Not always, this was only in FO3 (+?).

*Technically FO1 had a horrific location that even caused mental trauma and damage to the more perceptive PCs, but that was a trap in the Master's lair, not a series theme.

Personally I would not want yet another shift ~now into horror. Horror is so easy to do badly, and it just doesn't fit the general theme of Post Apocalyptic ethics. For instance, Ghouls were never like Dunwich in FO3. Even in the dead city of ghouls, they could be passed in the street without trouble if the PC didn't trouble them. Of course there were exceptions, but I can recall the PC climbing out of a manhole into someone's house, and they didn't bother the PC unless he bothered them first. Like ~for instance, trying to steal items from their house.

No I don't think so. Should it have scary moments and places? Sure. I found Vaults and the Dunwitch Building scary in FO3 and NV. But Fallout should still have it's light hearted side to like Old World Blues.

Not really nor should it strive to be. In my opinion places like Vault 106 and Dunwich were pretty boring and badly done as horror. Like Gizmo said ghouls are never like that and the idea of some demonic obelisk was pretty stupid.

Even with it being in Massachusetts they shouldn't go overboard with H.P. Lovecraft influences. No Innsmouth or Arkham Asylum.

Survival Horror:

Personally, Fallout has always been at it's best when you limp into an abandoned building on your crippled leg, spend your last two rounds in your gun to put down the raider you find lurking there, then loot his corpse for a tire iron so you can do the same to his friend who comes running out of the next room. You search every nook and cranny of the place for anything of use, and enter the bedroom to find two skeletons embracing. You pull one off the bed to sleep for a few hours on a corroded mattress, then wake to drink from a toilet before you head off in search of some Rad-X because of all that irradiated water you just drank.

So there's actually a fair amount of survival horror to be found in the game already, I think. Survival Horror is predicated on scarcity of resources, suspense, and the tension that comes from that sort of gameplay. Which is not far off from Fallout's gameplay, really.

Kind of related, but if I go back and watch the Mad Max films, there's actually a bit of a horror angle to those movies. The beats, pacing, and even a lot of the scenes are often shot as a horror movie. Especially the first two movies are almost like a science fiction movie filmed as if it were a horror movie (and particularly the sound track from the original.) A lot of other post-apocalyptic films hit those same notes - there's an element of horror to the setting, after all. It's supposed to be a scary place, the idea of that world is supposed to be terrifying.

On the other hand, most of the tension that comes from "good" Survival Horror games is created by enemies that you in some manner aren't supposed to be defeating willy-nilly. Either through scarcity of ammo, purposefully difficult controls (ie, the old Resident Evil games) or just plain difficult enemies, the idea is usually to get you to run away from the enemies that come at you. There's literally nothing more empowering than destroying something that scares you, after all - so actually defeating an enemy runs counter to Survival Horror's aims. A monster is always much less scary after you've blown it's head off, after all.

In Fallout you're generally expected to be killing all the enemies you come across (I'm not discounting stealth here, but most of the game is set up with the idea that you're sneaking for critical hits, and not to just sneak past every enemy.) So while I think it's probably a good idea for Bethesda to take a page or two from the Survival Horror playbook, they are two different games and you're not always going to reconcile them. I wouldn't at all balk at a couple of missions/dungeons made specifically with a Survival Horror angle to them, however.

I mostly agree and slightly disagree. The fact that they tied these things in with DLCs and whatnot makes me think that the closer we get to where his stories took place the more likley we will get more lovecraft "easter eggs". I wouldnt imagine it wpuld be a majpr part of thegame but in little nooks and crannies.

Deathclaws sticking their claws in you while being ultra tough, Mosquitos that stick their proboscis in your chest, enemies that burst out the ground from out of nowhere to wreck you, feral ghoul run animations in dark places... Point is, with a lot of these new animations and the like odds are we are getting it at least in small dosages. You KNOW someone's gonna react to one of those.

I don't think it really can.. you're already running around with monsters and live corpses. There were definite moments in Fallout 3 and Nv that gave me some jump scares.. usually from something like a deathclaw somehow sneaking up on me from behind. The atmosphere in some of those abandoned buildings was also really creepy at times. I like the mix of friendly areas and scary areas.

There were plenty of moments where I'd get so engrossed in the enironment that I wouldn't see or hear a deathclaw/radscorpion/etc until it hit me from behind. Those were the moments I'd nearly jump out of my socks. These moments taken together with the overall environment and the stories that tell themselves* make Fallout scary enough as it is imo.

*A skeleton in a bath tub with a toaster. Skeleton on a toilet, gun still in hand, empty whiskey bottle on the floor.

Question, what on earth would be scarier than. . . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Mars_Bluff_B-47_nuclear_weapon_loss_incident

Edited my last post I meant the presence of the lovecraft homages will most likely be fairly subtle but more prnounced than in FO3 seeing as how is mythos took place arpund and out In sticks of Boston

Fallout always mixed the happyness of the '50s (music, colors) with the bleak existence of the post-apocalypse.

Example. Vault 22 was really, really creepy. The only person you could talk to in there was a ghoul you had to rescue.

New Vegas is full of lights, people who spend their money without looking at the future, happy music all over the place.

The two settings, if mixed together, create a perfect recipe. That's why Fallout is awesome.

still don't get why fallout 3 had dead trees, raiders and supermutants all over the place

Hmm, I've never experienced anything like that while playing 3 or NV. (not due to abusing "Wait for 1 hour", just because there always seem to be lots of ammo & healing objects around. That's part of why I wasn't on board with considering FO3 a true "survival" game - there's not enough you have to do for actual survival, between plentiful resources & lack of gameplay mechanics for it. Even with NV's "hardcoe" mode. You'd have to add a bunch of mods to get to what you describe.... reduce the loot, reduce your carrying capacity, etc. Or play with a number of personal 'rules' and limitations.)

....might possibly have run into something like that at the immediate start of FO3, before I'd really learned the game & it's mechanics. Not knowing where to find all the ammo in the 101 tutorial, exiting the vault with less supplies, not knowing exactly which way to go to Megaton, etc....

Back to topic. IMHO, yes, fallout should be more realistic, if that means scarrier, then so should it be. Anyway, fallout 3 was kind of flexible already. You could make it pretty scarry just by playing it in hard mode and setting some rulls for yourself, like only wait in safe places, never use fast travel and such. In fallout 3 it looks pretty darn scary when you stay too long outside and it gets dark while you are in the middle of nowhere where you could easily meet some deadly animals. Ofcourse using ENB helps with that too.

What i am saying is that, it should be choice based, like if you have fergot to buy enough ammo and ended up in some dangerous place, then you should be scared, however it should not be enforced, like forcing people in such situations too much would be a bad idea.

It isn't a horror game and it really shouldn't be,but some scary places here and there would be cool.

Not a fan of horror genre games. Stuff like Dunwich building is enough for me haha.

Fallout was never really scary for the supernatural elements for me. It shouldn't be that way (though I wouldn't mind a dedicated game for such things). To me, Fallout isn't even post apocalyptic. To be sure, there was an apocalypse and the setting takes place after it, but to me Fallout was about the rebuilding phase of the post apocalyptic world. A true post apoc game would not have people with such a cavalier attitude towards things like mirelurks or deathclaws. Those things would be horrific. Hell, even Brahmin would be scary to the first generation or so of survivors. Fallout doesn't have that. It has trappings of a post apoc world but there are definitely signs of recovery. Heck, the entire plot of Fallout 3 was to bring clean water to the DC Wasteland.

Fallout 4 takes that to a whole new level. Now we have vertibirds, scientific/technological advances (androids), and a pretty stable civilization forming. One of the aspects of that is your own character able to create more settlements and trade caravans to go with it. As near as I can tell, the apocalypse is over. There is a whole new world with whole new rules. It is a less kind world than the one before the Great War, but the aspect of struggling just to hold onto a remnant seems much less prevalent than what I consider post apocalyptic.

So how would we even make Fallout 4 scarier? There are certainly going to be moments of tension when you and a deathclaw are stalking each other. You hope that you can guide it through that minefield you just laid out or that your weapon is going to be enough to take it down. Heck, if the music is done right, your heart might thud in your chest every time the stealth indicator moves towards the "Detected" state. Eventually, you'll have enough. You make your move and you find out if those preparations were enough. That is all the scary I need or want in a Fallout game. I don't need Night of the Living Dead or the Call of Cthulhu in my Fallout. Those are both amazing fun genres, but they don't fit right into the Fallout universe.

Although, a group of very cunning feral ghouls that don't go for direct confrontation and similarly stalk you would be something. It just has to fit within the parameters of a Fallout game.

They 'fixed' that with a patch; now there is this giant billboard pointing to Megaton.

Scary is good, when appropriate.

Scary is about atmosphere and feeling helpless. Hard to do that when you're packing. Unless your weapons are useless, then you're out of your element, and then it's good to be scared.

Oh the good ol' days of Morrowind when we didn't have the fancy smancy quest marker to pinpoint where we were going and had to use directions given from NPCs to find super obscure caves and ruins. Finding a quest location was half the accomplishment!

I agree. I'm looking forward to seeing some sinister, inhumane aftermath of vault experiments gone wrong. I loved the creepy environments used in some Skyrim dungeons that painted horrible pictures of sacrifices, torture and other twisted events that occurred in those rooms many moons before you explored them. Not saying I personally enjoy horror stories, but Bethesda is pretty good with creating creepy environments. I'm looking forward to creepy vaults and caves to explore.