Would a 70's aesthetic fit Fallout?

TheHouseAlwaysWins

TheHouseAlwaysWins

Look, Ma! Two Heads!
Probably the most interesting part of the new Fallout trailer is the usage of an overt 70's track. A lot of people associate Fallout's aesthetic as retro 50's. However, that's not true, the original Fallouts were a combination of different aesthetics including 50's retro, 80's cyberpunk, and 90's gothic from games like Quake. Fallout New Vegas combined these influences with the influences of the Wild Western in it. So do you think including 70's or late 60's themes would work into the settings? I'm not saying that Fallout should start including all kinds of modern rapping and trends but should they branch out more in terms of aesthetic?





 
I'm sure Caesar and his Praetorians would appreciate some ABBA holotapes...

But seriously, there's a lot of late 60's,70's and 80's vibes in the original games and New Vegas so I would say it fits. On the other hand, the 70's was a far more cynical time than the 50's and the aesthetic of the period tended towards warm, earthy tones and a hand-made look, not very vault-y.

But knowing Bethesda, they would go 70's/80's rather than immediately post WWII as that era is more trendy at the moment, while Fallout 3 was published during the "vintage" fad (Mad Men premiered in 2007)
 
I don't think Fallout aesthetics should be stuck in any particular era. Fallout is a retrofuturism, not a literal copy of any particular era but with more tech.

This means that the time has passed and culture has shifted, but that the future still conforms to atompunk ideas of what the future is like. In regards to music, I'd say potentially any era of music could be included, so long as there's at least some level of appropriateness of it being produced in an atompunk setting.

As for aesthetics in general, I don't think the tech and fashion or anything among those lines should get too 70s. In fact, they shouldn't get too 50s or 60s either. They should look like something that'd look futuristic to someone in the atomic era. Pre-war aesthetics should be more akin to the Jetsons rather than corresponding to any real era.
 
Original Fallout was a mixture of 50's retro futurism with 90's comics stylings and Mad Max, it was Bethesda the ones that made it so overtly 50's everywhere. One of the few things FO4 did well was to play up more the FUTURISM part of retrofuturism.
 
Truthfully, I think Fallout already had some 70's blood in it to begin with. Plenty of technology designs in the games borrow from both the actual decade's style and its depiction of the future. Look at shit like Vault 13's sliding Star Trek doors and Rex the Cyberdog's H.R. Giger body. Hell, Fallout 2 and New Vegas both contain overt references to Star Wars, Logan's Run, and Silent Running among other things.

All that being said though, I still can't possibly imagine Bethesda would drop Vault Boy or their 50's shtick anytime soon. Especially not when they're attempting to repurpose assets from Failout 4.
 
In Fallout 1, when you put on the monk's robes and run around, it looks like the monk has 70's style bellbottom trousers. And when you're in a fight and run around the guy says something like "I'm gonna smack you around!" which is IMHO kinda 70's style also and reminds me of blacksploitation or something.

Just remembered that. :D
 
TerminallyChill said:
Truthfully, I think Fallout already had some 70's blood in it to begin with. Plenty of technology designs in the games borrow from both the actual decade's style and its depiction of the future. Look at shit like Vault 13's sliding Star Trek doors and Rex the Cyberdog's H.R. Giger body. Hell, Fallout 2 and New Vegas both contain overt references to Star Wars, Logan's Run, and Silent Running among other things.

All that being said though, I still can't possibly imagine Bethesda would drop Vault Boy or their 50's shtick anytime soon. Especially not when they're attempting to repurpose assets from Failout 4.
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It does seem strange that Bethesda would go so hard into the 50's thing and then go for something else. I think they just throw shit at a wall and see what ends up most profitable.
 
President_Peaches said:
It does seem strange that Bethesda would go so hard into the 50's thing and then go for something else. I think they just throw shit at a wall and see what ends up most profitable.
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I honestly just don't think anyone at Bethesda gives a fuck about quality or attention to detail at this point. They have eaten the apple of knowledge. Not only will a majority of consumers blindly buy anything based on brand recognition, but they will also relentlessly convince themselves and others they enjoyed a product solely to justify a purchase. There is absolutely zero financial incentive for Zenimax to create good Fallout games anymore. They sell exactly the same but cost more to develop.
 
Like I said in another thread, It's a shame. I think a true Fallout RPG, a sequel to New Vegas, with a 70's aesthetic would have been great and worked well.

The whole Vietnam War climate would have fit in quite nicely in a New Vegas sequel where the NCR come home from the Mojave defeated. The flip-side would have also have been interesting. As the NCR move into Arizona they'd have to deal with a quickly destabilizing foreign land.

Peace protests, riots, ect. It would have been great.
 
ActivePalpitation said:
Like I said in another thread, It's a shame. I think a true Fallout RPG, a sequel to New Vegas, with a 70's aesthetic would have been great and worked well.

The whole Vietnam War climate would have fit in quite nicely in a New Vegas sequel where the NCR come home from the Mojave defeated. The flip-side would have also have been interesting. As the NCR move into Arizona they'd have to deal with a quickly destabilizing foreign land.

Peace protests, riots, ect. It would have been great.
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Instead of Nixon-Ford seventies, why not Carter? Recessions, a cut military that might be overextended, energy crises. O don't think (and I don't want, privately) that the NCR will ever be shown as 'defeated', they're the 'good guys' who seemingly will turn into a New American Republic one day, but having them be utterly drained by occupying Legion territory, having a taxed-to-death populace and a good-meaning but in the end ineffective president who is challenged both domestically and externally might be a nice twist.

That plot would probably revolve around an energy crisis and a source of energy (or maybe new energy tech to move away from Hoover-Dam/NV expy). Maybe Ethanol over crops in the fringe of the legion territory or something, a Midwestern/Texian empire wringing the nose of the NCR, stuff like that.
 
Ehh, I think so. Sort of. As long as it were well blended as with the 80's cyberpunk streaks in Fallout 1/2. 70's music is a go depending on the type. 70's folk accoustic I can definitely see.

In terms of tone or aesthetic I think a good source of inspiration for the kind of 70s that would fit Falllout, watch Fargo season 2.
 
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