Bethesda’s Fallout is a game based on a rather grim post-apocalyptic world and has been a highly-rated successful franchise. The series’ first game was released in 1997, and a sequel followed a year later in 1998. It took a decade for Fallout 3 and seven years for Fallout 4, with several spinoffs having been released over the years. An Amazon live-action adaptation is also being released next year.
Fallout games are known for being violent to the point of having tortures and executions included in the game. Surprisingly, Fallout creator, Timothy Cain, recently revealed in an interview that there is a pacifist way of playing the brutal game that leads to zero killing.
Fallout is For Everyone, Including Pacifists
In his recent YouTube video, Cain spoke about pacifism in games, as an answer to a question posted by a fan. Cain was asked for his thoughts on pacifistic play styles and how much it costs on development time to implement such an approach. Answering the fan, Cain mentioned a pacifistic playthrough shouldn’t take a lot of work, if any, to be supported.
Cain revealed that once the design for Fallout was completed, one of the QA tester mentioned that the entire game could be played without “killing anybody“. Cain said the game’s dialog playthroughs gave gamers a way of playing through the game without “anyone dying“. Explaining further, Cain mentioned that although death is inevitable in a game like Fallout, there is a way of playing the game without the players getting blamed for any of those deaths.
Cain mentioned that if a bomb set by the Master went off, the blame wouldn’t fall on the player. Cain mentioned that he liked pacifistic playthroughs a lot and fully supported this way of playing Fallout. Cain also mentioned he liked every type of player and their approach towards a game, including players who played the game with the intent to kill every single character in the Fallout games.
After having implemented it in the first Fallout game, Cain mentioned having a pacifist approach in subsequent games and in titles of which he was in control. For titles that Cain made himself or had the IP for, he mentioned that he “wanted pacifism to be to be possible“, just as it was implemented in every Fallout game.
There’s Nothing Special About Pacifism
Cain went on to talk about pacifism and mentioned how there wasn’t anything special about it. He explained liking all kinds of character activity including players who take a violent approach. Explaining further, Cain mentioned that players decide on an approach as they feel that’s part of their character, and not always because games make them do so.
Cain went on to explain that players at times feel quite strongly about not necessarily wanting to kill someone even if it’s in a game, as they build up on the character’s back story and behavior making games “harder to play“. Certain games even boost a player’s XP every time their character goes on a killing spree, which would be missed by players who stick to a pacifistic approach.
For this reason, Cain mentioned that he liked games that rewarded players with XP for completing quests any way they preferred to do without the game judging players on the chosen approach or methods. Even in an RPG, Cain spoke about players who prefer to meet every single character in the game, experience the storyline, and complete the side-quests as well rather than just do all the combat.
Cain also said a friend of his who worked as a Level Designer and primarily played games to “see the story, see the levels” and to do so, he would turn down the difficulty to easy. Cain stressed that games that provide this approach can help players explore more without having to turn down the difficulty levels.
Talking about developmental changes or the time taken to implement the approach, Cain mentioned that planning it can help avoid an increased development time. In games that he’s been involved in, Cain mentioned having a thumb rule where the main quests gave players the option to either fight their way through, sneak their way through, or even talk their way through.
Cain concluded his video by stating how every RPG should support a pacifistic approach, if they can support it. Whether or not there are enough players who prefer that approach is a different question altogether though.
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