What Is The British Version Of Fallout?

Summary

• Fallout is intrinsically American, built on American values and culture, making a British version challenging.
• Ukraine has Stalker, Russia has Metro, but what's the British equivalent?

Bethesda Game Studios director Todd Howard has been saying things again. Now that he’s finally decided whether New Vegas is canon in the Fallout universe and announced that cars are arriving in Starfield, he’s decided on his most controversial take yet: Fallout can only be set in America.

Even more controversially, I agree. The Fallout universe is built on America as a cultural institution. As well as its retrofuturistic aesthetic that takes liberally from American post-war stylings and applies them to a post-apocalyptic setting, the whole world is built on American values, mindsets, and is a parody of the money-making, bomb-dropping, warfaring mindset of half a century of successive US governments.

While parallels to the British government can certainly be drawn, Fallout is intrinsically American. As Howard put it, “part of the Fallout shtick is on the American naivete.” But I want to ask a slightly different question: what is the British version of Fallout?

If Fallout is a vision of post-apocalyptic America, we could say that the Metro series is Russia’s vision of the post-apocalypse. Stalker is the same for Ukraine. While its cultural touchstones are considerably more Soviet and based on the very real Chernobyl disaster, Ukrainian culture runs through its veins. It’s worth noting that the world (nor even the whole of Ukraine) are embattled in the post-apocalypse in Stalker, just the Zone, but it’s still a Ukrainian spin on the genre. What’s Britain’s?

Fallout London

Fans have been working on the Fallout 4 mod Fallout London, set in England’s capital city, for years now. Unfortunately, the stealth-dropped next-gen update to the game (which didn’t really add anything of note) has significantly delayed its release, and broken many of the tools that the volunteer developers have been using to make the mod.

However, I’m not sure it will work anyway. While it’s a cool idea and I’m proud of anyone who makes such an extensive mod for a game, I do agree with Howard that Fallout is American, and without America, it is no longer Fallout. We don’t know exactly what to expect from the game (other than no Ghoul version of Queen Elizabeth), but I imagine a ruined Big Ben will play a part in delivering a slightly Yank-flavoured British post-apocalypse.

It takes more than a Bruverhood of Steel to make a British Fallout game.

Mass Effect

As a big Dragon Age fan who likes sci-fi as much as he does fantasy, I’ve naturally never played Mass Effect. I know, I know. There are too many games, okay? I’ve got the Legendary Edition installed on two devices, I promise you it’s on my list.

Despite that blot on my resume, I’ve done my journalistic duty and Googled the Mass Effect London sequences. With no other context, the Battle of London is giving almost Terminator vibes. Explosions, rubble, this is the post-apocalypse for sure. But is it British enough? I mean, it’s set in London, but what else is British about it? The concrete is all generic rubble and futuristic steel cars litter the roads.

Fallout has countless touchstones to American culture, from the style of posters and advertisements, to the callbacks to Presidents gone by. Mass Effect, on the other hand, is a vision of a post-apocalypse in Britain, but it’s not a British post-apocalypse.

Zombi

A lot of post-apocalyptic games set in Britain are zombie games for some reason. I guess it’s the effects that 28 Days Later had on pop culture. Zombi was the one that came up most often when I asked my colleagues, though, so it represents the entire ‘British zombie apocalypse’ genre here.

Is Zombi set in the post-apocalypse, or the apocalypse?

Zombi definitely feels more London than Mass Effect. From the iconic monuments to the narrow alleys, it feels like Zombi was made by a team who knows the city well. Turns out it was developed by Ubisoft Montpellier as Wii U launch title ZombiU and ported by Australians Straight Right years later, so what do I know?

Still, the research was impeccable, and the result was very British. The only melee weapon is a cricket bat. You break into Buckingham Palace, the only place in the map with guns. But I still question whether a game set during the apocalypse is truly post-apocalyptic? Yes, I’m great fun at parties, thank you very much.

Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture

All of our British post-apocalypses so far have been set in London. It makes sense, it’s an iconic city that players from across the globe will recognise, but it doesn’t represent the whole of Britain. Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture represents a very different, but impeccably British, part of the country: the quaint Shropshire countryside.

When a friend of mine from Argentina came to visit a few years back, he was most impressed by the rolling fields we saw on the train from London to Brighton. It’s a part of the country I often take for granted, but Brighton-based developer The Chinese Room nailed the British countryside – which can already feel post-apocalyptic in the present day with their empty roads and decrepit pubs.

While London is a British city, it’s also a global city. It’s modern in the way that most capital cities are modern, and doesn’t feel very British as a result. However, the quaint countryside towns dotted around everywhere from Devon to Yorkshire are typically British, only British, and the game’s Yaughton captures that impeccably. Towns in America look different, towns in France look different.

Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture also presents a unique post-apocalypse; one where everyone has disappeared. There’s no bodies, or monsters, or even much blood; the people are just… not there. It fits beautifully with the creepy village aesthetic, and fits beautifully with that same, British, awkwardness you can feel when navigating these towns in real life.

Despite being a completely different genre with a very different presentation, I believe that, for the time being, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture is Britain’s Fallout. And I’m satisfied with that. Not every post-apocalypse has to involve nuclear weapons or mutually-assured destruction. Truth be told, the most British reaction to an apocalyptic event would be to quietly carry on with everyday life. Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture captures that spirit perfectly.

Next: Did We Watch The Same Fallout Show?