Is it stupid to blame Fallout Tactics for Bethesda’s hard-on for the Lost Hills BOS in particular?

PaxVenire

PaxVenire

Wasteland Peacemaker
Y’know, I really enjoyed Tactics as a game, it’s a fun time with some interesting ideas, but as for the world of Fallout as a whole, I really didn’t like the idea of the Brotherhood being out in the Midwest in the first place, especially with the reason of chasing the super mutants down and looking for some jagoff mystery vault. I feel like not only did it hinder all sorts of potential for new unique and similarly advanced factions around the entire huge area of map Tactics is set in, but it also ended up giving Bethesda the idea that the Californian Brotherhood can just go anywhere and be everywhere. I believe if Tactics wasn’t Brotherhood-focused and just new a new faction then Bethesda would maybe not have added them to them Capital Wasteland, and Appalachia. Not saying they wouldn’t add the BOS as at all, I highly doubt they’d let go of them, but I’m talking about specifically them being a detachment from the BOS in California. Does Bethesda recycle ideas like Super Mutants stupidly for example? Yes, absolutely. As a matter of fact I’m surprised the NCR wasn’t in the Capital Wasteland. However to their credit they at least made up their own stupid shitty lore for them being in that part of the world each time instead of the lazy “They’re just remnants of the Master who went east after Unity” route and ruining the original mutants. The Brotherhood on the other hand on the east coast just always has to originate from California, which I hate. Fallout 3’s Brotherhood was sent from California, Fallout 4’s Brotherhood is the continuation of that with I believe even more reinforcements from California, and in Fallout 76 only 25 years after the bomb they want you to believe the Brotherhood was big and advanced enough to send a detachment on foot from California to West Virginia. On foot, not even using the cool jeeps and humvees from Tactics. What pisses me off even more about the BOS in West Virginia, is that they already had a West Virginia chapter they easily could’ve resurrected. And yes, I think the idea of starting a BOS chapter across the country so early on into the post-apocalypse via satellite was absolutely awful writing, but personally I don’t think it was as bad as what came after with the Steel Dawn/Steel Reign DLCs. They could’ve easily had Vault 76 open up, the inhabitants come across the remains of the WV chapter, and resurrect it from the ashes as you seemingly did in the first place when you joined the BOS on your own before those awful DLCs came out. Instead, they just decided to make the absolutely worst decision ever and make the new BOS rejects sent from Lost Hills. I feel like Tactics gave Bethesda this idea that the Brotherhood was this country-wide spanning organization advanced enough to chase mutants and old technology all the way from California to Chicago to Timbuktu on huge airships (yet somehow still without working cars). And I should mention, while I blame Tactics for this and Bethesda for taking it to heart, I also can’t deny the fact that Interplay themselves were doing the same exact thing with the Brotherhood late into their days up until their bankruptcy. Fallout Brotherhood of Steel had them in Texas, the canned Fallout Tactics 2 had them in Florida, etc. For the obvious reason that Bethesda is the current IP owner and still continuing this trend in their games to this day, and the fact that those titles I mention come AFTER Fallout Tactics which I believe to be the root of the BOS hard-on, I won’t dive much deeper into the failed Interplay games. So when the next game comes out and is set in Maine or Florida or Canada or Mexico or some country far away from the OG titles, count on the Brotherhood being there, and more specifically, you can probably safely assume they are very close with the Brotherhood out west in California if not outright from there.

What do you think, did Fallout Tactics start the awful BOS trend or was it something entirely different?
 
Even if it did not start the trend Bethesda would have done the same shit they did in Fallout 76 or something. Fallout Tactics should not be talked about with spite and negativity like it is but people are retarded.
 
I’m not sure if we can place all the blame on Tactics. This is my theory. Power armor was and still is one of the most iconic things about the Fallout universe, so much so that it’s featured on the cover of almost every game. And it is established to be very rare in the Fallout universe. The only faction that typically has access to it is the BOS. Therefore, it was inevitable that the BOS would become so overused, especially once the series left the hands of the original developers. Tactics may have started the trend so to speak but I’m sure Bethesda would’ve ended up doing the same thing even without the influence of these other spin-offs.
 
TorontoReign said:
Even if it did not start the trend Bethesda would have done the same shit they did in Fallout 76 or something. Fallout Tactics should not be talked about with spite and negativity like it is but people are retarded.
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I loved Tactic’s gameplay and the story wasn’t bad to me, some flaws here and there, but I enjoyed it very much. I don’t meant to shit talk Tactics as a whole, but I really didn’t like the Brotherhood’s background for the game.

To be honest, I’d rather they have done the “contacted other bases via satellite” route than try and gaslight people into thinking the BOS 25 years after the bomb was anything more than a small cell of ex-military men and their families. I really hate that the Lost Hills BOS is now this mega revered cult faction straight out of the fallout of the Great War rather than built over time as it used to be. Just like the poor FEV lore for every new game, I’d rather it be Bethesda’s shit lore than milking Lost Hills.
 
Yeah I am meaning generally not speaking about you specifically. People over the years just bad mouthed that game to where people never gave it a chance because of autism.
 
TorontoReign said:
Yeah I am meaning generally not speaking about you specifically. People over the years just bad mouthed that game to where people never gave it a chance because of autism.
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It is a shame that a lot of nu-fallout fans conflate it with Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel and write it off as an embarrassment to the franchise, despite the fact that Tactics probably respects the lore moreso than Fallout 3 did.
 
Iprovidelittlepianos said:
I’m not sure if we can place all the blame on Tactics. This is my theory. Power armor was and still is one of the most iconic things about the Fallout universe, so much so that it’s featured on the cover of almost every game. And it is established to be very rare in the Fallout universe. The only faction that typically has access to it is the BOS. Therefore, it was inevitable that the BOS would become so overused, especially once the series left the hands of the original developers. Tactics may have started the trend so to speak but I’m sure Bethesda would’ve ended up doing the same thing even without the influence of these other spin-offs.
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I would separate Power Armor from the Brotherhood at this point for Bethesda games. Your theory makes sense in the context of Fallout 3’s development, but with Fallout 4 and Fallout 76, and without a doubt any game going onward, Bethesda has seemingly made Power Armor as readily available as a policeman’s uniform. Raiders have it, the Cost Guard and National Guard had it, the President of the United States had a set(?), the secret service made their own post-war, boring greaser teenagers have it and decorate it like it’s an old chevy, fucking Nuka-World has a set of APA, etc. Power Armor is more readily available in the Fallout 4 than metal armor is (if you can believe that). Full sets are just standing in the middle of the Commonwealth for two hundred years, and while you can make the argument that it’s just a poorly implemented gameplay feature, it’s still a drag on the feeling of a scarce post-apocalypse.
Yet despite all this, Bethesda still saw it fit to bring in the Lost Hills chapter into West Virginia rather than try a new Power Armor faction or even just use their own lore already present in the game.

I completely agree that Power Armor is the biggest staple of the franchise at this point and no game won’t have it, but even with it being so accessible they still love to insert the Californian Lost Hills chapter in specific like they’re Mormon missionaries, just safely walking cross country, probably cross continent, who knows.
 
Did you guys know that the Cali chapter secretly sent out a group of Power Armor Knights to Oklahoma to start a new branch of the KKK? It happens in Fallout 12.
 
TorontoReign said:
Yeah I am meaning generally not speaking about you specifically. People over the years just bad mouthed that game to where people never gave it a chance because of autism.
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Yeah I hate that too, I’ve noticed Tactics is always lumped in with the “rejects” of Interplay like Brotherhood of Steel. I take comfort in knowing it’s the only good Fallout game still gatekeep-able though lmao.
 
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JunjiItosGio said:
I would separate Power Armor from the Brotherhood at this point for Bethesda games. Your theory makes sense in the context of Fallout 3’s development, but with Fallout 4 and Fallout 76, and without a doubt any game going onward, Bethesda has seemingly made Power Armor as readily available as a policeman’s uniform. Raiders have it, the Cost Guard and National Guard had it, the President of the United States had a set(?), the secret service made their own post-war, boring greaser teenagers have it and decorate it like it’s an old chevy, fucking Nuka-World has a set of APA, etc. Power Armor is more readily available in the Fallout 4 than metal armor is (if you can believe that). Full sets are just standing in the middle of the Commonwealth for two hundred years, and while you can make the argument that it’s just a poorly implemented gameplay feature, it’s still a drag on the feeling of a scarce post-apocalypse.
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Yep, that occurred to me as a was writing my response. Ultimately I was just referring to the development of Fallout 3, but once 3 was released the BOS was established as the most iconic aspect of the Fallout franchise.
 
It's a matter of time before they break out Klan Armor if they go anywhere near the south. It's low hanging fruit. It would look cool and the main character would be black and you could not choose to be any other race. Ok I diverged this enough. Good day gents.
 
Y’know, you joke about this Toronto, but with every new Fallout game removing a feature or more, I really see it as a possibility where a future game will have a pre made character, no customization.
 
Yeah I make those comments so long after I am dead I can be relabeled a Lost Prophet.
 
Iprovidelittlepianos said:
It is a shame that a lot of nu-fallout fans conflate it with Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel and write it off as an embarrassment to the franchise, despite the fact that Tactics probably respects the lore moreso than Fallout 3 did.
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Holy shit, this. The other day I was trudging through a Fallout Youtube comment section, when I stumbled upon a comment proclaiming how Tactics has always been shit, with hundreds of likes on it, and I was like "What in the fucking hell are you fucking talking about?!"
 
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