History YMMV / Fallout1

* FanPreferredCutContent: Shortly before release, the endings for the Junktown story arc, revolving around whether the player sided with crime boss Gizmo or honorable sheriff Killian, were changed to make them much more clearly a "bad ending" and "good ending" respectively. A chunk of fans prefer the cut endings (where Junktown becomes decadent and crime-ridden but flourishes, or Junktown is free of crime but stays small and poor), simply because it makes the question of which to choose more of an actual question.

** The series' use of weapons is another case; even from the first game, many of the weapons were fictional, at best attributed to real-life manufacturers (like a Glock plasma pistol) and not very appealing to look at. It wasn't too distracting because the game is an RPG first and an isometric shooter second, so the guns are less a major mechanic and more just one of many tools to use in any given situation. ''Fallout 2'' also balanced it out by adding several more real-world weapons that were more appealing to look at. ''Fallout 3'', however, transitioned the series to being primarily FirstPersonShooter games, and suddenly the player was forced to spend much of the game staring right at ugly weapons that made little mechanical sense. It wasn't ''too'' bad there, however, because the ugly fictional weapons were balanced out with about as many that were clearly based on real-world firearms and thus were easy to determine the function of at a glance, and once again ''New Vegas'' added several more real-world guns that were more appealing and sensible. ''Fallout 4'', however, doubled down on the problems with them, primarily with its over-abundance of the butt-ugly, scrap-built "pipe" weapons that are used by just about everybody because the game's expanded modification system lets them be set up in every caliber and for every purpose, and even the purpose-built weapons have oddities in their designs like the fact that [[RightHandedLeftHandedGuns everything is set up for left-handed use]]. It's not helped that Bethesda's arsenals tend to have weird gaps (there are no pump-action, tube-fed shotguns in ''Fallout 3'' or ''4'', your options being a double-barreled {{sawed off|Shotgun}} or a semi-auto one fed by detachable magazines) and redundancies (''3'' has two 10mm pistols, but the one you get as soon as the tutorial ends is objectively superior to the other) to make players wish for more real-world guns to do the job, leading to the game's extensive [[GameMod modding scene]].

** [[SinisterMinister Morpheus]] is the opportunistic, power-hungry leader of the [[ReligionOfEvil Children of the Cathedral]]. Originally a member of the sadistic Rippers, Morpheus left the gang to form his own doomsday cult and eventually joined TheMaster as the HighPriest of the Unity's religious branch. Indifferent towards [[WellIntentionedExtremist the Master's teachings and good intentions]], and [[SmugSnake believing himself to be his equal]], Morpheus is setting up hospitals with free medical care in towns as a recruitment tool for Unity, luring victims to his church where people regularly go missing and are made into fresh subjects for the Master to use as soldiers in his war against humanity, but not before Morpheus introduces them to the belief that being "baptized" in FEV--Forced Evolutionary Virus--is essential to their lives, a process that can give an [[CruelAndUnusualDeath excruciating and painful death]] to those who fail to become Super Mutants, allowing one of his men to "discipline" his believers with a cattle prod. Using his group to make the enemies of Unity simply "disappear", Morpheus shows an interest in destroying the Followers of the Apocalypse, and if his church is set to explode, then Morpheus will [[DirtyCoward run away by himself]], abandoning all of his people to die.
** Doc [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Morbid]] initially presents himself as merely an [[DrJerk arrogant and unpleasant man]], but is revealed to be {{greed}} personified. As Junktown's resident [[MadDoctor physician]], Morbid offers medical assistance for enormous prices, and is the only doctor in the wastelands to force his patients to pay him for the examination. Those who refuse to pay him are murdered by his two mercenaries and their bodies are taken to his underground lab, where are they are butchered into small pieces and sold to Iguana Bob; the human meat is then cooked to look like iguana bits and given to the population. If Morbid discovers that the Vault Dweller has visited his lab, Morbid will let the latter live only if he can [[EyeScream remove an eye]], declaring that "half of what you have just seen" is now his.

* ScrappyMechanic: The time limit. The player has 150 days to find a water chip, which is fine - if you follow the breadcrumb clues given in logical progression with the order you're nudged to explore the world, you'll find Necropolis and the water chip in plenty of time. However, there's a second, hidden, time limit that gives you 500 days to complete the game (400 if you hire the water caravans to supply Vault 13 with water), and at the end of the time limit the super mutants find Vault 13 and overrun it. A patch (and later, all versions of the game) removes the time limit, but replaces it with a new mechanic where numerous settlements are destroyed by the super mutants the longer you take. This means that getting the GoldenEnding requires you to complete the game quickly, with the lowest time limit being 90 days to save the Followers of the Apocalypse. Thus, prolonged play to explore the world and do sidequests is actually penalizing in the end.

** Set [[Main/HaveAGayOldTime calls the player a]] [[Main/FantasticSlurs "normie"]].

** Set [[Main/FantasticSlurs calls the player a]] [[Main/HaveAGayOldTime "normie"]].

* FranchiseOriginalSin: Later games, particularly ''Fallout 76'', have been criticized for [[{{Retcon}} freely ignoring or rewriting existing canon]]. All of the games have had inconsistent continuity about various things, with even the first game being funky about it at times - for instance, deathclaws are treated as borderline cryptids in the Hub but are common knowledge just a little ways to the south in the Boneyard. This, however, could be explained away in that the different settlements simply don't keep up with each other about every little detail in the earlier days of the post-apocalypse, e.g. deathclaws are only common knowledge in the Boneyard because only the Boneyard really has problems with them. Later games were criticized for retconning more important things for less reason, most egregiously simply for the purpose of bringing back "iconic" factions and items in locations and/or time periods where they shouldn't be - just as an example related to the first game, the entire question of the Necropolis is rendered pointless by a sidequest in ''Fallout 4'' that revolves around the idea that ghouls don't require food or water to survive.

** Dogmeat was so well-received that he returned as a SecretCharacter in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 2}}'' and had an IdenticalGrandson in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' and another in ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 4}}''.

** The Gifted trait. It gives you an extra point in each of your primary statistics in exchange for slower skill progress. The fact that there is normally no way to increase your primary statistics after character creation but you can still max out all important skills with relative ease means this trait gives you a huge advantage for almost no tradeoff, especially if your Intelligence is high.

** Killian Darkwater is only relevant in Junktown, but he stands out for being a ReasonableAuthorityFigure played by Creator/RichardDeanAnderson, [[InkSuitActor looks like him]] and having a [[AwesomeMcCoolName very cool name]].

** Doc [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Morbid]] initially presents himself as merely an arrogant and unpleasant man, but is revealed to be {{greed}} personified. As Junktown's resident [[MadDoctor physician]], Morbid offers medical assistance for enormous prices, and is the only doctor in the wastelands to force his patients to pay him for the examination. Those who refuse to pay him are murdered by his two mercenaries and their bodies are taken to his underground lab, where are they are butchered into small pieces and sold to Iguana Bob; the human meat is then cooked to look like iguana bits and given to the population. If Morbid discovers that the [[PlayerCharacter Vault Dweller]] has visited his lab, Morbid will let the player live only if he can [[EyeScream remove an eye]], declaring that "half of what you have just seen" is now his.

* UncannyValley: The animated cutscenes where characters talk can look strange looking for new players due to characters using clay models. A clearly deliberate extreme example though is [[spoiler:the Master]] who not only looks vaguely human, but has ''four'' different voices that shifts even in the same sentence based on what he says. They're the calm and dominant male, aggressive and robotic male and kindly ''female''.

** Doc [[NamesToRunAwayFrom Morbid]] initially presents himself as merely an arrogant and unpleasant man, but is revealed to be {{greed}} personified. As Junktown's resident [[MadDoctor physician]], Morbid offers medical assistance for enormous prices, and is the only doctor in the wastelands to force his patients to pay him for the examination. Those who refuse to pay him are murdered by his two mercenaries and their bodies are taken to his underground lab, where are they are butchered into small pieces and sold to Iguana Bob; the human meat is then cooked to look like iguana bits and given to the population. If Morbid discovers that the [[PlayerCharacter Vault Dweller]] has visited his lab, Morbid will let the player live only if he can [[EyeScream remove an eye]], declaring that "half of what you have just seen" is now his.

** Unprepared players can easily run into the Super Mutants and find themselves imprisoned in jail, with the Lieutenant practically sneering at them and no easy way to get out.

* ScrappyMechanic: The time limit, which severely limits the time one can do for quests. Mitigated a bit by the second timer being removed in an update and replaced by an invisible timer where Super Mutants will be overrunning towns after a while.

* StrawmanHasAPoint: [[spoiler:The Overseer banishing you despite all you had done was a horrible thing to do, but ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 2}}'' shows that his predictions about the consequences of your actions for the vault proved essentially correct.]]

* StrawmanHasAPoint: [[spoiler:The Overseer banishing you despite all you had done was a horrible thing to do, but ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 2}}'' shows that his predictions about the consequences of your actions for the vault proved essentially correct]].

** Convincing [[spoiler:the Master]] to [[DrivenToSuicide kill himself.]] When you provide proof and successfully convince [[spoiler:The Master his plan will inevitably fail, he enters into a [[InvertedTrope Villanous]] [[HeroicBSOD B.S.O.D.]] before he activates the facility's nuclear device.]]

--> [[spoiler: '''[[PlayerCharacter Vault Dweller]]''': Sorry, this isn't an option for you. Your race will die out after this generation.]]

* UnwinnableByInsanity: It's possible to enter [[BonusDungeon The Glow]] without ''any'' Radaway, Rad-X, or at the very least a decent enough Endurance stat to protect against the radiation. You might make it out with the Brotherhood disk, but you won't even make it anywhere close to a city before you meet your demise to severe radiation poisoning. A sensible person would simply reload a save from before they entered The Glow, [[UpToEleven but if you were to use all 10 saves files after you entered The Glow...]]
* WhatCouldHaveBeen: One of the concepts dropped from the game during development to meet release deadlines was a race of FEV-mutated NobleSavage ''raccoons'', descended from two pairs of FEV test subjects that escaped from the research facility that ended up as the Glow. It was scrapped because to the devs, the idea didn't feel ''Fallout'' enough; as such, the only hint left in the game about their existence is the FEV experiment holodisk at the Glow mentioning that when the virus made the test subjects smart enough to escape from the laboratory, the guards hunted them down and exterminated them, but two pairs remained unaccounted for.

** [[SinisterMinister Morpheus]] is the opportunistic, power-hungry leader of the [[ReligionOfEvil Children of the Cathedral]]. Originally a member of the sadistic Rippers, Morpheus left the gang to form his own doomsday cult and eventually joined the Master as the HighPriest of the Unity's religious branch. Indifferent towards the [[WellIntentionedExtremist Master]]'s teachings and [[BigBadWannabe believing himself to be his equal]], Morpheus is setting up hospitals with free medical care in towns as a recruitment tool for Unity, luring victims to his church where people regularly go missing and made into fresh subjects for the Master to use as soldiers in his war against humanity, but not before Morpheus introduces them to the belief that being "baptized" in FEV--Forced Evolutionary Virus--is essential to their lives, a process that can give an excruciating and painful death to those who fail to become Super Mutants, allowing one of his men to "discipline" his believers with a cattle prod. Working closely with the armed forces of Unity to expand their influence by any means necessary, Morpheus assists the mutants by using his own followers as militant CannonFodder to make those who don't believe in his church simply "disappear", showing an interest in destroying the Followers of the Apocalypse. If his church is set to explode, Morpheus [[DirtyCoward runs away by himself]] and abandons all of his people to die.

** Doc [[NamesToRunAwayFrom Morbid]] initially presents himself as merely an arrogant and unpleasant man, but is revealed to be {{greed}} personified. As Junktown's resident [[MadDoctor physician]], Morbid offers medical assistance for enormous prices, and is the only doctor in the wastelands to force his patients to pay him for the examination. Those who refuse to pay him are murdered by his two mercenaries and their bodies are taken to his underground lab, where are they are butchered into small pieces and sold to Iguana Bob; the human meat is then cooked to look like iguana bits and given to the population. If Morbid discovers that the [[PlayerCharacter Vault Dweller]] has visited his lab, he will let the player live only if he is allowed to [[EyeScream remove an eye]], declaring that "half of what you have just seen" is now his.

* CompleteMonster: [[MadDoctor Morbid]] initially presents himself as an arrogant and unpleasant man, but is revealed to be {{greed}} personified. As Junktown's resident physician, Morbid offers medical assistance for enormous prices, and is the only doctor in the wastelands to force his patients to pay him for the examination. Those who refuse to pay him are murdered by his two mercenaries and their bodies are taken to his underground lab, where are they are butchered into small pieces and sold to Iguana Bob; the human meat is then cooked to look like iguana bits and given to the population. If Morbid discovers that [[PlayerCharacter the Vault Dweller]] has visited his lab, he will let the player live only if he is allowed to [[EyeScream remove an eye]], declaring that "half of what you have just seen" is now his.