So much of the Fallout world and atmosphere stems from the understood falseness of the Vault system and its messaging - that the Vaults were a gilded lie sold to pre-bomb Americans to trick in them into various dangerous experiments under the guise of safety and security as the world fell apart. Even excluding the old isometric games, Fallout 3 and New Vegas made it very plain to the player that Vault-Tec was a psychotic and cruel organization that turned survivors into guinea pigs in the name of profit and scientific advancement. Sometimes the results of those experiments have a macabre humor to them - Vault 11 from New Vegas - or can even be openly silly - the Gary clones from 3 - but Vault-Tec is never given a comedic cop-out; they're a critique of unrestricted corporate interests exploiting and dehumanizing the propagandized American people for profit, and thus the player learns to recognize that Vault-Tec's actions are almost always intrinsically negative in a moral sense.

To trivialize that core piece of the fiction and warp it into a goofy lil "would you like to play Overseer and 'test' some NPCs in a vault of your own?" DLC is the final proof for me that Bethesda, despite their few brilliant moments, will fundamentally never truly understand the politics of Fallout nor the artistic intentions of the folks who created its world, and thus will never be the stewards this franchise deserves. A true "emperor has no clothes" moment for me.

Reviewed on Apr 23, 2024


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