Fallout 1 and 2 Established the Series‘ Roots in Post-Apocalyptic California
As a diehard Fallout fan, I‘m often asked where the seminal early games in this legendary RPG franchise took place. To quickly summarize:
- Fallout 1 was set in Southern California, around the Los Angeles area, beginning in 2161
- Fallout 2 moved the setting north to explore Northern California, around San Francisco, in 2241
But let‘s dive deeper into the details and history behind these iconic post-nuclear worlds that established Fallout‘s unique retro-futuristic flavor.
Fallout (1997) Laid the Groundwork in SoCal
Fallout immerses players in a lovingly-crafted apocalyptic California, where you start out in Vault 13 before venturing out to experience locales modelled on real West Coast places:
| Fallout 1 Location | Real-World Inspiration |
|---|---|
| Junktown | Desert communities near Barstow |
| Hub | Los Angeles |
| Necropolis | Bakersfield |
| Boneyard | Los Angeles remains |
With these familiar-yet-twisted settings as backdrops, you unfold a gripping narrative full of moral dilemmas, memorable characters, and deadly encounters with Super Mutants, ghouls, radscorpions, and more nightmares of the Wasteland. At its heart, it‘s a story about saving your vault community and discovering the outside world.
Critics praised Fallout for seamlessly blending deep roleplaying systems with immersive environmental storytelling. It sets a template that later games would follow: a lone hero, emerging from a vault to explore the remnants of California after the bombs dropped.
Fallout 2 (1998) Travels North to the Bay Area in 2241
Fallout 2 advances the timeline about 80 years and shifts the setting to Northern California, where places like San Francisco have formed civilizations from the ashes. As a descendant of the legendary Vault Dweller, you face an even deadlier threat: the Enclave, a fascistic remnant of the U.S. government.
| Fallout 2 Location | Real-World Inspiration |
|---|---|
| Arroyo | Coastal Northern California |
| Klamath | Klamath National Forest |
| Vault City | A vault under Future Farmers of America HQ |
| Gecko | Pacific Gas & Electric HQ |
| Redding | Northern CA city |
| San Francisco | San Francisco |
Like the first game, Fallout 2 mixes nimble combat systems with flexible skills like speech, stealing, and lockpicking. Players generally consider it a worthy successor that expands on the original‘s innovations with more pop culture references and absurd moments of black comedy gold.
The Legacy: How Later Fallout Games Built On These Foundations
The first two Fallout adventures clearly made their mark with around 1.2 million sales between them. When Bethesda revived the franchise years later, they retained a lot of the initial creative DNA.
Fallout 3 transports the setting to post-apocalyptic Washington D.C. in 2277. But it preserves mechanics like V.A.T.S., Perks, radiation sickness, bottlecap currency, and the PipBoy. At the same time, Bethesda‘s artists lovingly model the national capital‘s famous monuments and neighborhoods to create an eerie, unfamiliar landscape.
In Fallout: New Vegas, Obsidian Entertainment returns to the West Coast, using Las Vegas and the Mojave desert. However, the development team includes original Fallout creators like Leonard Boyarsky and Tim Cain. This entry captures a lot of Fallout 1 & 2‘s offbeat humor and flexibility in solving quests.
Fallout 4 (2015) and Fallout 76 (2018) continue to experiment with new regions like Boston, Massachusetts and West Virginia. However, the core themes of fighting through a strange vision of America after nuclear devastation remain.
In Conclusion: The Fallout Saga Began by Immersing Us in Post-Apocalyptic California
From the very first entry in 1997, Fallout carved out a unique niche across RPGs by realizing a subtly satirical take on a nuclear wasteland future. Using familiar Californian touchstones as exotic locations provided an immediate feeling of exploring the unknown.
The first two games stand as iconic examples of interactive storytelling combined with rich freedom. Later franchises retained their signature mechanics, design elements, humor and flexible questing pathways. But everything traces back to those earliest journeys across the irradiated Golden State locations that form the DNA of this beloved post-apocalyptic playground.
So there you have it: Vault 13 and Arroyo first welcomed us to the Wastes. If you‘re brand new to Fallout, go back and explore where this singular series started by fighting for survival in the ruins of what was once suburban LA or the Bay.
