Fallout 5 needs to leave America behind if it wants to succeed

The Fallout franchise is closely associated with Americana, merging the Wild West and post-apocalyptic genres in an instantly recognizable way. However, the time has come for the series to leave the US behind and for Fallout 5 to explore new territory. 

Fallout 5 is inevitable, and the TV show’s success means that there’s an incentive to tread familiar ground, especially if its release happens to line up with a future series. While Bethesda hasn’t announced Fallout 5, the TV show has likely made it more of a priority. 

The problem is that the Fallout series is in dire need of a shake-up in its setting, as the Wasteland that was once the United States of America has already been done to death.

What better way for the Fallout series to take a step forward than by leaving behind the familiar Wasteland that has appeared in every game? We’ve seen what happened to the US after the bombs fell, but what about all of the other countries? How were they changed after the last great war? 

Fallout 4 played it too safe with its setting

Bethesda Softworks

Fallout 4 failed to push the series forward in the same way as its predecessors, especially when you factor in how big a jump there was from Fallout 2 to Fallout 3. 

The shift from the old isometric Fallout games to Fallout 3 was staggering. The small character sprites and turn-based combat were replaced with a massive 3D world and fast-paced battles broken up by the V.A.T.S. system. The jump was so massive that they felt like two different series.

Fallout: New Vegas didn’t have the same jump in visuals, but what it did have was a massive city spread across multiple loading screens, as well as numerous factions that let the player experience a multitude of different stories, with more of a focus on choice than the previous game. 

One of Fallout 4’s biggest mistakes was playing it too safe. Not only was the story similar in tone to Fallout 3, but the setting had nothing interesting to distinguish itself. The Commonwealth and the Capital Wasteland felt interchangeable, save for a bump in visual quality. 

The enemies and weapons also felt overly familiar, with the same foes — Ghouls, Super Mutants, Deathclaws, and poorly dressed Raiders — and environmental hazards players had already spent countless hours battling in the previous games..

The similar world wasn’t helped by simplifying the skills and dialogue choices. A fresh setting might have eased the effect of these changes, but the world of Fallout 4 was so similar that the alterations made it feel like an inferior version of its predecessor. 

The time has come to see the rest of the Fallout world

The Fallout series has focused entirely on the United States of America after the bombs were dropped, with the fate of the outside world being a huge mystery.

The biggest way the next Fallout can shake things up is with an entry set in another country. Surely Vault-Tec had offices or competitors in other nations that prepared for the nuclear war, giving humanity a chance to survive in other countries? The FEV was also unique to the USA (barring any future revelations or retcons), so other countries could potentially have vastly different monsters.

The next Fallout needs to shake up the setting and move away from the desert and the wasteland. A Fallout set in a cold region, like Canada, could have the environment be a much greater threat, with frost and exposure being just as deadly as the radiation and the mutants. 

I can picture a Pip-Boy with a built-in metal detector that acts as your compass, as you try to find structures buried beneath the snow while mutated animals that have adapted to the cold hunt you through the mist.

Or how about a tropical setting? How would radiation affect a jungle ecosystem? Here, the plants could also be as deadly as the animals, with nature itself striking back against the humanity that tried to destroy their world.

What about a Fallout set on the open sea? Humanity could have attempted to escape the fallout using boats, creating cities on the water, like Rivet City from Fallout 3. This game could focus on the horrors of the deep, threatening the floating cities as they encroach upon their territory. 

Even switching to another country and seeing how its culture evolved after the bombs would be interesting. How would the United Kingdom or France have been changed following the destruction of the existing power structures?

Well, we’ll soon have an answer to one of those questions…

Fallout: London will have to scratch the itch

Creation Engine

The upcoming Fallout: London total conversion mod for Fallout 4 will give us an unofficial look at the world’s wastelands. That is, if it’s ever released, as the next-gen update has prompted another delay for the mod. 

In Fallout: London, players will explore a world without Vault-Tec and the familiar creatures of the series. They will experience a whole new story with factions that aren’t connected to the existing games.

The mod has also snagged some high-profile voice actors, including two Doctor Whos (Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy) and Neil Newbon, best known for playing Astarion in Baldur’s Gate 3. 

Fallout: London won’t be canonical to the mainline games, as it’s a fanwork not produced by Bethesda or Xbox Game Studios. This leaves the door open for developers to explore the United Kingdom in a future game, but that could be years away if it happens at all.

Does Fallout stop being Fallout when it’s not in the USA?

This is a tough one to answer, as the series hasn’t broached that topic yet. 

Fallout definitely has a Wild West aesthetic, but that doesn’t mean all of the games have to follow that template. The franchise has a ton of scope to explore other settings and genres, as the world after the war is filled with storytelling possibilities that don’t all involve Deathclaws and bobbleheads.

What the series needs most is a break from the familiar, with a game that shows a glimpse of the world outside the United States of America. It can always return in a future entry, possibly giving fans an exciting glimpse of post-war Wyoming or Deleware. 

After the overly-familiar landscapes of Fallout 4 and Fallout 76, it’s time to step out of a Vault and explore somewhere new.