I wouldn't be shocked if there is some sort of NCR Easter Egg but I'm not expecting any major presence.

I wonder if they've been dispatching ambassadors?

the ncr doesnt reach that far hell theyre only just starting to colonise nevada its gonna be a while before they reach boston.

Colonizing and scouting are two really different things.

I'd settle for a scout party.

"Alright, sir, FOB is set...What now?"

"We scout, Private. That's what we're here for."

"And by scout you mean..?"

"Find a place to get drunk and lay low, because I really don't want to have to make the trek back home anytime soon."

"Ooh rah, sir."

two scouts just minding their own business.

"...Seriously, why are we here?"

"Checking for expansion potential I guess..."

"What about everything between here and the NCR?"

"...No one wants that..."

"True."

Sole Survivor meets a lone NCR enjoy.

"Well, you see, we lost more than half our troop coming here, and my mission was completed a week ago and...Well, I just really don't want to lose the rest and my own life getting back...So...[censored] it."

S.S.: "I don't blame you."

The trip from the NCR to Boston shouldn't be THAT bad honestly.

-The NCR controls Cali and Northern Nevada.

-They could bypass the Legion by going through Wyoming, which is implied to be fairly empty land, but there are some Followers of the Apoc people over there they could get some help from if they needed it.

-Even with the decline of the MwBoS, they still had eliminated most, if not all, of the raiders groups, and pacified other threats across the MW, during the Calculator war. Leaving that whole area fairly well off.

If they started from Sac-Town, they could go the 2050 miles from Sac-Town to Chicago without facing any real threats but the 80's tribe in Northern Utah.

Its really only past Chicago that things start to go downhill. Once they start getting into the unexplored part of the Rust belt between Chicago and Pittsburgh is when it starts getting bad, and if The Pitt is any indication, the rust belt is a massive toxic [censored]hole, filled with radioactive water mixed in with mountain of pollutants from all the pre-war factories in the region.

Chicago -> Pittsburgh would probably be the hardest part of the whole trip.

I don't think they should be in Boston, but the trip shouldn't be THAT bad besides that one area.

This is all assuming that's all there is to tango with between NCR territory and Boston. That's still a lot of country to cover, and a lot untapped ground in the Fallout Universe.

For all we know, it's a lot more dangerous than we realize.

Not particularly TBH.

-California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico, were covered in Fallout 1, 2, and New Vegas, either directly, or in lore, and are home to the NCR and Legion, who control basically all of that area except northeastern Nevada -> Northern Utah.
-Wyoming and Idaho get brief mentions in NV endings, and are implied to be basically empty lands, with just a few minor tribes like were in the four states areas before Caesar came along.
-Montana also gets a brief mention in NV, where we learn that people such as the Courier do go there there sometimes, and that there is a town or two with a working coal mine, but otherwise the area is treated as being uninteresting/empty.
-Kansas, Missouri, and Illinois all get directly visited in Tactics, and the MwBoS end up eliminating the raiders, beastlords, super mutant, and Calculator threats in that region.
-https://i.imgur.com/pyoHb94.png. And we know how the MwBoS was in regards to anything they saw as hostile...

In short, when it comes to the west, we have lore, either via direct visitation, or via maps, NPC dialogue, or ending slides, on everything in the black boxed area on this map here: https://i.imgur.com/WZUEPX9.jpg

In regards to the east, its a bit more uncertain, but Marcella notes in her terminal in Point Lookout that she was hearing rumors of the Pitt even as far north as The Abbey/The Commonwealth, and if that's the big news on the block, even that far from The Pitt, it suggests there isn't much going on in the in between region, and we have some basic idea that there are established far reaching trade routes across the north-east, suggesting it isn't all that bad.

-The Enclave

-The BoS

-Argyle

-ED-E

-William Brandice

-Tales of a Junktown Jerky Vendor

-The Wasteland Survival Guide

All made the cross country journey. While, again, I DON'T think the NCR should be anywhere near Boston in any shape or form, the trip wouldn't be THAT difficult.

I think Fo3 and NV really did a lot to disprove the idea that a cross country trek is overly diffcitult.

What I mean to say is, if we've really been detailed what else is out there, it really kills any creativity for future games other than rehashes and old standards. Having some old standards is fine, but each new iteration of the games franchise should introduce new ideas and conventions that have yet to be explored, otherwise, it's like playing the exact same game.

Call of Duty, I'm looking at you.

[Insert sports game title from EA], I'm looking at you.

By that I mean I hope there are incredibly more dangerous things out there that we've yet to hear about, factions we've never heard of. Mutated monstrosities we've never seen. Because I want to go there some day to meet it, and poke it with a stick.

North America is a huge place. It would be sad if we Lore'd out all that thee was a Lore in only a few games.

I think geography has more to do with limiting games the then anything else, Bethesda and Obsidian just write the lore to accommodate that.

Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 take place in D.C. and Boston, two very famous and well known cities, that have tons of historical monuments, and connections of the very foundation of America. New Vegas took place in Vegas, also a very well known city, that, while lacking in historical monuments, has a very well known and established "culture", famous across America. All of the recent games have used their location's famous setting as a selling point.

Now compare that to Idaho, or Montana, or Wyoming, or North and South Dakota, or Nebraska, or Iowa. What major cities on par with places like Vegas, Boston, and D.C. do they have? What sort of famous cultural ticks like Vegas do they have? What sort of famous monuments do they have? They don't, they are largely empty states even today. The only thing of equal note to Fo3/NV/Fo4 is Mount Rushmore, and Yellowstone, which are too far apart, and too little, to make a game out of.

There isn't going to be anything dangerous or interesting up there because there is nothing to build a game off, and the devs don't want to make those areas sound interesting to the point people might want to go there.

We kind of have to accept we aren't ever going to see HUGE chunks of America, because there's just nothing to make a game out of in those areas to begin with. So when it comes to those areas, we are just going to get little snippets like we got in NV

-Wyoming in a harsh wasteland, few people live there beyond a few tribals, the Followers have sent some people up there to study them, and there is so little going on there the broken and beaten Khans are able to forge a mighty empire out of the state in very little time because there's nothing of note standing in their way.

-Montana has some small towns with active coal mines, and life is kinda hard, but there's no like Raider Empire or anything up there that we are dealing with.

-Idaho is kinda empty like Wyoming, so much so that the broken and beaten Khans can decide to go up there to sharpen their claws once more, because there is little in the way that could harm them while they try to rebuild.

You could basically fill states like the Dakotas, and Nebraska with that same stuff.

The east coast has a similar, but also the reverse problem as well. There's many states with little in them, such as Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Delaware, New Jersey, and those places are likely to get written off the same way Obsidian wrote off Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana "ohh, there's some people in some really small towns over there, but nothing too interesting going on!".

But there's also a lot of big cities crunched into a small area, many off them too close to another to be able to visit all of them and really get different cultural views and events going on in a realistic fashion. That's why places like Philadelphia got written off as being "that dump", and Baltimore didn't get mentioned at all. Beth likely felt they were too close to D.C. to make a game out of so they put nothing there.

So, I really think we have to look at it geographically, and how that limits them, to see why they are writing the lore the way they are. Its not really limiting future games to write that lore, because the basic geography already limited it, the lore is just making up an in--universe reason why that is.

I don't buy it. Seems like a fairly casual approximation. If your friends tell you to meet them in 2 hours, are you upset or surprised when they show up in 2 hours and 3 minutes? I'd put money on Fallout 4 taking place well after Fallout 3 and New Vegas.

Can the NCR show up in the Commonwealth? Hypothetically, sure. Seems like they're stretched too thin to bother, though. The most I expect is a throwaway line from a well-traveled character, diary/computer entry, or radio broadcast.

Casual or not, 200 is the number we were given both during the E3 presser and in-game. Now, if they change the time and put it after Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas, that's perfectly acceptable to me. Helps with the fanfic I'm working on. But even if they didn't and Fallout 4 ran parallel to Fallout 3, that still wouldn't change my fanfic.