Go inside … or outside … the making of Fallout 3

Shesez’s Boundary Break series on YouTube picks up a very timely subject this weekend: Fallout. As he pushes through the fourth, fifth, sixth (ad infinitium) walls, Shesez reveals many details that are, kinda, non-canonical but if they’re in the game, I guess they’re canonical?

The big reveal is, of course, what the player’s mother looks like. In the story, she dies in childbirth, leaving Ol’ Qui-Gonn to parent your rebellious soul in absentia. But Shesez manages to get outside into the delivery room, turn on the lights, and discover her true appearance. And now I want to go back and play through Fallout 3 with someone who looks more like her.

Other set designs that Shesez uncovers shows more of how game developers efficiently manage the worlds they create before moving on. I was delighted to see Tranquility Lane — the creeptastic side adventure found in Vault 112 — rendered in full color. It makes sense, though. Why would developers take the time to develop an environment in sepia tones, instead of just building something with the existing toolkit and palette and overlaying a filter on that?

It’s a great shoot-the-bull video for a slow weekend, and a reminder of just how deep the lore runs despite what many rightly criticize as a thin and repetitive experience in the latest chapter, Fallout 76.