Fallout creator Timothy Cain has been thinking about what genres would work well for the beloved RPG series, and I’d play all of them.
“Why don’t we make a Fallout-style game that’s just combat,” Cain says in a YouTube video. While he likes that it continued as an RPG series and appreciates the ways you can avoid combat through stealth and dialog, he also thinks, “You could really double down on the combat elements and make a really, really good FPS in the Fallout universe.”
When he first played Borderlands, he thought, “Just like this. It would have been very similar to this. Could you imagine a Borderlands-style game set in the Fallout universe?” Well, now I can, Tim. And I want it.
He has more ideas for the series. “What if it was an adventure game,” he ponders. What if “combat was so deadly it would probably kill you? So it was mainly a game about exploration and puzzle solving. You’re running around trying to find things and break into Vaults and steal stuff.”
In this game, combat would be a fail state only initiated if you botched a heist so difficult you’d simply die.
I’ve long been an advocate for Bethesda releasing its grip on the Fallout IP and letting other studios have a go at making games in the Fallout universe but with different genres. Games simply take too long to make these days, and I don’t want to wait until 2030 for a new Fallout.
My favorite idea is a proper survival horror game. Fallout already has some great horror in it, like the Dunwich building in Fallout 3 or the Dunwich borers in Fallout 4. But maybe Stalker 2 already fills that niche.
For me, the first few hours of a Fallout playthrough are the most tense and nerve-wracking, because you’re actually struggling as much as the lore suggests you should be. You’ve barely got any weapons, they hardly work, and you don’t have much ammo or supplies. Having a whole game that keeps you down, prevents you from becoming an overpowered RPG god where you’ve got more bullets than you could ever shoot would really make you feel the oppression and scarcity way the world is supposed to have.
I’d also love to see a proper 4X Fallout game. Imagine the base-building mechanics of Fallout 4 and Shelter combined with territorial expansion. You could become a king in the wasteland, leading an army of raiders, or create a scientific haven, or a utopian garden paradise.
I’d also be down for a zombie Fallout game. Scavenging for parts to create makeshift weapons like you do in Dead Island or a co-op campaign like Left 4 Dead where you fight off hordes of feral ghouls. Hire me already, Bethesda.
While none of these ideas have been turned into reality yet, you can still check out our ranking of the best Fallout games.