"not interested in discussing how realistic things are in an alternate universe post-apoc game w/ talking mutants and ghouls" - Pete Hines 2016
This can't be repeated enough.
From one angle, it's the worst possible PR a PR person could do. You might as well say "I don't care about your valid criticism, because I don't care about this game world or it's canon, nor do I understand them"
It really highlights the blatant misunderstanding in the heads of Bethesda's higher-ups regarding consistent entries in the series like Ghouls and Mutants.
Ghouls that don't talk.. would have no fucking place in Fallout. They aren't zombies, no matter how much guys like ol Petey insist on misunderstanding this point. They don't rise up from graves to drag at your ankles, they are not the undead, and they are not soulless yet human shaped cannon fodder for the player character to mow down and not feel bad about because they are ugly.
They are people. Flesh and blood, LIVING people, most of whom lived for a long time and would have lots of useful things to say. Even the ghoul crazies said things and they were.. crazy!
Ghouls in the world of fallout were a dark thematic element that allowed them to work with elements like racism in a post apoc environment and even themes like posthumanism to some degree. They used to be a DEEP element of the setting before Pete's company turned them into stupid zombies to cash in on the stupid zombies in open world games trend in modern gaming. They were also a way to show how the world of fallout differs from our own in the handling of concepts like radiation and what it does to living things (unlike in FO4 which goes full on with cancer as a plot element.. the antithesis of what the Fallout universe's radiation did to people)
The very fact that he thinks GHOULS THAT TALK are an unrealistic thing, in the setting of Fallout, just shows how very badly they miss the mark at understanding the setting at all. Much the same for Mutants. They are all people, much more so than the bunch of dumb robots in FO4 who retarded NPCs in the game treat like they are people.
Nobody seems willing to ask them the simple response to this inane BS, that directly cuts to the core of his supposed argument for ignoring the stupidity of kid in the fridge:
"Why would mutants and ghouls NOT talk?"