i hope that bethesda makes a post apocalyptic dlc for NV :fallout:

Other than the obvious post apocalyptic signs, mutants, ghouls, raditation, etc, yes it does feel like a 3rd world country in the midst of a rather nasty revolution. Not that its a bad thing, I kinda like it, but its different. Part, (actually alot), of the couriers job is to get the smaller factions to side with his main faction. So FONV is more like a broken 3rd world country set in a post apocalyptic time than anything else.

I would go as far to say they had it better. Clean water and Food in abundance I'm starting to worry Fallout:4 will be a rising metropolis based game with a clicking gigacounter.

The only thing that third world countries have is not being forced to listening to Johnny Guitar. They have it much worse than anyone in New Vegas

I think it is much more interesting to play in a world that is slowly rebuilding. The oooh, post-apocalyptic chaos thing has been overdone. It is interesting to see humanity slowly finding itself instead of losing itself.

Also New Vegas felt much more realistic and immersive than F03, where there was no farming or source of electricity etc.

I think the OP might be cutting things a little fine. With the whole world a nuclear wasteland*, all parts of it would be described by our RL current standards as 3rd World: crushed industry, despotic, "strongman" warlord governments where they exist at all, anarchy and bandits everywhere else, and a whole bunch of regular folks trying to get along with very little and rebuild.

200 years does seem like a looooong time for people to pull together, though. As mean as folks can be on a day-to-day level, when there's a huge disaster it seems like everyone tries to help each other.


* So, is that right, F01 and 2 players? I started on 3, so was the whole world nuked? I guess China was, and Raul says

I think it's more assumed than explicitly stated. It was at least massive enough that whole world felt and suffered the effects.

It's more post-post apocalyptic, perhaps. And quite frankly since rebuilding had begun in Fallout 1 and continued in Fallout 2, it be pretty stupid to have Fallout NV go back to being nuclear wasteland were barely anything lives (when it's set after the other two).

Feels post-nuclear to me. After 200 plus years things would have improved. FO New Vegas shows this. Just like FO1 did and FO2 did as well. FO3 was the one stuck in the radioactive mud doing nothing for 200 years, no improvements, no farming, the people are just sitting around waiting for someone to help them.

Bethesda better not lay a mitt on NV or I'm going to have an anuerysm

It's one of my main issues with New Vegas, actually.

Fallout 3 = post nuclear America

Fallout: New Vegas = broken third world country


I'm really not convinced at all by New Vegas'economy. It breaks my suspension of disbelief. It's as silly as the logic in a japanese rpg. Fallout 3 didn't feel like that, and I could follow the pretense that it was a post apocaliptic world. Not so with New Vegas.

So I just tell myself that New Vegas is set a whole bunch of years after Fallout 3, and civilization as we know it started to return. I know it's not the real canon, but it helps.

So.......the world in FO3, and the relationships within that world, set 200 years after the bombs fell were more believable?

Actually that's pretty much the exact canon for NV imo, if you replace 3 with 2.

Maybe not for the next in the series, as that'll most likely be NE and bombed out.
Or mid west, full of terrible weather and constant war, struggle to survive.

FO3 is 200 years after the Nuclear War!. FO New Vegas is only 4 years after FO3. FO1 and FO2 have rebuilding, farming a working economy, governments, laws and so on. FO1 is only 84 years after the great war and it has farming and an economy.

One of my biggest problems with FO3 is that there is no improvement even after 200 years. Eveyone is just sitting in radioactive mud holes, no farming, no economy, using caps for some reason. Caps were not used in FO2 they were replaced with coins. No ones building or farming yet some how people figured out how to do facial surgery :banghead:

Yes thats right there is a FO1 and FO2.