Fallout 3 was a defining game of the Xbox 360/Playstation 3 generation. It set the bar for RPGs with vast, explorable worlds. Let’s go back and visit some of the game’s most memorable locations.

Transcript:

Fallout 3’s world is stunning. It has so many locations that are begging to be explored. So many in-depth backstories that make areas memorable. And of course, plenty of odd little spots the developers didn’t think you’d notice.

Welcome wandering wastelanders, to Video Game World Tours, and this… is Fallout 3’s Capital Wasteland.

Fallout 3’s opening chapter takes place in a Vault.

Vaults in Fallout games are bunkers built by the Vault-Tec corporation way back in the day. Most were intended to house a little less than a hundred people in the case of a catastrophic, humanity-ending event, should such a thing ever happen. According to the Fallout 1 manual, only 122 Vaults were built across the United States. So what few humans entered the Vaults early in the morning on October 3rd, 2077 would be the foundation for humanity going forward.

A lot of those Vaults were set to be sealed for a certain amount of time, 10 years, 100 years, whatever, then release the occupants into the world. Vault 101, the vault the game starts in, is never supposed to open.

It… technically did open a couple times, but those times were the exception. For all intents and purposes, this little hole in the side of a hill is the residents’ entire world.

It’s fascinating seeing life in a Vault. The outside world is harsh and unforgiving, but Vault life is almost mundane. They have Bingo nights, baseball games, bake-offs. I imagine it’d be easy to forget that the world nearly ended.

Vault life would inevitably bore you. Wearing the same jumpsuit everyday, seeing the same people, doing the same things, it has to get annoying at some point.

And the environment, oof. Look at these walls. The concrete walls are dirty and the metal paneling isn’t too homely. This whole aesthetic feels very industrial. Which makes sense, considering that Vaults are effectively bunkers. Though if I lived in a Vault, I would probably wish that Vault-Tec spent some money to make the aesthetic a bit more pleasing.

This chair doesn’t look comfortable at all. And this bed. I can’t imagine sleeping on this bed for the rest of my life, I’m getting back problems just looking at it.

These poor, pathetic toilet stalls, they’re so sad.

Something I do think is cute about Vault life, is that people try to make the best of the situation. There’s obviously not a lot of decorative things to be placed around, but there is the rare painting. A welcome mat. A Hawaiian hula girl doll. Little things to remind people there’s more to life than just surviving. Those objects stick out to me, because some Vault dweller must have thought to bring those with them before the bombs dropped. I seriously doubt multi-billion dollar Vault-tec, who provided beds like this, also stockpiled little hula girls for the residents.

The diner is cute though. It’s in the style of a 50’s diner, which fits into the retro-futuristic aesthetic of the series. This is really the only room in the whole vault that feels like it was decorated. Every other place is pure function over form. But here, the Vault designers had a little fun. Eating food is often a social activity, so maybe they wanted to encourage people to talk with each other and bond while they eat, as opposed to heading straight to their room.

Vault 101 is the player’s introduction into the world of Fallout 3. You see what life is like in a cozy little shelter. And I don’t know about you, but I think about what it would be like to live in one myself. Would I get tired of seeing the same boring walls every day? What would I do for fun? Could I even use this gross toilet? (Shivers)

(Interlude)

Well, one thing’s for sure, life underground is a lot different to life on the surface.

Your first few moments outside of the Vault are supposed to wow you. The sun blinds you. Your vision slowly corrects and a vast landscape reveals itself. A dozen landmarks catch your eye. Some destroyed homes. The US Capital building on the horizon. A nearby town. This is the beginning of a long journey.

On that journey, as you walk through what’s left of a destroyed nation, you find remnants of the past. Cars on the side of the road, shopping carts, piles and piles of debris. You’d be forgiven for thinking humanity was completely and utterly wiped out.

People are still about though, they’re just much more concentrated. The humans that are left generally congregate into communities. Which leaves blocks like this purposeless. What use does a community of 40 or so people have for a bunch of nearly destroyed homes? Or a school building? Sure, you could take some of the supplies for teaching kids, but there’s no reason you HAVE to do the teaching there. So the building gets looted and abandoned.

The vast majority of the wasteland is abandoned buildings and wide-open spaces.

Speaking of those wide-open spaces, how’s nature doing after nuclear devastation?

Not as bad as I might have thought. There’s a fair amount of grass and weed patches throughout. As well as mutated plants that are now accustomed to growing in irradiated soil. But it’s still pretty bad. Trees don’t have leaves and pre-war plants can’t handle the new composition of the soil. Nuclear ash left its mark.

On not just the flora, but the fauna as well.

Very few, if any, animals were left un-mutated by the fallout. Yao Guai were once bears, rad scorpions were scorpions, and mole rats were a LOT smaller. Not sure what feeds on what out here, but there has to be a food chain of some sort.

It’s kinda sad, walking around the wasteland, seeing everything that was. Very little new infrastructure has been built since the war, and I wonder how long some of these buildings will stay up. Will Springvale Elementary be standing in 200 more years? 400? Hard to say…

(Interlude)

Some people have taken it upon themselves to start rebuilding. Let’s look at the quaint town of Megaton. It’s located right beside Vault 101 and was partially founded of people who were denied access into it sometime after the bombs dropped. It was also founded by people who were positively enamored with the… undetonated, LIVE atom bomb.

Maybe not a place I’d settle down after nuclear destruction, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers. A sizable amount of people worshipped this bizarre landmark. And people that were otherwise indifferent to the bomb decided to live with these cultists, you know, strength in numbers and all that. It became a trade hub for the region.

Eventually, the traders and religious followers built a wall around this small town. Megaton was born.

Everything looks rundown here. Buildings are built with what looks like thin pieces of sheet metal, water pipes are going every which way, and the wall looks like it’s ready to fall apart. The inside of the houses don’t look much better. The floor, the walls, the furniture, it looks like it’s all on the brink of turning into dust. I brought this up earlier when talking about Vaults, but homes on the surface don’t have many decorations either.

I feel kinda sad when I look at Megaton. I get the vibe that people around here are just trying to survive. They have to worry about raiders, water problems, the giant atom bomb potentially exploding. I guess that would be life after the world nearly ends.

To not end this section on a downer, let’s visit the guy up there. Lemmie just… float up to him. This is the only way to reach him, there’s no ladder or anything that brings you up here. You talk to him and he pretty bluntly asks, “How the hell did you get up here anyway?” Uhh, pretty sure you saw me fly up here bro.

(Interlude)

Super-Duper Mart is a supermarket not far from Megaton. An early quest sends you there after food and medical supplies.

When I come across buildings like this in Fallout games, I like to imagine what they looked like before the bombs dropped. What was the color scheme? How were the shelves originally arranged? Was there music playing over a loudspeaker? Fallout’s aesthetic pre-nuclear war is so well-defined, I can easily imagine this space as a pristine, well-kept supermarket.

Nowadays, a group of raiders call Super-Duper Mart home. The atmosphere of Super-Duper Mart under their control isn’t quite as… hospitable as you might imagine a supermarket to be. Trash is strewn about, shelves are knocked over, corpses are hanging from the ceiling. They aren’t concerned with making the place look nice, they just wanna… I dunno, torture people?

It’s weird to imagine seeing a commercial for this place back in the day, they’d say something like, “Shop smart, shop… Super-Duper Mart” and when you go there, it’s such a warm and pleasing place. Now, it’s… so hostile.

(Interlude)

Our next stop is to a place that isn’t so hostile.

The Underworld.

The Underworld is a settlement located inside the Museum of History. It’s home to beings known as necrotic post-humans. Ghouls.

These were once, and still kinda are, humans. They were exposed to heavy doses of radiation and their skin started to shrivel up. They also underwent some slight mutations, but underneath all that? They’re still the same people they once were. Same interests, same memories, same desires. They didn’t lose their minds, just a bit of their skin.

Ghouls, unfortunately, have to deal with some discrimination. Not universally, mind you. A lot of people out there are very accepting or indifferent to our epidermically-challenged friends. But there’s just enough Ghoul-haters out there to make life difficult for them.

Facing that discrimination and alienation, they built their own little place in the Museum of History. Though it’s not just for Ghouls, smooth-skinned humans are free to mull about as they please as long as they don’t cause any trouble.

The Underworld is a small, yet welcoming place.

It’s located in a museum, so there’s an immediate sense of wonder when you walk in. The pattern on the floor, the walls, this large statue, it’s very well kept.

It has an infirmary, a bar, a restaurant hotel hybrid. They even added a bunch of beds into the bathroom for people to sleep in. This seems like a good a place as any to live out the rest of your days in an irradiated world.

Doctor Barrows runs the infirmary, but he also does a bit of research on the side. He has two “Glowing Ones” kept in captivity. Glowing Ones are feral ghouls that were exposed to A LOT of radiation. You can observe them from behind the glass, but that’s all. You can’t go in, the door is labeled as inaccessible.

When did that ever stop me? “Going out of bounds” is my middle name. Lemmie just… okay I’m in.

As you might expect from an out-of-bounds area, there’s not a lot to see in here. Two stretchers, two bioluminescent boys, and… hey. A safe. With a max difficulty lock. Oh man, I bet there’s some sweet goodies in here. I’m just gonna cheat my way in.

Oh.

(Interlude)

Before we visit our last major location on the itinerary, let’s take a quick stop at one particular unmarked spot on the map.

This little raider camp.

I didn’t bring it up when talking about Super-Duper Mart earlier, but that didn’t feel like a place where people hung out. It was just a dilapidated supermarket with people dangling from the ceiling. But this camp, it looks like people actually live here. There’s a nice couch, bunk beds, storage shelves for food and drinks, and the jaw-dropping centerpiece of this living space, a dead tree with some Christmas lights on it.

That tiny detail gives these nameless bad guys so much character. Sure, they shoot you on sight, but think about them as people, not enemies to be shot. Think about how happy they must have been when they found these working lights in a building somewhere. Think about what it was like to move this giant couch over here from wherever they found it. Think about the mundane conversations they must have late at night. It’s fun to humanize characters like that and build up a headcanon for them.

Of course, Bethesda doesn’t really let you do much more than just imagining a story. There’s no talking these guys down like they’re human beings. They’re programmed like robots to shoot you until you’re dead. But as I’ve always said in these tours, headcanons make for more memorable stories in games.

The environmental artist made this one small encampment stand out from all the others, just with a strand of lights.

(Interlude)

Our final stop for today’s tour of the Capital Wasteland takes us to a peculiar spot. Once you might not expect to exist in such a desolate landscape.

We went over the state of the environment earlier in the tour. Everything around you is a reminder that the world was plunged into devastation so many years ago, and how it seems like nature is having a hard time recovering.

That is, in all but one place.

Oasis.

Nature flourishes in this tiny pocket of the world. Trees grow freely and you can faintly hear normal animals. Just birds and crickets, none of that giant mole rat nonsense.

This is all possible via Harold’s gift. Harold was blessed with the gift of life and gave birth to all of this. He’s a god to his followers.

Or he’s just a guy that got infected by an artificial virus in a military base. I’ll let you decide which story to believe.

Either way, Harold, who was once a normal human, is now part-tree. And his roots give life to all the vegetation nearby.

It’s kinda nice hanging out in Oasis. My eyes are so accustomed to seeing brown and grey, a little bit of green is nice. Okay, I guess all of Fallout 3 is green, but you know what I mean. Lush greenery is exceedingly rare in this game, and a change of pace is much appreciated.

Harold’s followers are really roughing it out here. No electronics and not a lot of mass-produced things from before the war. They built their own beds, torches, this gazebo. They revel in nature and its simplicity. These people have truly forsaken trying to live like people pre-war. They’re forging their own path. I appreciate that.

(Interlude)

For a palate cleanser, might I suggest viewing my tour of Animal Crossing. That’s a really cozy game and I love how that video turned out.

If you wanna see more tours in the future, click that red button below the video.

Thanks for watching, see ya next time.