They’re regional because its the nuclear apocalypse and civization is scattered and isolated in pockets. New Vegas explored the idea of these different civilizations clashing.
I definitely don’t think globalizing these things is the correct answer. It only makes sense that things are very different outside of the US.
Sure, the games are about regions, because travel is hard in the post apocalypse. But it’s been about several different widely geographically dispersed regions. It doesn’t stop being that setting just because the regions are further away and across an arbitrary national border. All of this is rising out of the ashes of the old world, anyway. It doesn’t inhibit the storytelling to make some of those ashes rooted in (extrapolated versions of) American culture that’s spread elsewhere in the world, and some of them more locally based.
Simple put, I don’t think the stuff that makes Fallout, well Fallout… should be made available world-wide. Particularally the vault experiments or any of the factions. So again, stuff happening outside of the US should be different. Ghouls are probably the only common factor.
The specific factions are not at all fundamental to Fallout’s identity. There’s only a couple shared between more than one game, and it arguably doesn’t make sense that those would be. The vault experiments are as far as I can recall something that only starts really coming up in 3. What I do see as core to the identity? The 50s American conception of what 2077 might look like and the heavily nuke-driven future tech and brands. America fighting an apocalyptic war with China. The nukes falling. The mutant animals, ghouls, and other completely unrealistic ideas about the actual impact of nuclear war. Scraping together survival out of the wastes left after the apocalypse, and weird factions coming together around one idea or another. Powered armor suits. The existence of vaults or similar (not you being a vault dweller, Fallout 2 and New Vegas don’t cast you that way, and it doesn’t necessarily have to mean Vault-Tec or experiments). The Ink Spots and other 50s era music. Pip-Boys. The SPECIAL system. Dogmeat.
Every single one of those things would work perfectly fine in or as background to a Fallout experience set in London, Rio de Janeiro, Tokyo, Shanghai, Moscow, Berlin, you name it. The exact form some of those things take would be different, some significantly so. There should be locally appropriate factions (like the Minutemen and Institute in Boston, or the NCR and Yes Man in New Vegas (and I guess Caesar’s Legion also)). Some of the mutant animals would be new, others would be largely the same. Probably the music should be local 50s songs that feel appropriate with maybe a localized cover of the Ink Spots or two. But it’d still be Fallout’s world, and it’d still be Fallout.
And no, things like Metro 2033, ATOM RPG, Stalker, Mad Max, and Metal Max (JRPG post-apocalypse series - more obscure than these other games so I figured it’s worth clarifying) aren’t what Fallout in Russia, Ukraine, Australia or Japan would be. They’re each a whole different take on what the post-apocalypse would be, in almost every one of those respects.
Brotherhood of Steel is always on the box for some reason. Checkmate.
Power armor is always on the box. Fallout 2’s is Enclave. Fallout London’s could be, I dunno, whatever the heck the local equivalent might be. The Beefeater.
Edit: Actually, New Vegas it’s not even power armor.
Yeah it’s the guy from The Simpsons episode X.
I see Fallout as being the weird mix of 50s atomic futurism, a dash of cold war, the destroyed and not cleaned up world, ghouls, mutated monsters, and factions. Toss in one protagonist that has a plausible reason to be a blank slate (either a coming out of a vault type situation or the loss of memory from New Vegas) and you are set.
Handwave a small amount of tech transfer from right around the war (because it would be weird without Pipboys) and you could make the vaults government projects gone crazy (base them on royal castles?), rich guys prepper strongholds, or a British subsidiary the created a few Vaults prior to the war. I’m not that up on England after the war but with the way Fallout treats history it would be an.easy setting to move things just slightly forward and bring in some of the 60s.
Yeah, I might not be as hardcore into the lore as some of you, but I don’t think there’s anything about the Fallout aesthetic that couldn’t be transposed across the pond easily enough. The US and UK have been close enough in national relations and scientific achievements that I wouldn’t even be absolutely shocked to learn that – even though it’s never been stated before – Vault-Tec or something very similar had a UK presence. “Pipboy” sounds like it come from the UK, anyway.
There’s a FAQ. Some highlights:
Such a large-scale mod seems pretty ambitious for a volunteer team working on it in their free time, hope they can pull it off.
In particular:
Unless it’s a lot sparser than the existing Fallout 4 map, that is a ridiculous amount of content for a volunteer team to create.
Your first paragraph is just backstory. The vault experiments were there from the very beginning though. Pip-Boy is American specific. Dogmeat is not required. Bethesda just keeps bringing a dog companion back and reusing the same name. Might have been funny if they used the original name though: Dogshit.
I now find myself arguing the opposite of what I originally inferred to which is kind of hilarious: ATOM RPG can easily slot into the Fallout universe with some changes. It’s already got its own werid factions including a mushroom cult. None of the American stuff matters. The specific branding would be a low value factor outside of the US.
Yes, backstory is key to defining a setting. And there’s absolutely nothing requiring Pip-Boy to be specifically American. I don’t know if you know this, but companies have exported computers and watches worldwide! Yes, they had a deal with Vault-Tec to provide Pip-Boys to Vault dwellers, but it’s not a Vault-Tec product. Now, I think it’s fair to say Vault-Tec, specifically, wouldn’t have operated outside the US (though I don’t know that there’s anything specifically requiring it, canonically) since I seem to recall something about them specifically working with the American government on the project and I can’t imagine the government wanting to share. But a lot of the other companies…
So I sided with the Institute and destroyed my enemies. Boy that felt wrong but in my previous play thru I blew up the institute.
All the options suck.
That Fallout: London FAQ page is pretty good example. Everything is different, barring just making British versions of the same thing, and if I didn’t know it was Fallout, it could be it’s own British nuclear apocalypses setting. Almost like it’s Fallout in name only.
Yeah, all the things that would be different about London are different. It’s like it’s taking place on a different planet entirely! …no, wait.
It might as well be on a different planet. Yes, actually.
I’m still not at all sure what distinction you are making. What is the defining feature of Fallout that can’t occur in England?
One thought is that I see Fallout as an overall aesthetic mostly plus a couple of assumptions about the game world physics (particularly the very science fantasy treatment of radiation and mutations), and a vague commitment to a timeline of major events. Taking those few points and seeing how they work out in a different setting it a feature not a flaw in my understanding!
Oddly enough a different planet is about where I draw the line because right now the Fallout universe doesn’t have interstellar travel for the human race.
Okay, then there’s no point in continuing this discussion because we clearly have no common ground to find. That is straight up absurd, IMO.