Barren wastelands. Decrepit and abandoned towns. Desolate landscapes ravaged by time and trauma. Recognisable landmarks slowly but surely reclaimed by nature after our demise. Games have consistently embraced the post-apocalyptic setting. It invites excitement, apprehension and a deep curiosity, and plays on the thought-provoking hypothetical, the 'what if?'. And when these post-apocalyptic environments and landscapes are incredibly detailed, they can result in great efficacy and power.

Of course, all games use artistic license to a degree to ensure their pacing, setting and characters are primed for our experience and, as a result we give them a healthy amount of leeway when it comes to their landscapes. But just how much artistic license is an interesting area to investigate. Have the developers ruthlessly stuck to an accepted setting or set of circumstances? Or have they created their own unique setting from scratch? Or, have they landed somewhere in the middle? Overall, how 'accurate' is the representation of their chosen hypothetical landscape?

Games' post-apocalypses give us a window into what might happen should everything go down the tubes for humanity, but also the earth. There are people who are experts or who have written about such scenarios, and one of them is writer Alan Weisman. Some fans of The Last of Us may know his book, The World Without Us, which helped inspire Naughty Dog and its portrayal of a post-apocalyptic, or human-less, USA. His book details how the world would change immediately after a sudden disappearance or decrease in human intervention.

Read more…

"Come on. Lighten up. Have a whiff."

It's late into Cyberpunk 2077's demo when Dum-Dum extends a claw toward V, offering a hit from a skull-adorned inhaler. Perhaps sensing the veiled hostility behind the supposed peace pipe being thrust under her nose, she obliges. Arachnid eye implants shine through a red haze. Dum-Dum takes his own hit, and flared nerves settle. Between all the talk of cred chips and bots, the tension that fuels this choice stems from a ritual as old as time. Breaking bread. Chinking cups. Passing the proverbial Dutchie to the left.

Adult games, as a medium, are often enamoured with their own portrayal of taboo subjects, but there's a streak of silently judgemental conservatism dulling the libertine sheen. By confining their use to grim settings, these stories condemn altered states of consciousness as the territory of society's dregs. At the same time, they're perfectly happy to hijack their aesthetics when it suits. Unexamined praise can be as useless as uninformed panic, of course, but let's be clear here: games are, for the most part, shit at doing drugs properly. Here's a brief history of drug use in games.

Read more…

Editor's note: Rob's piece here concludes his series of essays for Eurogamer on the seasons in video games. For more, be sure to check out Video games and the life of summer, starring Witcher 3, Firewatch and Dishonored 2, The power of spring in Horizon Zero Dawn, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture and The Last of Us, and Video games and the power of winter, which looks at Skyrim.

Rain and wind, shorter days, and imminent dormancy; autumn often has a bad reputation. However, there is excitement, intrigue and pleasure to be found in this season of change. Landscapes become sparser with each leaf that drops in the wind. The temperature oscillates between a gentle warmth and a sharp chill. Golden foliage changes the colour of the land and alters the feel of the landscape.

Some games have wondrous, gorgeous autumn landscape that present supreme autumnal palettes, narrative-mirroring landscape conditions and encapsulate the mysterious change that hangs in the air.

Read more…

Is there anything more spine-tingling than loading up Skyrim to hear those ominous chants? Now imagine that with a live choir, in London's Hammersmith Apollo, all in the name of charity. Oh - and with some epic Fallout music thrown into the mix too.

Bethesda is supporting War Child UK to put on a live performance of its biggest musical hits. This includes tunes from Fallout 3, Fallout 4, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and even the mysterious upcoming game Fallout 76. Personally, I can't wait to hear a preview of the soundtrack to which nukes will be dropping on my head.

The concert is due to take place on Saturday 3rd November at the London Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith. The music of composers Inon Zur and Jeremy Soule will be performed by the Parallax Orchestra and Choir, who are not new to more unusual classical concerts, having previously performed Bring Me The Horizon at the Royal Albert Hall.

Read more…

In the real world, house prices are so high that owning your own home is a pipedream for millions.

But what would it cost to buy a house in, say, Skyrim, if it were in the real world? Well, all of a sudden house prices get a bit more realistic.

Mortgage broker L&C Mortgages spent some time working out the real world cost of property in a raft of video games, including Skyrim, Fallout, Zelda and The Witcher 3.

Read more…

If you're feeling tired of dreary post-apocalyptic Boston, not to worry, as a Fallout 4 mod plans to send you on your very own radiation vacation.

Fallout Miami is a new-world mod that has been in development for several years, but the team behind it have now released an official trailer to display their work so far. It's pretty impressive: the first zoom-out shot feels like something you'd see in an official Fallout trailer, and it's clear the mod will contain some fully-fledged questlines to keep players hooked. The neon logo also gives off serious Floridian vibes.

So what else do we know about the mod? Looking at the information given by the modders on their blog and subreddit, they want Fallout Miami to be comparable to official DLC, with "a main quest, multiple side quests, new items and a large cast of voiced characters". If you hadn't guessed from the name already, the mod is set in Miami beach, with a map size "slightly larger than Far Harbor". The core subject matter of the mod seems to be an "ideological struggle between Order and Freedom," which seems to sit nicely with themes found in previous Fallout games such as New Vegas.

Read more…

Bethesda Games Studios, maker of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout games, tends to be a pretty secretive place. We won't hear anything for ages and then announcements for Fallout: 76, Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6 come along at once and everybody frantically starts planning time off work.

The games are great but they're not, according to studio leader Todd Howard,
the greatest thing Bethesda Game Studios does. That honour belongs to something the studio doesn't shout about, a fairly private thing. Every so often Bethesda Game Studios opens its doors to terminally ill children who wish to see where their favourite games are made. It's part of the company's quiet ongoing support of the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

"You want a reality check at work..." -Todd Howard.

Read more…

Over two years have passed since Fallout 4 was released, but for some the main game was simply not enough to satisfy their Fallout cravings, and many turned to modding to reinvent their favourite post-apocalyptic world. In the search for some Fallout 4 apr s-ski, one player has produced a mod known as Northern Springs DLC: a massive fan-made expansion which adds a new snowy area to the game.

The free mod, created by 'Jshrapnelc' and available on NexusMods, claims to add a location bigger than even Bethesda's official Far Harbor and Nuka World DLC. As with many Fallout DLCs, the mod appears to begin with a quest in the Commonwealth that will see the player venture North to a brand new icy wasteland.

Once in Northern Springs, players can expect to find a wealth of new locations, with the mod creator claiming there are over 50 original map markers to be discovered in the area. The mod description also promises brand new weapons and armour, four new followers and several unique quest lines based on the game's lore.

Read more…

There are Fallout mods, and then there's Fallout: New California.

Fallout: New California, aka project Brazil, is a mod over five years in the making. It totally converts Obsidian's Fallout: New Vegas and launches for free on PC on 23rd October - potentially around the same time Bethesda's recently-announced Fallout 76 comes out.

Fallout: New California tells a prequel to the wonderful Fallout: New Vegas. It's set in the year 2260 and begins in Vault 18, which is set in post-apocalyptic Los Angeles. As you'd expect, you make your way to the surface where you find a number of factions fighting for control over the California wasteland.

Read more…

Nestled in the mountains, the door that leads to Vault 11 is the kind you see hammered onto a shack. It is rotting wood and nails and spider webs clinging on to existence like the people of Fallout's post-apocalyptic Mojave Wasteland. The Brotherhood of Steel have sent us here to find a differential pressure controller, one of the parts needed to repair their faulty air filtration system.

The Brotherhood said nothing about the horrors inside.

Vault 11 is unusual in that when you first arrive its main door, the one with the number 11 on it, the one would normally hiss and creak before pulling back and rolling sideways, is open. Most of the vaults you encounter throughout the Fallout games are locked shut, which makes sense. The vaults were designed to keep nuclear fallout out and happy dwellers in. Why is Vault 11's door open now?

Read more…