The brands of Fallout and The Elder Scrolls are well known in the gaming community, with the latter gaining more popularity since 2011 with the release of the fifth Elder Scrolls game, Skyrim. I'm not going to get into the age old debate of which one is better (because, frankly it would be much easier, and far less painful to remove my own teeth without using anaesthetic), what I will do, however, is list the reasons I have for favouring being burnt alive by robots with lasers than being hacked to bits by Orcs with battle axes, in a perhaps pointless attempt to express my love for Bethesda’s (oh so flawed) masterpiece.
I will first go out of my way to say that the later games in the Fallout series (Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas) were in no way perfect. They’re glitchy, could do with some better graphics in places and the downloadable content sometimes doesn't live up to the hype (although let’s face it, it’s better than Brink). The Elder Scrolls were, of course, exactly the same, until Skyrim was released. Sporting a brand new, shiny engine the graphics were far improved and though glitches were more abundant (due to the size of the world) they were less notable than those experienced in Fallout 3 or New Vegas (in my play through at least). It is however nothing about the glitches or graphics or DLC that makes me side with Fallout over Elder Scrolls. It is simply the lore.
"Have I got something in my teeth?"
Specifically it is the setting and explanations of how unusual events occur in the Elder Scrolls which I find tedious. Skyrim‘s setting, for example is the beautiful world of Tamriel, a land full of green pastures, dense forests and gargantuan, snow capped mountains. It has its problems such as dragons and giants but for the most part it is almost an Eden in which to thrive. It is a perfect world with something about to go wrong with it, and it is your job to stop that from happening.
On the other hand, Fallout is a dystopia. Nuclear war has already occurred and the world has gone to pot. Martial law is enforced and the landscape is littered with a harsh wasteland of dead vegetation and buildings so dishevelled that you could only put them on the market in Essex. It’s a world that has already gone wrong and your role is to simply stop it from getting any worse (or to make it worse, depending on how you decide to play the game). I find that it is easier for me to identify with this world as firstly it is already set on our earth (albeit a parallel earth where the cold war never ended) and secondly due to how events are explained.
Let’s take the following example: Invisibility. In the Elder Scrolls, if a character is invisible then it tends to be explained away as ‘magic’. They have magic powers and as a result they can disappear. Admittedly sometimes it is explained that they obtained this ability by mixing some ingredients with magical properties to create a potion which they then drink to utilise this Bermuda Triangle-esque ability. Whereas in Fallout there is a science behind it. There is a device that emits stealth radiation, a fictional radiation which obscures the subject from view. Even though both of these ideas are truly absurd, I feel that the amount of effort it takes to create lore that says “Mix the wing of a moth with Vampire dust to make a drink that turns you invisible.” is far surpassed by the idea that there is a device that utilises an element of science fiction, science that someone had to spend time on and decide as to whether it was a viable solution to that pesky affliction of being seen.
"And for my next trick, I will make these Super Mutants disappear. Well... explode."
It is this extra effort that is essential to creating a believable world in Fallout that I find more appealing, compelling and interesting than that of Elder Scrolls. Is this amount of time and effort that Bethesda puts into their game creation a result of their commitment to back story and believability, or is it simply because that is the nature of the Sci-Fi and Fantasy genres? Whatever you think the answer is, I always welcome any feedback you may have in response to what is written here.
I’ll see you in the Wasteland.
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