History FranchiseOriginalSin / Fallout

** ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' downplayed the importance of the KarmaMeter, with a player's karma only affecting a handful of perks and whether the ending describes them as a prick or not. It was widely seen as a good move, as it helped get away from the many StupidEvil and BlackAndWhiteMorality moments of ''3'' (where most of the "evil" options consist of simply killing [=NPCs=] instead of talking to and doing things for them, driving yourself by nothing more than bloodlust and spite), and moved the game in the direction of the more intriguingly grey factions. When ''Fallout 4'' did away with the karma system entirely, though, it became a real problem, as the developers were no longer obligated to provide "good karma/bad karma" opportunities in the game. Without the need to let the player act out and be a jerk, a lot of other roleplay aspects fell by the wayside, leading to ''4''[='=]s [[ButThouMust memetically railroaded conversations.]] It didn't help that ''4''[='=]s factions just weren't as popular as ''New Vegas''[='=]s, meaning defining oneself by faction loyalty felt like a lost cause.

** The number of quests that amounted to "go there, kill those" or "go there, find this, kill those along the way" were generally lambasted, but every game has had its fair share of them. The difference was that the majority of prior quests tended to let the player [[CombatDiplomacyStealth resolve them in a variety of ways,]] while most quests in ''4'' lacked that flexibility. The addition of "radiant quests" that were ''universally'' the above two didn't help at all.

* A more minor example is the series use of weapons. As visible [[https://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Fallout:_A_Post-Nuclear_Role-Playing_Game here,]] a good portion of the first game's guns, including ballistics, were fictional and not especially pretty to look at. Being an RPG first and an isometric shooter second, though, this wasn't too distracting because weapons were more tools than key parts of gameplay. The second game also increased the number of realistic weapons, but when the series transitioned to the First-Person Shooter genre, the player was forced to look at these ugly weapons that made little mechanical sense for much of the game. This wasn't helped by a good third of he arsenals in [[VideoGame/Fallout3 ''3'']] and [[VideoGame/Fallout4 ''4'']] turning out to be [[ScrappyWeapon Scrappy Weapons]] or borderline [[JokeWeapon Joke Weapons]] without many upgrades and the right perks, so it's no wonder there are hours of content online complaining about the weapons from both a realism and gameplay standpoint and mods to add real firearms or make in game ones more realistic are so popular. The Bethesda arsenals also tend to have somewhat obvious gaps and redundancies (two 10mm pistols in ''3'', one superior in almost every way, no .45 semi-auto or pump shotguns in either game, the lever-action rifle in ''4'' needs unique ammo instead of the 10mm or .44 it could fire in real life, etc) that can make players long for real guns to do the undone jobs.

** Ditto for the bugs, which Bethesda games have ''always'' been notorious for. The thing was, in the past the series' thriving and robust [[GameMod modding community]] was able to step in and fix broken gameplay mechanics through unofficial patches. Many fans felt that modders saved even Bethesda's buggiest releases, and that mods were necessary to get the best possible experience. ''Fallout 76'', on the other hand, was an online-only game and thus couldn't be modded, meaning that not only could modders not bail out Bethesda this time, but the strain of running an always-online experience created new avenues for Bethesda's programming to go wrong.
** When ''Fallout 3'' came out, one of the more common gripes from old-school fans was the [[ItsTheSameNowItSucks apparent lack of advancement of the setting]]--despite the change from the West Coast to the East Coast and the timeline jumping forward by several decades, plenty of things from the old games are present that really shouldn't be there (such as caps, Super Mutants, the Brotherhood, and the Enclave), often having undergone {{Flanderization}} in the process, while the Capital Wasteland itself feels far less developed in terms of civilization than the West Coast (such as the prominence of old pre-War buildings that are still covered in rubble, even when they're still in use). This was largely tamped down, though, because ''3'' was meant to be a reintroduction to the series, and the reaction would likely have been even worse if the first new ''Fallout'' game in a decade didn't feel post-apocalyptic and lacked any iconic elements. However, ''4'' was seen as having largely doubled down on these elements to the point of introducing multiple {{Series Continuity Error}}s (including several characters who operate clearly-successful businesses out of rubble-covered buildings with skeletons in them that the owner just strangely refuses to remove), and the fanbase proved significantly less forgiving. It didn't help that ''New Vegas'' had avoided most of those same problems in the interim (by both being set in a ''newly'' war-torn borderland between two emerging post-war nation-entities, also having New Vegas itself set up to serve as a contrast and example of re-emerging civilization, and being a plausible location to put a capstone on some of the lingering plotlines from the Black Isle days), nor that most of Bethesda's new additions to the series lore got at best a lukewarm reception or were seen as largely derivative. When ''76'' announced that ''another'' game would somehow crowbar in the Enclave, Super Mutants, the Brotherhood, and caps, before most of those things should even exist, much less have expanded to West Virginia, the jokes about how Bethesda can't make anything new became a lot less niche.

** The protagonist's rather heavy backstory and motivation to rescue their son was widely criticized, with people noting that it constrained roleplay heavily and [[PlotTumor consumed the plot]]. But providing the protagonist with some level of backstory and an overarching goal they set out to achieve was the case in every prior ''Fallout''. The difference was that in the prior games, the level of backstory had essentially been "you are a vault dweller/tribe member/courier", and there was enough leeway in dialogue to have your character [[RefusalOfTheCall just not really care about that goal]]. ''Fallout 3'' is where the issue of a character having a defined backstory began, with the player character having their life detailed as the tutorial and having a father who they can interact with in the story. However, while the game was pushy about finding your father, the game also allowed you to back off from the main quest without it feeling unnatural since your character had no idea where your father went, and players were still free to roleplay their character as potentially not really wanting to find their dad. ''Fallout 4'' more decisively defines your character's background and their feelings on their missing baby, which disappointed anyone who wanted to roleplay as something besides a concerned parent. Furthermore, because the game pushed your character to find their missing son, it created a major source of disconnect between the player and the character, as it made no sense to do sidequests over finding your son, while in ''3'', your character could ignore finding their dad if they wanted because while they did want to know where he went, their actual initial objective was just to survive and he could probably take care of himself, while in ''4'', finding your missing son is now being pushed as the primary objective, which makes the side quests feel disconnected from the player character.
** ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' downplayed the importance of the KarmaMeter, with a player's karma only affecting a handful of perks and whether the ending describes them as a prick or not. It was widely seen as a good move, as it helped get away from the many StupidEvil and BlackAndWhiteMorality moments of ''3'', and moved the game in the direction of the more intriguingly grey factions. When ''Fallout 4'' did away with the karma system entirely, though, it became a real problem, as the developers were no longer obligated to provide "good karma/bad karma" opportunities in the game. Without the need to let the player act out and be a jerk, a lot of other roleplay aspects fell by the wayside, leading to ''4''[='=]s [[ButThouMust memetically railroaded conversations.]] It didn't help that ''4''[='=]s factions just weren't as popular as ''New Vegas''[='=]s, meaning defining oneself by faction loyalty felt like a lost cause.

** By a similar count, the first few games dipped themselves in a RaygunGothic aesthetic that conjured up visions of old-school [[TheFifties 1950s]] [[{{Eagleland}} Americana]] and PatrioticFervor. But they were also a dark and twisted satire of that ideal, and Pre-War America was near-universally treated as hypocritical, violent, imperialistic, and prejudiced. As the series went on, though, the over-the-top satirical elements of the series became increasingly present and far less serious. Compare the treatment of Frank Horrigan and Liberty Prime, for an example. Both are marvels of old American super-science and in-universe {{Memetic Badass}}es with cartoonishly violent personalities that embody the warlike nature of America, but where Frank is a mostly serious character who serves as the FinalBoss of ''Fallout 2'', Liberty Prime is an overblown caricature of 1950's militarism who spouts cheesy, propaganda-worthy lines while throwing around tactical nuclear ordinance, though [[MisaimedFandom some fans still take him seriously]]. Furthermore, Bethesda Softworks and Zenimax's growing obsession with ''Fallout''[='=]s branding, plastering things like Nuka-Cola or Vault Boys everywhere they could manage, saw things that were meant to satirize the hyper-capitalist ideals of Pre-War America being [[MisaimedMarketing taken and used to sell merch]]. The result was a series originally meant to lampoon patriotic '50s nostalgia now trading heavily on its aesthetic while maintaining a strong sense of irony. The drippingly patriotic introduction to ''Fallout 76'', in which America's tricentennial is celebrated with the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the completion of Vault 76 is presented as a piece of in-universe ''propaganda''), though once again some fans mistook it as something serious.

* On engine design, ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVagas'' was heavily criticized for the company's lack of timetable and update-funding when first time players kept getting crashes to the point that their pc's memory-card completely fried! While the company [[MyRealDaddy ObsidionStudios]] was tasked to use the ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' graphics and mechanics to import all, the funding for the last New Vagas update held little sympathy from fans who were attempting to sue Bethesda Studios into mandatory company re-management.

** The early games stuck pretty firmly to their WarIsHell message, but [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing often had trouble maintaining it]]. While it was possible to get through the whole game without killing anyone personally, you could also blow any character into a pile of LudicrousGibs with a large arsenal of weapons. On the other hand, many of the best rewards and endings were found by playing it safe and avoiding direct conflict, the actual combat system wasn't great, and the villains were invariably people who sought out violence as a first resort. But as ActionizedSequel after actionized sequel came out, the focus shifted far more towards "blowing up people for fun and profit", culminating in ''Fallout 76'', where taking control of and using one of the same nuclear weapons that killed most of humanity is your primary objective.
** By a similar count, the first few games dipped themselves in a RaygunGothic aesthetic that conjured up visions of old-school [[TheFifties 1950s]] [[{{Eagleland}} Americana]] and PatrioticFervor. But they were also a dark and twisted satire of that ideal, and Pre-War America was near-universally treated as hypocritical, violent, imperialistic, and prejudiced. As the series went on, though, the patriotic fervor elements of the series became increasingly less satirical. Though there were still attempts made, such as the Mass Fusion subplot in ''4'', they were counterbalanced by the cartoonishly overblown nationalism and associated imagery being either played straight or [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing treated in such a manner that they might as well have been]]. Compare the treatment of Frank Horrigan and Liberty Prime, for an example. Both are marvels of old American super-science and in-universe {{Memetic Badass}}es with cartoonishly violent personalities that embody the warlike nature of America, but where Frank is the ultimate villain and FinalBoss of ''Fallout 2'', Liberty Prime ''assists'' the protagonist and keeping him around is an objective in multiple games, meaning that, even though he's technically utilized ''against'' the genocidal [[TheRemnant remnants]] of the American government [[UnbuiltTrope in his first appearance]], [[MisaimedFandom not many people remembered him that way]]. Furthermore, Bethesda Softworks and Zenimax's growing obsession with ''Fallout''[='=]s branding, plastering things like Nuka-Cola or Vault Boys everywhere they could manage, saw things that were meant to satirize the hyper-capitalist ideals of Pre-War America being [[MisaimedMarketing taken and used to sell merch]]. The result was a series originally meant to lampoon patriotic '50s nostalgia now trading heavily on its aesthetic without irony. The drippingly patriotic introduction to ''Fallout 76'', in which America's tricentennial is celebrated with the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the completion of Vault 76 (a video that, in past games, would probably have been presented as a piece of in-universe ''propaganda''), was merely the point at which it seemed that the last traces of satire were scrubbed from the series.

* When ''VideoGame/Fallout76'' came out, it was lambasted almost immediately as the worst ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' game ever made, with unflattering comparisons to ''VideoGame/FalloutBrotherhoodOfSteel'' (the previous undisputed title holder in the eyes of fans) for its [[ObviousBeta buggy gameplay]], [[ExcusePlot lack of story]], and [[SeriesContinuityError mangling of the lore]]. Other fans countered that it simply marked the culmination of trends that had been going on throughout the Creator/{{Bethesda}} era of the series, with some even going back all the way to the acclaimed first two games.

*** ''New Vegas'' was also extremely buggy when it was released. However, Obsidian was very quick to roll out patches and careful to make sure new patches didn't reintroduce old bugs, where Bethesda just wasn't.

** The protagonist's rather heavy backstory and motivation to rescue their son was widely criticized, with people noting that it constrained roleplay heavily and [[PlotTumor consumed the plot]]. But providing the protagonist with some level of backstory and an overarching goal they set out to achieve was the case in every prior ''Fallout''. The difference was that in the prior games, the level of backstory had essentially been "you are a vault dweller/tribe member/courier", and there was enough leeway in dialogue to have your character [[RefusalOfTheCall just not really care about that goal]]. ''Fallout 3'' is where the issue of a character having a defined backstory began, with the player character having their life detailed as the tutorial and having a father who they can interact with in the story. However, while the game was pushy about finding your father, the game also allowed you to back off from the main quest without it feeling unnatural since your character had no idea where your father went, and players were still free to roleplay their character as potentially not really wanting to find their dad.
''Fallout 4'' more decisively defines your character's background and their feelings on their missing baby, which disappointed anyone who wanted to roleplay as something besides a concerned parent. Furthermore, because the game pushed your character to find their missing son, it created a major source of disconnect between the player and the character, as it made no sense to do sidequests over finding your son, while in ''3'', your character could ignore finding their dad if they wanted because while they did want to know where he went, their actual initial objective was just to survive and he could probably take care of himself, while in ''4'', finding your missing son is now being pushed as the primary objective, which makes the side quests feel disconnected from the player character.

** The protagonist's rather heavy backstory and motivation to rescue their son was widely criticized, with people noting that it constrained roleplay heavily and [[PlotTumor consumed the plot]]. But providing the protagonist with some level of backstory and an overarching goal they set out to achieve was the case in every prior ''Fallout''. The difference was that in the prior games, the level of backstory had essentially been "you are a vault dweller/tribe member/courier", and there was enough leeway in dialogue to have your character [[RefusalOfTheCall just not really care about that goal]]. ''Fallout 3'' is where the issue of a character having a defined backstory began, with the player character having their life detailed as the tutorial and having a father who they can interact with in the story. Still, the game allowed the player to shape their character outside this element; your character could very much not care for their father at all if you wanted to as an example. ''Fallout 4'', on the other hand, more decisively defines your character's background and their feelings on their missing baby, which disappointed anyone who wanted to roleplay as something besides a concerned parent. Furthermore, because the game pushed your character to find their missing son, it created a major source of disconnect between the player and the character; in ''3'', your character could ignore finding their dad if they wanted because while they did want to know where he went, their actual initial objective was just to survive and he could probably take care of himself, while in ''4'', finding your missing son is now being pushed as the primary objective, which makes the side quests feel disconnected from the player character.

** The early games stuck pretty firmly to their WarIsHell message, but [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing often had trouble maintaining it]]. While it was possible to get through the whole game without killing anyone personally, you could also blow any character into a pile of LudicrousGibs with a large arsenal of weapons. On the other hand, many of the best rewards and endings were found by playing it safe and avoiding direct conflict, the actual combat system wasn't great, and the villains were invariably people who sought out violence as a first resort. But as ActionizedSequel after ActionizedSequel came out, the focus shifted far more towards "blowing up people for fun and profit", culminating in ''Fallout 76'', where taking control of and using one of the same nuclear weapons that killed most of humanity is your primary objective.
** By a similar count, the first few games dipped themselves in a RaygunGothic aesthetic that conjured up visions of old-school [[TheFifties 1950s]] [[{{Eagleland}} Americana]] and PatrioticFervor. But they were also a dark and twisted satire of that ideal, and Pre-War America was near-universally treated as hypocritical, violent, imperialistic, and prejuduced. As the series went on, though, the PatrioticFervor elements of the series became increasingly less satirical. Though there were still attempts made, such as the Mass Fusion subplot in ''4'', they were counterbalanced by the cartoonishly overblown nationalism and associated imagery being either played straight or [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing treated in such a manner that they might as well have been]]. Compare the treatment of Frank Horrigan and Liberty Prime, for an example. Both are marvels of old American super-science and in-universe {{Memetic Badass}}es with cartoonishly violent personalities that embody the warlike nature of America, but where Frank is the ultimate villain and FinalBoss of ''Fallout 2'', Liberty Prime ''assists'' the protagonist and keeping him around is an objective in multiple games, meaning that, even though he's technically utilized ''against'' the genocidal [[TheRemnant remnants]] of the American government [[UnbuiltTrope in his first appearance]], [[MisaimedFandom not many people remembered him that way]]. Furthermore, Bethesda Softworks and Zenimax's growing obsession with ''Fallout''[='=]s branding, plastering things like Nuka-Cola or Vault Boys everywhere they could manage, saw things that were meant to satirize the hyper-capitalist ideals of Pre-War America being [[MisaimedMarketing taken and used to sell merch]]. The result was a series originally meant to lampoon patriotic '50s nostalgia now trading heavily on its aesthetic without irony. The drippingly patriotic introduction to ''Fallout 76'', in which America's tricentennial is celebrated with the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the completion of Vault 76 (a video that, in past games, would probably have been presented as a piece of in-universe ''propaganda''), was merely the point at which it seemed that the last traces of satire were scrubbed from the series.

* One of the more common critiques of ''VideoGame/Fallout3''[='=]s story is that you have no option to join the Enclave and are effectively {{railroad|ing}}ed into wiping them out. This was true in ''VideoGame/Fallout2'' as well, but the Enclave in ''2'' are established as more or less a death cult worshiping the old United States, and they regard the player character as a degenerate who must be exterminated for the good of humanity. Asking to join them would effectively be a PressXToDie button. Even in the original game, joining the mutants simply results in a NonStandardGameOver. By contrast, the Enclave in ''3'' are nowhere near as evil, have nowhere near as much reason to hate the PC, and seem to just be another imperialist power among many in the wasteland. They do have a plan that approaches the genocidal nature of their plan in ''2'', but most of the Enclave is not on board with it, and you can stop it halfway through the game and they'll keep going. Indeed, bafflingly, you can ''help'' the most unreasonable factions of the Enclave accomplish that plan, ''which will kill you'', but you can't join the more reasonable factions that only want to control the water supply, (which, not for nothing, is the ''exact same goal'' that the Brotherhood of Steel, aka ''the Good Guys'', have) making it an even more baffling place to draw the line.

** When ''Fallout 3'' came out, one of the more common gripes from old-school fans was the [[ItsTheSameNowItSucks apparent lack of advancement of the setting]] - despite the change from the West Coast to the East Coast and the timeline jumping forward by several decades, plenty of things from the old games are present that really shouldn't be there (such as caps, Super Mutants, the Brotherhood, and the Enclave), often having undergone {{Flanderization}} in the process, while the Capital Wasteland itself feels far less developed in terms of civilization than the West Coast (such as the prominence of old pre-War buildings that are still covered in rubble, even when they're still in use). This was largely tamped down, though, because ''3'' was meant to be a reintroduction to the series, and the reaction would likely have been even worse if the first new ''Fallout'' game in a decade didn't feel post-apocalyptic and lacked any iconic elements. However, ''4'' was seen as having largely doubled down on these elements to the point of introducing multiple {{Series Continuity Error}}s (including several characters who operate clearly-successful businesses out of rubble-covered buildings with skeletons in them that the owner just strangely refuses to remove), and the fanbase proved significantly less forgiving. It didn't help that ''New Vegas'' had avoided most of those same problems in the interim (by both being set in a ''newly'' war-torn borderland between two emerging post-war nation-entities, also having New Vegas itself set up to serve as a contrast and example of re-emerging civilization, and being a plausible location to put a capstone on some of the lingering plotlines from the Black Isle days), nor that most of Bethesda's new additions to the series lore got at best a lukewarm reception or were seen as largely derivative. When ''76'' announced that ''another'' game would somehow crowbar in the Enclave, Super Mutants, the Brotherhood, and caps, before most of those things should even exist, much less have expanded to West Virginia, the jokes about how Bethesda can't make anything new became a lot less niche.

** The protagonist's rather heavy backstory and motivation to rescue their son was widely criticized, with people noting that it constrained roleplay heavily and [[PlotTumor consumed the plot]]. But providing the protagonist with some level of backstory and an overarching goal they set out to achieve was the case in every prior ''Fallout''. The difference was that in the prior games, the level of backstory had essentially been "you are a vault dweller/tribe member/courier", and there was enough leeway in dialogue to have your character just not really care about that goal. ''Fallout 3'' is where the issue of a character having a defined backstory began, with the player character having their life detailed as the tutorial and having a father who they can interact with in the story. Still, the game allowed the player to shape their character outside this element, your character could very much not care for their father at all if you wanted to as an example. ''Fallout 4'', on the other hand, more decisively defines your character's background and their feelings on their missing baby, which disappointed anyone who wanted to roleplay as something besides a concerned parent. Furthermore, because the game pushed your character to find their missing son, it created a major source of disconnect between the player and the character; in ''3'', your character could ignore finding their dad if they wanted because while they did want to know where he went, their actual initial objective was just to survive and he could probably take care of himself, while in ''4'', finding your missing son is now being pushed as the primary objective, which makes the side quests feel disconnected from the player character.

** The protagonist's rather heavy backstory and motivation to rescue their son was widely criticized, with people noting that it constrained roleplay heavily and [[PlotTumor consumed the plot]]. But providing the protagonist with some level of backstory and an overarching goal they set out to achieve was the case in every prior ''Fallout''. The difference was that in the prior games, the level of backstory had essentially been "you are a vault dweller/tribe member/courier", and there was enough leeway in dialogue to have your character just not really care about that goal. ''Fallout 3'' is where the issue of a character having a defined backstory began, with the player character having their life detailed as the tutorial and having a father who they can interact with in the story. Still, the game allowed the player to shape their character outside this element, your character could very much not care for their father at all if you wanted to as an example. ''Fallout 4'', on the other hand, more decisively defines your character's background and their feelings on their missing baby, which disappointed anyone who wanted to roleplay as something besides a concerned parent. Furthermore, because the game pushed your character to find their missing son, it created a major source of disconnect between the player and the character; in ''3'', your character could ignore finding their dad if they wanted because while they did want to know where he went, your character leaving the vault was to survive instead of simply finding them, while in ''4'', finding your missing son is now being pushed as the primary objective, which makes the side quests feel disconnected from the player character.

** The protagonist's rather heavy backstory and motivation to rescue their son was widely criticized, with people noting that it constrained roleplay heavily and [[PlotTumor consumed the plot]]. But providing the protagonist with some level of backstory and an overarching goal they set out to achieve was the case in every prior ''Fallout''. The difference was that in the prior games, the level of backstory had essentially been "you are a vault dweller/tribe member/courier", and there was enough leeway in dialogue to have your character just not really care about that goal. ''Fallout 3'' is where the issue of a character having a defined backstory began, with the player character having their life detailed as the tutorial and having a father who they can interact with in the story. Still, the game allowed the player to shape their character outside this element, your character could very much not care for their father at all if you wanted to as an example. ''Fallout 4'', on the other hand, more decisively defines your character's background and their feelings on their missing baby, which disappointed anyone who wanted to roleplay as something besides a concerned parent. Furthermore, because the game pushed your character to find their missing son, it created a major source of disconnect between the player and the character; in ''3'', your character could ignore finding their dad if they wanted because while they did want to know where he went, your character leaving the vault was to survive instead of simply finding them, while in ''4', ignoring your missing son is now being pushed as the primary objective which makes the side quests feel disconnected from the player character.

** The protagonist's rather heavy backstory and motivation to rescue their son was widely criticized, with people noting that it constrained roleplay heavily and [[PlotTumor consumed the plot]]. But providing the protagonist with some level of backstory and an overarching goal they set out to achieve was the case in every prior ''Fallout''. The difference was that in the prior games, the level of backstory had essentially been "you are a vault dweller/tribe member/courier", and there was enough leeway in dialogue to have your character just not really care about that goal. ''Fallout 3'' is where the issue of a character having a defined backstory began, with the player character having their life detailed as the tutorial and having a father who they can interact with in the story. Still, the game allowed the player to shape their character outside this element, your character could very much not care for their father at all if you wanted to as an example. ''Fallout 4'', on the other hand, more decisively defines your character's background and their feelings on their missing baby, which disappointed anyone who wanted to roleplay as something besides a concerned parent. Furthermore, because the game pushed your character to find their missing son, it created a major source of disconnect between the player and the character; in ''3'', your character could ignore finding their dad if they wanted because it was your choice, while in ''4', ignoring your missing son is not being pushed as the primary objective.

** The protagonist's rather heavy backstory and motivation to rescue their son was widely criticized, with people noting that it constrained roleplay heavily and [[PlotTumor consumed the plot]]. But providing the protagonist with some level of backstory and an overarching goal they set out to achieve was the case in every prior ''Fallout''. The difference was that in the prior games, the level of backstory had essentially been "you are a vault dweller/tribe member/courier", and there was enough leeway in dialogue to have your character just not really care about that goal. ''Fallout 4'', on the other hand, more decisively defines your character's background and their feelings on their missing baby, which disappointed anyone who wanted to roleplay as something besides a concerned parent. At the same time, this also put it seemingly in competition with other [=RPGs=] with well-defined protagonists, such as ''VideoGame/TheWitcher'' or ''VideoGame/DeusEx'', causing the Sole Survivor to fall short; they were too well-defined to be a blank slate and too underwritten to be interesting in their own right. Making things even more problematic was the very unfocused sandbox structure of ''4'' -- why would the protagonist speak so urgently of finding their child, and then spend the next month building settlements or hunting super mutants?

* One of the more common critiques of ''VideoGame/Fallout3''[='=]s story is that you have no option to join the Enclave and are effectively {{railroad|ing}}ed into wiping them out. This was true in ''VideoGame/Fallout2'' as well, but the Enclave in ''2'' are established as more or less a death cult worshiping the old United States, and they regard the player character as a degenerate who must be exterminated for the good of humanity. Asking to join them would effectively be a PressXToDie button. By contrast, the Enclave in ''3'' are nowhere near as evil, have nowhere near as much reason to hate the PC, and seem to just be another imperialist power among many in the wasteland. They do have a plan that approaches the genocidal nature of their plan in ''2'', but most of the Enclave is not on board with it, and you can stop it halfway through the game and they'll keep going. Indeed, bafflingly, you can ''help'' the most unreasonable factions of the Enclave accomplish that plan, ''which will kill you'', but you can't join the more reasonable factions that only want to control the water supply, (which, not for nothing, is the ''exact same goal'' that the Brotherhood of Steel, aka ''the Good Guys'', have) making it an even more baffling place to draw the line.

** The early games stuck pretty firmly to their WarIsHell message, but [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing often had trouble maintaining it]]. While it was possible to get through the whole game without killing anyone personally, you could also blow any character into a pile of LudicrousGibs with a large arsenal of weapons. On the other hand, many of the best rewards and endings were found by playing it safe and avoiding direct conflict, the actual combat system wasn't great, and the villains were invariably people who sought out violence as a first resort. But as ActionizedSequel after ActionizedSequel came out, the focus shifted far more towards "blowing up people for fun and profit", culminating in ''Fallout 76'', where taking control of and using one of the same nuclear weapons that killed most of humanity is your primary objective. [[FridgeBrilliance Then again]], [[ArcWords war never changes]].

** The early games stuck pretty firmly to their WarIsHell message, but [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing often had trouble maintaining it]]. While it was possible to get through the whole game without killing anyone personally, you could also blow any character into a pile of LudicrousGibs with a large arsenal of weapons. On the other hand, many of the best rewards and endings were found by playing it safe and avoiding direct conflict, the actual combat system wasn't great, and the villains were invariably people who sought out violence as a first resort. But as ActionizedSequel after ActionizedSequel came out, the focus shifted far more towards "blowing up people for fun and profit", culminating in ''Fallout 76'', where taking control of and using one of the same nuclear weapons that killed most of humanity is your primary objective.

** By a similar count, the first few games dipped themselves in a RaygunGothic aesthetic that conjured up visions of old-school [[TheFifties 1950s]] [[{{Eagleland}} Americana]] and PatrioticFervor. But they were also a dark and twisted satire of that ideal, and Pre-War America was near-universally treated as hypocritical, violent, imperialistic, and prejuduced. As the series went on, though, the PatrioticFervor elements of the series became increasingly less satirical. Though there were still attempts made, such as the Mass Fusion subplot in ''4'', they were counterbalanced by the cartoonishly overblown nationalism and associated imagery being either played straight or [[DoNotDoThisCoolThing treated in such a manner that they might as well have been]]. Compare the treatment of Frank Horrigan and Liberty Prime, for an example. Both are marvels of old American super-science and in-universe {{Memetic Badass}}es with cartoonishly violent personalities that embody the warlike nature of America, but where Frank is the FinalBoss of ''Fallout 2'' and a CompleteMonster, Liberty Prime ''assists'' the protagonist and keeping him around is an objective in multiple games, meaning that, even though he's technically utilized ''against'' the genocidal [[TheRemnant remnants]] of the American government [[UnbuiltTrope in his first appearance]], [[MisaimedFandom not many people remembered him that way]]. Furthermore, Bethesda Softworks and Zenimax's growing obsession with ''Fallout''[='=]s branding, plastering things like Nuka-Cola or Vault Boys everywhere they could manage, saw things that were meant to satirize the hyper-capitalist ideals of Pre-War America being [[MisaimedMarketing taken and used to sell merch]]. The result was a series originally meant to lampoon patriotic '50s nostalgia now trading heavily on its aesthetic without irony. The drippingly patriotic introduction to ''Fallout 76'', in which America's tricentennial is celebrated with the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the completion of Vault 76 (a video that, in past games, would probably have been presented as a piece of in-universe ''propaganda''), was merely the point at which it seemed that the last traces of satire were scrubbed from the series.

** When ''Fallout 3'' came out, one of the more common gripes from old-school fans was the [[ItsTheSameNowItSucks apparent lack of advancement of the setting]] - despite the change from the West Coast to the East Coast and the timeline jumping forward by several decades, plenty of things from the old games are present that really shouldn't be there (such as caps, Super Mutants, the Brotherhood, and the Enclave), often having undergone {{Flanderization}} in the process, while the Capital Wasteland itself feels far less developed in terms of civilization than the West Coast (such as the prominence of old pre-War buildings that are still covered in rubble, even when they're still in use). This was largely tamped down, though, because ''3'' was meant to be a reintroduction to the series, and the reaction would likely have been even worse if the first new ''Fallout'' game in a decade didn't feel post-apocalyptic and lacked any iconic elements. However, ''4'' was seen as having largely doubled down on these elements to the point of introducing multiple {{Series Continuity Error}}s (including several characters who operate clearly-successful businesses out of rubble-covered buildings with skeletons in them that the owner just strangely refuses to remove), and the fanbase proved significantly less forgiving. It didn't help that ''New Vegas'' had avoided most of those same problems in the interim, nor that most of Bethesda's new additions to the series lore got at best a lukewarm reception or were seen as largely derivative. When ''76'' announced that ''another'' game would somehow crowbar in the Enclave, Super Mutants, the Brotherhood, and caps, before most of those things should even exist, much less have expanded to West Virginia, the jokes about how Bethesda can't make anything new became a lot less niche.

** The ending got a universally cold reception for being seen as barebones, but really, pretty much every ''Fallout'' game has a pretty barebones ending, usually being little more than a slideshow of still frames and a narrator. The difference was that prior endings tended to treat themselves as a checklist for the player's actions, hence the "slideshow" presentation. ''4'''s ending lacked that checklist, and as a result ended up being two very similar dull-looking cutscenes, with the only choice that made a difference being whether the player joined the Institute or not.

* ''VideoGame/Fallout2'' is generally very well-loved, but if there's one ''very'' vocal complaint about it, it's [[DenserAndWackier the excess of pop culture references and humor]]. The first game had its fair share of this, like being able to randomly encounter the [[Series/DoctorWho TARDIS]] or troopers quoting movies on occasion, but these were more {{Easter Egg}}s than anything, and they were used fairly sparingly or still made some sense in context. In the second game, they show up a lot more and are much easier to find, which often damages the game's dramatic tone and story -- after all, it's a little hard to take the plight of a slave seriously when they're blatantly quoting ''Film/BackToTheFuture''. It's not for no reason that ''New Vegas'' essentially provided the option to turn the silly stuff off by locking a lot of it behind the "[[WeirdnessMagnet Wild Wasteland]]" trait.

** ''VideoGame/Fallout3'' significantly retooled the gameplay from an isometric turn-based game to a first-person one with a noticeably heavier focus on action. This did get a fair amount of TheyChangedItNowItSucks complaints, but it was broadly accepted, because the game, simply put, was still an RPG with many potential builds or ways to characterize yourself, albeit one that now drew more from Bethesda's ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' and other contemporary action [=RPGs=]. ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' fleshed out the roleplay aspects even further, bringing them close to the level of the first two games and arguably deepening them with the [[SurvivalSandbox survival-focused Hardcore mode]], proving in the process that there was nothing really wrong with the engine (not to mention, the original ''Fallout'' engine had little to brag about). But ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' reworked the leveling and stat system considerably and refocused the game even further around combat, turning the skills into perks while downplaying the importance of stats, which gutted a lot of the RPG side of the equation. Furthermore, the weaker conversation system killed a lot of the story aspects as well, and without the karma system, there were fewer opportunities for the protagonist to define themselves. When ''VideoGame/Fallout76'' effectively stripped out the story entirely, the game was left with little more than combat, base-building, and a handful of RPGElements. Not being able to lean on VATS also made it evident just how lackluster the gunplay in the Bethesda-era ''Fallout'' games really was.

** ''Fallout 76'' was accused of resting on aging gameplay mechanics that had grown uninspired and derivative. The Bethesda-era ''Fallout'' games, like all Bethesda titles, are ''all'' famous for reusing the same engine. (To a lesser extent, this even goes back to ''Fallout 2'', which mostly just tweaked the mechanics of the first game.) The problem is that all of the previous well-regarded ''Fallout'' games had RPGElements, the VATS system, interesting [=NPCs=], and well-written quests and stories. All of these were extraordinarily stripped-down or removed from ''76'', leaving only the things that people complained about for so many years with little of the old charm.

** When ''Fallout 3'' came out, one of the more common gripes from old-school fans was the [[ItsTheSameNowItSucks apparent lack of advancement of the setting]] - despite the change from the West Coast to the East Coast and the timeline jumping forward by several decades, plenty of things from the old games are present that really shouldn't be there (such as caps, Super Mutants, the Brotherhood, and the Enclave), often having undergone {{Flanderization}} in the process, while the Capital Wasteland itself feels far less developed in terms of civilization than the West Coast. This was largely tamped down, though, because ''3'' was meant to be a reintroduction to the series, and the reaction would likely have been even worse if the first new ''Fallout'' game in decades didn't feel post-apocalyptic and lacked any iconic elements. However, ''4'' was seen as having largely doubled down on these elements to the point of introducing multiple {{Series Continuity Error}}s, and the fanbase proved significantly less forgiving. It didn't help that ''New Vegas'' had avoided most of those same problems in the interim, nor that most of Bethesda's new additions to the series lore got at best a lukewarm reception or were seen as largely derivative. When ''76'' announced that ''another'' game would somehow crowbar in the Enclave, Super Mutants, the Brotherhood, and caps, before most of those things should even exist, much less have expanded to West Virginia, the jokes about how Bethesda can't make anything new became a lot less niche.
** Every game has featured some degree of retconning, continuity errors, or problematic lore. Even the first game has some funky continuity in places (deathclaws are treated as borderline cryptids in the Hub but are common knowledge in the Boneyard). Later games, though, tended to retcon more important things in dumber ways and for dumber reasons--for instance, ''4'' accidentally introduced that Jet is a pre-war invention (making the impact of an entire questline and main character of ''2'' null and void), that ghouls don't need food or water (rendering the entire question of the Necropolis in ''1'' pointless), and that Enclave power armor is pre-war (meaning the Enclave apparently just sat on their butts for over a century). This relates to the above, as some of the silliest retcons were the result of attempts to add in "iconic" factions. ''76'''s retcon that the Brotherhood somehow managed to fully establish their organization and expand from California to West Virginia in ''less than thirty years'', with the only reason given being a HandWave of them having a satellite, was just the point where even fans who hadn't played the old games realized things couldn't add up.

* ''VideoGame/Fallout2'' is generally very well-loved, but if there's one ''very'' vocal complaint about it, it's [[DenserAndWackier the excess of pop culture references and humor]]. The first game had its fair share of this, like being able to randomly encounter the [[Series/DoctorWho TARDIS]] or troopers quoting movies on occasion, but these were more {{Easter Egg}}s than anything, and they were used fairly sparingly or still made some sense in context. In the second game, they show up a lot more and are much easier to find, which often damages the game's dramatic tone and story -- after all, it's a little hard to take the plight of a slave seriously when they're blatantly quoting ''Film/BackToTheFuture''. It's not for no reason that ''New Vegas'' essentially provided the option to turn the silly stuff off by locking a lot of it behind the "Wild Wasteland" trait.

** The ending got a universally cold reception. While ''4'' is one of the few that has any kind of animation, the difference was that prior endings tended to treat themselves as a checklist for the player's actions, hence the "slideshow" presentation. ''4'''s ending lacked that checklist, and as a result ended up being two very similar dull-looking cutscenes, with the only choice that made a difference being whether the player joined the Institute or not.

* One of the more common critiques of ''VideoGame/Fallout3''[='=]s story is that you have no option to join the Enclave and are effectively {{railroad|ing}}ed into wiping them out. This was true in ''VideoGame/Fallout2'' as well, but the Enclave in ''2'' are established as more or less a death cult worshiping the old United States, and they regard the player character as a degenerate who must be exterminated for the good of humanity. Asking to join them would effectively be a PressXToDie button. By contrast, the Enclave in ''3'' are nowhere near as evil, have nowhere near as much reason to hate the PC, and seem to just be another imperialist power among many in the wasteland. They do have a plan that approaches the genocidal nature of their plan in ''2'', but most of the Enclave is not on board with it, and you can stop it halfway through the game and they'll keep going. Indeed, bafflingly, you can ''help'' the most unreasonable factions of the Enclave accomplish that plan, ''which will kill you'', but you can't join the more reasonable factions that only want to control the water supply (which, not for nothing, is the ''exact same goal'' that the Brotherhood of Steel ,aka ''the Good Guys'', have), making it an even more baffling place to draw the line.

* One of the more common critiques of ''VideoGame/Fallout3''[='=]s story is that you have no option to join the Enclave and are effectively {{railroad|ing}}ed into wiping them out. This was true in ''VideoGame/Fallout2'' as well, but the Enclave in ''2'' are established as more or less a death cult worshiping the old United States, and they regard the player character as a degenerate who must be exterminated for the good of humanity. Asking to join them would effectively be a PressXToDie button. By contrast, the Enclave in ''3'' are nowhere near as evil, have nowhere near as much reason to hate the PC, and seem to just be another imperialist power among many in the wasteland. They do have a plan that approaches the genocidal nature of their plan in ''2'', but most of the Enclave is not on board with it, and you can stop it halfway through the game and they'll keep going. Indeed, bafflingly, you can ''help'' the most unreasonable factions of the Enclave accomplish that plan, ''which will kill you'', but you can't join the more reasonable factions that only want to control the water supply (which, not for nothing, is the ''exact same goal'' that the Brotherhood of Steel (aka ''the Good Guys'') have, making it an even more baffling place to draw the line.

** The ending got a pretty universally cold reception, but really, every major ''Fallout'' game has had a pretty low-effort ending. ''4'' is one of the few that even has any kind of animation in it. The difference was that prior endings tended to treat themselves as a checklist for the player's actions, hence the lack of budget on display and "slideshow" presentation. ''4'''s ending lacked that checklist, and as a result ended up being two very similar dull-looking cutscenes with the only choice being whether the player joined the Institute or not.

* One of the more common critiques of ''VideoGame/Fallout3''[='=]s story is that you have no option to join the Enclave and are effectively {{railroad|ing}}ed into wiping them out. This was true in ''VideoGame/Fallout2'' as well, but the Enclave in ''2'' are established as more or less a death cult worshiping the old United States, and they regard the player character as a degenerate who must be exterminated for the good of humanity. Asking to join them would effectively be a PressXToDie button. By contrast, the Enclave in ''3'' are nowhere near as evil, have nowhere near as much reason to hate the PC, and seem to just be another imperialist power among many in the wasteland. They do have a plan that approaches the genocidal nature of the ones in ''2'', but not everyone is on board with it, and you can stop it halfway through the game and they'll keep going. Indeed, bafflingly, you can ''help'' the most unreasonable factions of the Enclave accomplish that plan, ''which will kill you'', but you can't join the more reasonable factions that only want to control the water supply, making it an even more baffling place to draw the line.

*** ''New Vegas'' was also extremely buggy when it was released. However, Obsidian was very quick to roll out patches, where Bethesda just wasn't.

** ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' downplayed the importance of the KarmaMeter, with a player's karma only affecting a handful of perks and whether the ending describes them as a prick or not. It was widely seen as a good move, as it helped get away from the many StupidEvil and BlackAndWhiteMorality moments of ''3'', and moved the game in the direction of the more intriguingly grey factions. When ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' did away with the karma system entirely, though, it became a real problem, as the developers were no longer obligated to provide "good karma/bad karma" opportunities in the game. Without the need to let the player act out and be a jerk, a lot of other roleplay aspects fell by the wayside, leading to ''4''[='=]s [[ButThouMust memetically railroaded conversations.]] It didn't help that ''4''[='=]s factions just weren't as popular as ''New Vegas''[='=]s, meaning defining oneself by faction loyalty felt like a lost cause.

* ''VideoGame/Fallout2'' is generally very well-loved, but if there's one ''very'' vocal complaint about it, it's [[DenserAndWackier the excess of pop culture references and humor]]. The first game had its fair share of this, like being able to randomly encounter the [[Series/DoctorWho TARDIS]] or troopers quoting movies on occasion, but these were more {{Easter Egg}}s than anything, and they were used fairly sparingly or still made some sense in context. In the second game, they show up a lot more and are much easier to find, which often damages the game's dramatic tone and story -- after all, it's a little hard to take the plight of a slave seriously when they're blatantly quoting ''Film/BackToTheFuture''. It's not for no reason that ''New Vegas'' essentially provided the option to turn the silly stuff off.

*** ''New Vegas'' was also extremely buggy when it was released. However, Obsidian was very quick to roll out patches (they even had a final patch [[ExecutiveMeddling that Bethesda refused to let them do]] for fear of competition with ''Skyrim''), where Bethesda just wasn't.