Today’s Fallout isn’t the same as the original Fallout. The introspective, grimy, brutal world of the first Fallout video game has been polished and burnished into an impressive-looking theme park, featuring all the recognizable elements of the series (recently adapted as a big-budget Amazon TV show) but lacking any real purpose behind them.
One of the big draws of Fallout is its twist on the post-apocalyptic formula: it posits that the political tensions of the late 1940s and 1950s continued for several decades, eventually leading to all-out nuclear war in 2077. It would make sense that if human society as we know it ended in a certain era, then the culture of that era would remain relevant for years to come simply because it’s all that’s left. That’s why the world of Fallout features 1940s and 1950s aesthetics mixed with speculative elements like robots, super mutants, and laser guns.
The world of the original Fallout isn't just grim because of terrifying Deathclaws, radioactive dead zones, and roaming bands of Raiders. It also remains a victim of the pro-capitalism, xenophobia, and pro-individualism of the last major form of society that ever existed. Gizmo, the exploitative owner of Junktown's casino, takes advantage of the locals' dependence on gambling and attempts to murder one of the few people who oppose him, Sheriff Killian Darkwater, in his quest to maintain his personal wealth. Meanwhile, the game's main antagonist, The Master, kidnaps and performs unethical experiments on random innocents out of his desire to eliminate differences, believing that homogenizing culture would end all conflict.
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The iconography of Vault-Tec’s grinning mascot Vault Boy, the upbeat jazz and rock tunes, and the space-age aesthetic don’t just exist as a striking contrast to the dirt and grime of the Wasteland; they’re also tools used to explore the darker aspects of American popular culture. This feels like something that later installments in the series toned down, trading in the sinister moral implications of Fallout’s world and player choices within it in favor of a quirky open world full of cool guns to shoot cool monsters with.
While modern Fallout installments more closely resemble first-person shooters like the Borderlands series, the first two mainline Fallout titles are isometric RPGs more akin to Baldur's Gate that were designed to make players feel vulnerable to the terrifying dangers of the wasteland. While Fallout 4 has players donning power armor within the first few hours, the player character in the original Fallout has the potential to be killed by a rat in the first playable section of the game.
Much like Fallout, the world of Deadlands features supernatural and fictional elements that pose dangers to its characters.
This harder, slower approach to gameplay forces players to carefully think through their next move, not just from a strategic standpoint, but a moral one as well. Sometimes, the kindest choice is also the hardest. The original Fallout’s gameplay is far from perfect; the esoteric character creation system that punishes anyone who doesn’t know exactly what they’re doing is especially egregious. However, it better illustrates the harsh nature of an America that prioritizes capitalism and individualism over community and human compassion than the light, carefree gameplay of games like Fallout 4.
Fallout doesn’t have a monopoly on sci-fi-influenced period pieces that play with alternate historical timelines. Deadlands: The Weird West is a Wild West-themed tabletop RPG set in an alternate version of the late 19th century. Similar to Fallout’s appearance of demons, mutants, and robots in the dust of the nuclear apocalypse, in Deadlands an event called The Reckoning results in the human world being overrun by supernatural entities called Reckoners. These entities seek to turn the Earth into a haunted wasteland populated only by monsters, zombies, and other hellish creatures – sort of like Fallout’s now-desiccated America. The Reckoning happens as a result of a tribe of Native Americans doing their best to protect their land from encroaching white settlers, hoping that the powerful beings occupying another realm will help them save their homes and families.
Although the Reckoners are generally hostile to humans, they are more than willing to capitalize on their worst traits. Despite the U.S. government's attempts to keep the Reckoners' existence and actions secret from the general public, in the hopes that people will continue to operate within the accepted systems of American society, entire towns are terrorized by supernatural beings and innocent people are killed by monsters. Meanwhile, corporations use the newly discovered resource of Ghost Rock to fuel their profits thanks to the awesome power it grants to various machines, such as trains and even futuristic technologies, all of which is unregulated and thoroughly exploited.
Much like the inclusion of science fiction elements in the original Fallout, the terrifying supernatural aspects of Deadlands emphasize the horrors of the chosen historical period.
Much like Fallout, the world of Deadlands features supernatural and fictional elements that pose dangers to its characters, but it is the capitalist, individualistic, and racist aspects of late 19th-century America that serve to enable its most menacing aspects. This is a world where the plague of the Native American people leads directly to The Reckoning, where the enslavement of African-American people still results in a bloody civil war, and the government sends federal agents to investigate and clean up messes it refuses to publicly acknowledge.
Much like Fallout seeks to balance satirical humor with horror, players are given the opportunity to experience more lighthearted campaigns that focus on the lighter elements of the Weird West setting. However, it’s in the horror genre that Deadlands truly thrives; like any good horror RPG, characters are under near-constant threat of danger. Though players are free to create characters who have the ability to manipulate the supernatural forces around them (such as magical peddlers, spirited shamans, or scientists who’ve harnessed the power of Ghost Rock), there’s also the option to create a fairly ordinary person who’s been thrown into a world in which they’re clearly outmatched, similar to the protagonists of Fallout’s Vault Dweller.
Even the most supernaturally inclined characters will frequently find themselves in situations where they'll have to face forces they can't fight, or where they'll be forced to make difficult decisions in the name of survival. Much like in Fallout, characters in Deadlands can reach the point where they're powerful enough to take on even some of the most fearsome foes, but it'll take players a fair amount of time to get there, and there will be plenty of hardships along the way. Much like the inclusion of science fiction elements in the original Fallout, the terrifying supernatural aspects of Deadlands emphasize the horrors of its chosen historical period, with the player characters fighting against a seemingly invincible form of corruption caused by the sins of its founding fathers and instigated by its own leaders.
Though Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 may be the most popular installments in the series, particularly in the wake of Amazon’s recent Fallout TV series, the original Fallout is arguably where the franchise was at its most creative. Fallout: New Vegas is praised for striking a balancing act between its politically driven writing and more accessible first-person gameplay, but there’s something about the first Fallout game that remains enduringly uncompromising in its approach to the concept of a post-apocalyptic America haunted by the success and brutality of its past. In the wake of the loss of Fallout’s initially steadfast and pure creative vision, Deadlands offers an RPG experience that scratches that same careless itch of an unflinching approach to the wrongs of the past and present through an imaginative lens.
Buy the Deadlands: The Weird West Core Rulebook from Pinnacle Entertainment