i don’t think the franchise can ever return to the atmosphere of the original Fallout, and Fallout 2 made sure of that. they could have taken many different directions for the sequel, but instead, they filled the game with pop culture references and wackiness (e.g., adding talking deathclaws... which completely ruined the fear those creatures once inspired).
i know Fallout 2 is a fan favorite, but it makes me wonder where the series would be today if it had maintained its original tone.
then there's Fallout 3, which turned heavy themes provided by the first game into cheap nostalgic callbacks. basically turning the franchise into a caricature of itself. nothing illustrates this better than these quotes from both games:
Fallout 1: "You are a hero, and you have to leave" - Overseer Jacoren to the Vault Dweller, you. you return to vault 13, entirely changed from the moment you first emerged. you gave everything you had, changing for better or worse. and that is a risk the Overseer simply cannot take. your sacrifice is absolute - you saved your people, only to lose your home.
Fallout 3: "You are a hero, and you have to leave" - Amata to the Lone Wanderer, you. delivered without weight, simply to score cheap nostalgia points from returning players.
Fallout: New Vegas occupies an interesting middle ground in this evolution. it's overall identity remains a tug-of-war between the first two games. at it's worst, it inherits the silly, over-the-top nature of Fallout 2, like ghoul cultists launching themselves into space at the Repconn facility. and at it's best, it captures the oppressive, lonely dread of Fallout 1, most notably in the Dead Money dlc. but in the end, the core game embraced the lineage of the sequel - a bustling post-post-apocalypse defined by faction politics and satire rather than stark isolation and gritty survival.
we’ll just never get another game that truly feels like Fallout 1.
