Is there an argument to be made that Fallout 3 took a lot of inspiration from Modern Warfare?

[Earth]

Now we've seen the way that Bethesda aped off of Fortnite's success with Fallout 76, Minecraft's in Fallout 4, and the success of mobile games in general with Fallout Shelter, is there an argument to be made that Fallout 3 was made with the intent to ape off of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's success as a first-person shooter, but also aping off of it creatively through its railroaded and essentially jingoistic storytelling? Modern Warfare was an America F*ck Yeah game of course, depicting foreign villains with nuclear weapons at their disposal and enough gun fetishising to make Charlton Heston blush, and I could never shake off the feeling, playing Fallout 3 now so many years ago, that that game was similar in the way it depicted a bombed out Washington DC (designed perfectly to pull at post-9/11 American heartstrings) and a story of proud American warriors battling a villainous invading government (ala Saddam Hussein).

I'm sure there's plenty of argument against this, especially in that I could be reading too much into the allegory, and that Fallout 3 had been in development for years prior to Modern Warfare's release, and it's not as if jingoism wasn't a big part of American culture after 9/11 anyway, but now considering the way that Bethesda seems to produce games off the seat of their pants (especially with regards to Fallout 4) I felt the point had some weight. Still, I felt it was worthy of some discussion.

Also, hi.

 

[SquidWard]

Hello band name before Black Sabbath!

Nah, I think you're reading into this too much but an interesting perspective.

Hell, I don't think Fallout 4 really even got a majority of its settlement building inspiration from Minecraft. More likely games like Rust, 7 Days to Die, and whatnot. Sure, they fill that Minecraft-esque category but they are a bit different at the same time. Minecraft is like Legos and Rust & Co. is like What If Minecraft Wasn't Legos. Pretty much a more sophisticated version of a simple title with some other tones and graphic fidelity and Fallout 4 was like, "Heh that could work in the post-apocalyptic world don'tcha think?"

I also think 76 was more inspired by the looter shooter live services + Rust and friends rather than Fortnite. So imagine Rust meets Destiny or 7 Days to Die meets Borderlands.
You have survival mechanics and building and then you have the grind for end game loot.

 

[mef]

Minecraft's in Fallout 4

don't you think that's a stretch? building and crafting in fallout 4 don't really resemble minecraft, there just was a crafting trend in the video game industry a that time

 

[Risewild]

Todd Howard did say what type of inspiration they took from Minecraft:

For us, we had been thinking about a feature like this [crafting and settlement building] because it hearkens back to us doing mods for a long time and having a creation kit," Todd Howard, game director at Bethesda Game Studios, told iDigitalTimes. "But our games only span [a limited] audience, and the PC audience is at best a third of that, and then the people that use the creation kit to make things are a small subset of that audience."

So how do you make something that's like modding, but for everyone to enjoy? "Minecraft starts hitting at the same time [as we were working on Fallout 4]," Howard said. "So while were making it [crafting] we were not looking at Minecraft per se, but looking at how do people build crazy shit in Minecraft. Cause they'll build, like, working computers. How does that actually work?"

Seeing all of these crazy Minecraft contraptions got the team at Bethesda fired up. If people were using the limited tools in Minecraft to create huge works or technological feats, what could they end up doing in Fallout 4? "So we watch stuff like the 3D copier and ask 'how did this person do this?'" Howard said. "And then we go 'what are the things we could do to facilitate that kind of building?' And so Minecraft helped inform the actual things we were putting into the workshop, not [the decision to have] the feature.

Basically, they wanted crafting in Fallout 4, and looked at what stuff people could make in Minecraft and tried to make something similar, but using a much more simple system (and failed miserably).

Todd said that Fallout 4 took inspiration from GTA V, DOOM and Minecraft. Those are the three games I remember him mentioning in interviews.
Now that I think about it, he never mentioned Rust, 7 Days to Live, etc.

 

[SquidWard]

GTA V? Wat. But alright, weird enough. It's more reminiscent of those games than Minecraft if you ask me though.

 

[Risewild]

GTA V? Wat. But alright, weird enough.

Bethesda inspirations are always very weird. They want to copy stuff from other games and then they just make a monster that has nothing in common with those "inspirations".

Well, in our games, we want to give you complete freedom. So, I think of the last few years, I think GTA V had succeeded the most at the same type of thing we try to do. I look at that game and think, “Wow, I just don’t know how they did this.”

That’s what we try to create, that sense of going anywhere and doing anything. GTA V does it so well. It puts you in its world and it makes you its director. It says yes to the player a lot, and that’s what we try to do. It’s just a phenomenal game.

But not only was GTA V an inspiration for Fallout 4, it apparently was the biggest inspiration:

With regards to Fallout 4 though, Howard mentioned GTA V as the largest inspiration for the development team. According to Howard, “it puts you in its world and it makes you its director. It says yes to the player a lot, and that’s what we try to do. It’s just a phenomenal game.”

Howard ends off the interview by saying that the game’s world is “the most important thing” to the development team, and that they’re always focused on making sure that it’s fun to explore – true to the essence of the previous Fallout games.

Oh, I forgot to mention that Destiny was also an inspiration:

Bethesda developers saw Destiny as a touchstone for Fallout 4's shooter mechanics also because Bungie's game runs at 30fps, just like Fallout 4.

"The main difference in the way we develop [and other studios] is that we will develop with as many knobs as possible," Fallout 4 director Todd Howard said. "We're always thinking of scale. We're not a team that is just going to make eight guns and spend forever on one gun. We knew we were going to have thousands, so we needed to develop a gun system that had all of the dials."

Helping develop Fallout 4's gunplay is Josh Hamrick, who left Bungie after six years to join Bethesda. He works at Bethesda as a senior systems designer and in his new role has been "focused intently on tuning [Fallout 4's] firearms." Hamrick was also part of the team that designed Fallout 4's PlayStation Vita controls.

Just look at the inspirations for Fallout Shelter:

Todd Howard cites inspirations such as Sim City, XCOM, FTL and Progress Quest (lol).

It has nothing to do with Sim City, XCOM, FTL or Progress Quest.
Not even a drunk, high (or both) and hallucinating developer would look at Fallout Shelter and see any inspiration from those games...

 

[SquidWard]

It was already strange and you showed that it was even stranger

Destiny? 76 seems more like Destiny than 4...

 

[NMLevesque]

I'm so confused. They want as many knobs as possible, but also always try to streamline things more than before...holy shit, that actually explains a lot. No wonder they make such an unholy mess of everything.

 

[Earth]

Apologies for the late response. My computer is currently in the repair shop so I am currently on a library computer (yes I know...shocking that libraries still exist)

Anyway, you guys brought up some interesting points. I'd forgotten that a lot of Bethesda's influences are actually pretty all over the place. Thanks @Risewild for the quotes and research. Turns out I was stretching but also not really

@NMLevesque It's funny. Now that I'm back on NMA a lot of these details are coming back to me. I remember the Todd Howard interview where he was going on about GTA V and I was like, "Wooooow, guess the RPG elements are going out the backdoor. Fallout is only about the power fantasy now!" Bethesda's general maxim seems to be to take inspiration from everything other than Fallout.

I recall a Tim Cain interview, where he cited cold war history, films like On The Beach, Mad Max, A Boy and his Dog, and of course the game Wasteland and the GURPS system as influences on the overall world and atmosphere (as well as the gameplay). I might be wrong on which specific games but the point is that Bethesda looks at the new popular trends in gaming and plays those up, not seeming to get that jumping onto these trends will horribly date the games. I think it was the youtuber George Weidman who pointed how boring a lot of games were getting because they all had crafting elements, half-a*sed levelling up systems, and OPEN WORLDS

And @Squadcar I was not aware of that Black Sabbath detail. Guess I'm like Ozzy Osbourne in also hating it, but meh, I've had it for years not gonna change it now.

 

[Octavian]

What do fortnite and fallout 76 have in common? The closest games to 76 is probably rust and dayz.

 

[Octavian]

I don’t actually think Modern warfare and fallout 3 have much in common. COD is a game that’s centered entirely around being well put together and having mechanically tight (albeit basic) mechanics. Not innovative for sure but a lot of care and attention to detail in order to make every map fun to play and every gun fun to shoot.

Fallout 3 is more about breath than refinement. Large open world, lots of stuff to explore. Shooting is pretty shitty.

 

[Norzan]

That’s what we try to create, that sense of going anywhere and doing anything. GTA V does it so well. It puts you in its world and it makes you its director. It says yes to the player a lot, and that’s what we try to do. It’s just a phenomenal game.

It sure as fuck explains their design mentality since Oblivion. A world saying no to the player is a good thing, at least when the context makes sense. The Bethesda games since Oblivion hardly ever say no the player and that's an huge problem.

I know he said "a lot" to imply that their games do say no, but it sure as hell ain't that way since Oblivion.

 

[Octavian]

It sure as fuck explains their design mentality since Oblivion. A world saying no to the player is a good thing, at least when the context makes sense. The Bethesda games since Oblivion hardly ever say no the player and that's an huge problem.

I know he said "a lot" to imply that their games do say no, but it sure as hell ain't that way since Oblivion.

To be honest Bethesda games do say no to the player’s choices a lot. Fallout 4 forced the player to accept a lot of quests they didnt care for regardless of how they reacted in dialogue for example. Also the decision of the player to kill certain npcs was often rejected because of them being immortal.

Honestly it’s at a point where Bethesda are so incompetent they can’t even ape the design philosophy of popular shit properly (see fallout 76).

 

[Norzan]

To be honest Bethesda games do say no to the player’s choices a lot. Fallout 4 forced the player to accept a lot of quests they didnt care for regardless of how they reacted in dialogue for example. Also the decision of the player to kill certain npcs was often rejected because of them being immortal.

None of that is saying no to the player. Saying no to the player is not being able to do quests based on consequences, which hardly happens in Bethesda games. Not being able to say no to a quest that really has no branching paths or has any consequences is not saying no to the player. Not to mention you can just ignore the quest and nothing will happen, that is saying yes to the player.

NPCs also being essential is their shit design to shield the players from themselves. It has nothing to do with saying no to the player.

Saying no to the player has to be based on consequences brought upon by the player themselves, as in choice or consequence, or how your character was built. Making NPCs essential and not being able to not accept crappy, meaningless quests is none of that.

 

[SquidWard]

Yeah, it's still saying yes to the player. They never get the feeling that they could have done something differently. Hell, in Morrowind you couldn't be the leader of multiple guilds and that's a basic "no." They did away with that later on and now guards call you a revered fighter for the fighter's guild, a scary assassin, a thief with enough power to pay them off, a powerful mage, and the local Jarl.

You can be everything you want to be in modern BGS games.There's not a moment where you do something that might please one character or group that also might actually anger another. At most, someone will say, "Well, you're a dick. Anyway, how about this quest?"

Also, skills and perks actually helping you do something is another thing they don't say no to. I played the OP sneaky archer thief/assassin in Skyrim and yet I could enter the College of Winterhold, do all their quests, and become their leader. Why? None of my skills reflected this. That's kinda silly. My build shouldn't have been able to complete the fighter's guild or mage's either. The only ones that even make sense are the Dark Brotherhood and the Thieve's Guild but those conflict in ideology as well.

 

[Earth]

Some people are able to replay Bethesda games. I can't. Why? Because I can do everything in one playthrough. Why the hell should I play it again when I'll just be doing the exact same thing? These games take hundreds of hours to complete. No thank you.

(computer's all fixed up)

I suppose my thinking with regards to Fortnite was simply that it's the most popular multiplayer experience at the moment so I figured Bethesda would want to capitalise on that (as we've basically proven here is their modus operandi) But sure, Rust and other games also apply (I don't know enough about Rust so it wasn't my go-to reference for currently popular multiplayer games).

Fallout very much follows trends now, instead of setting them. Obviously the original Fallout itself was itself inspired by Wasteland and GURPS, but I like to think it became something more within popular culture than a Wasteland clone. Unless you're a Fallout 4 fan I really can't see why you would play Fallout 76 over Rust.

Also, debating whether to make a new topic discussing Fallout 3 as a product of post-9/11 American culture, or if that could just be discussed here? I leave it to people here to respond (if anyone's still interested considering my haphazard postings).

 

[Octavian]

Some people are able to replay Bethesda games. I can't. Why? Because I can do everything in one playthrough. Why the hell should I play it again when I'll just be doing the exact same thing? These games take hundreds of hours to complete. No thank you.

(computer's all fixed up)

I suppose my thinking with regards to Fortnite was simply that it's the most popular multiplayer experience at the moment so I figured Bethesda would want to capitalise on that (as we've basically proven here is their modus operandi) But sure, Rust and other games also apply (I don't know enough about Rust so it wasn't my go-to reference for currently popular multiplayer games).

Fallout very much follows trends now, instead of setting them. Obviously the original Fallout itself was itself inspired by Wasteland and GURPS, but I like to think it became something more within popular culture than a Wasteland clone. Unless you're a Fallout 4 fan I really can't see why you would play Fallout 76 over Rust.

Also, debating whether to make a new topic discussing Fallout 3 as a product of post-9/11 American culture, or if that could just be discussed here? I leave it to people here to respond (if anyone's still interested considering my haphazard postings).

Just put it here, why not. I don't think there's anything wrong about following trends the main issue is that Bethes cannot execute any of the trends properly. New Vegas jumped on the fps bandwagon, even adding aim down sights, and the game was fine.

 

[SquidWard]

I don't think there's anything wrong about following trends

Except for the fact that trendsetting is way better than following trends. I don't care to experience practically the same shit every time I buy a game.

New Vegas jumped on the fps bandwagon, even adding aim down sights, and the game was fine.

New Vegas added iron sights to an already constructed "FPS bandwagon" that Fallout 3 was on. If anything, it made the shooting not feel awkward. As much as I prefer dice rolls and character skill over my own skill in a RPG, the disconnect by trying to bridge FPS and a RPG feels weird. Most newer gamers find Morrowind to be weird because they expect that when they see their sword hit the enemy, that it will at least do something.

I'm all for that idea but there is an immediate disconnect between the actions on the screen and the outcome. When I play an isometric RPG and my character misses an action, that is visible and apparent. Whereas in games like Fallout 3 and Morrowind you get this weird feeling that you did the right thing but then the game decided to not think so. It mostly just feels awkward as fuck. I did the thing, clearly, why is it not happening? This is a major issue in making first person RPGs in my opinion.

 

[Cobra Commander]

It is VERY awkward.

But NV have some things that you can accept. Like a PC with 1 in strength who can not properly handle a AMR.

 

[Octavian]

Except for the fact that trendsetting is way better than following trends. I don't care to experience practically the same shit every time I buy a game.

New Vegas added iron sights to an already constructed "FPS bandwagon" that Fallout 3 was on. If anything, it made the shooting not feel awkward. As much as I prefer dice rolls and character skill over my own skill in a RPG, the disconnect by trying to bridge FPS and a RPG feels weird. Most newer gamers find Morrowind to be weird because they expect that when they see their sword hit the enemy, that it will at least do something.

I'm all for that idea but there is an immediate disconnect between the actions on the screen and the outcome. When I play an isometric RPG and my character misses an action, that is visible and apparent. Whereas in games like Fallout 3 and Morrowind you get this weird feeling that you did the right thing but then the game decided to not think so. It mostly just feels awkward as fuck. I did the thing, clearly, why is it not happening? This is a major issue in making first person RPGs in my opinion.

Trendsetting is better than following trends, yes, but games are a product as much as they are an art form. There is tons of value in thinking up something new and revolutionary, but there's also a lot of value in refinement/polish/fine tuning of a preexisting formula. If you look at the most popular games right now you'l see almost all of them are defined more by polish than by actually being groundbreaking.

-Fortnite and Pubg are just competent executions of an arma mod.
-League and Dota are just competent executions of a wc3 mod.
-Overwatch is TF2 with a new coat of paint.
-CoD, Smash, and CS have next to no innovations in their gameplay formula from the first games in their respective series, and are just a new coat of paint slapped on the same shit.

The only game thats popular based on trendsetting right now is minecraft.