WAR. WAR CHANGES DRAMATICALLY

Some games land softly. Others land with the force of a nuclear bomb. In the desolate year of 1997, Fallout was definitely one of the latter. It was the spiritual sequel to Wasteland, though the two were actually quite different takes on the post-apocalyptic world. Wasteland was more comedic and surreal, with Monty Python style killer badgers, as well as more futuristic and developed—the world had ended, but civilization had largely rebuilt. There was greenery. There was water processing. Your role was that of a Desert Ranger, assigned to keep the radioactive landscape safe from do-badders, and foil evil plots as time permitted. Fallout, meanwhile, used the 1950s as a jumping off point for a far more desolate, less reconstructed world of psychopaths, mutants, drug-dealers and all the other scum that you can imagine rising to the top. Your goal was simple—retrieve a water chip so that your protected Vault could continue hiding from the outside world. For you, hiding was not an option.

Fallout was the most adult, most brutal RPG around at the time, not because other RPGs hadn’t had bad people in them, but because this time it was entirely up to you if you joined them. It’s dark. It’s cynical. It’s also one of the most beautifully designed RPGs around. Create a low-intelligence character, for instance, and all your dialogue is replaced with little more than incoherent grunts. Follow the path it lays out for you and you get a great tour around the world, but it’s so open that if you know what you’re doing, it’s possible to run to the end and just finish it in about ten minutes. Its Perk and Traits system allowed incredible character creation abilities, with skills ranging from Mysterious Stranger, which would sometimes spawn an ally in combat, to Bloody Mess, guaranteeing that every kill-shot ends as messily as possible. It was funny. It was challenging. It was huge and complex, despite the relatively small map. It was everything that players had been crying out for, with the exception, perhaps, of looking a bit prettier. And, like most of the best RPGs of the decade, it almost got killed. Interplay wanted real-time combat instead of turn-based, and favored multiplayer action over singleplayer—an obsession based on the runaway success of Blizzard’s Diablo.

The shadow of Fallout still looms over the more recent games, which are part of the same universe, but very different in style. Fallout 4 in particular is essentially a shooter strapped to a building game, where conversations inevitably end in bloodshed. This is a far cry from Fallout, a game where you can defeat the final boss by convincing him that his plans for a mutated wasteland simply aren’t going to work. The sequel, Fallout 2, also features one of the most beloved locations in any RPG—the city of New Reno, where RPG design superstar and living Kickstarter stretch goal Chris Avellone first came to people’s attention. New Reno is a gloriously seedy place full of feuding mobsters and opportunities for violence, as well as the memorable chance to have your hero become a porn star. (Complete with a porn star name, such as ‘Arnold Swollenmember’ for exmple.)

The main problem with Fallout 2, as well as it being rushed out and suffering from the buggy RPG problem that afflicted many a ’90s game, ended up being a lesson to everyone. Fallout occasionally enjoyed a naughty pop-culture reference or two, which players appreciated. However, hearing that, and with every designer having their own section, Fallout 2 often feels like nothing but shout-outs to everything from Tom Cruise and Scientology to Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It broke much of the sense of place, and proved that yes, you can indeed have too much of a good thing. It’s not that later games would stop making pop culture references— World of Warcraft loves its little nods. After Fallout 2, though, most designers just needed to be told “remember Fallout 2?” to know when to tone it down a bit.

As the decade ended, it became clear that they would have the chance. Despite a few series riding high throughout, there hadn’t been much for RPGs to laugh about during most of the ’90s. That energy had to be spent on simply staying alive. With Fallout and The Elder Scrolls it finally had the shot in the arm it needed. And in 1998, the tables would turn.