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by ecshafer 133 days ago
The Bethesda Fallout games are not the same universe. Sure canonically they are but there is a giant aesthetic difference. Fallout 1 was occasionally wacky but was mostly straight. Fallout 2 went a bit more comedic. But the main thing is that these were post apocalyptic societies that were trying to still evolve and move on. Bethesda Fallout leaned too much into the 1950s tropes everywhere and increased the comedic levels to much. It stopped being their own separate societies living in these post apocalyptic societies, and started being just a comical post apocalyptic world full of 1950s references, despite Fallout NOT being based on the 1950s.
2 comments

My take is that original Fallout was a post-post apocalyptic setting. Apocalypse was gone and many societies were building up again. Especially when you get to Fallout 2 with Vault City and NCR. Fallout 3 the people had not gone anywhere. It was just set dressing.

Even if 4 had one hyper advanced society that came from in essence nowhere. The rest hadn't done anything much in the time period... Like they had been around for tiny bit. Or living their lives in some weird retro style for some unimaginable reason.

Well Bethesda now builds collections of dioramas, not worlds.

Total agreement. The one thing that is really annoying in all of the 3d Fallout games, New Vegas included. Is that they are still living in ruins. People's homes are full of burned garbage, broken shelves, and trash on the floors. They don't differentiate a ruined house and a house that people live in. In 1 and 2, people live in shacks, but its their homes. Some people view the past as mythology and they practice shamanism. Some enclaves are advanced but they are view the outside as dangerous and full of barbarians. Even though its not "realistic" its much more believable.
New Vegas more or less fits the first two IMHO. It's 3 and 4, the proper Bethesda ones, which really shit things up in inexplicably ways. Neither of them even feel like remotely plausible settings, let alone fit in Fallout.