Fallout 76 - Superheroes and Duct Tape Part 1
I’ve been avoiding playing Fallout 76 for years, like an old friend from an embarrassing time in my life. I love the Fallout games, but mainly because they allow me to indulge in my introverted hermit tendencies. I like traipsing around in the apocalypse alone. That’s the key thing. Start one of these games, turn off the music, and go stand in the middle of a burned-out street. Just drink in the loneliness. It is splendid.
But they had to ruin Fallout 76 by making a single-player game into some kind of PVP-centric multi-player battle-royale super-mutant monstrosity (I don’t really know what a battle royale game is since I don’t play PVP. I’m assuming you play as a bunch of snotty British royals who compete for the Queen’s affection through a series of richy-rich sporting events like “the Custard Derby” or something).
Anyway, how am I supposed to enjoy the apocalypse with D1ckman420 jumping around my poetic devastation like some kind of atomic pogo stick? And boy can he jump. Apparently, the most popular mutation player characters can get is “the Marsupial” which makes you jump really high. I won’t mention that it also lets you carry more weight. Do these mutant marsupial/people have big gooey pockets on their bellies? Is that what I’m supposed to picture? I guess I did mention it.
So, what changed? Why did I consider playing Fallout 76? I read somewhere that if you pay a small monthly fee, you can host your own private server for up to 8 of your closest friends (like I know 8 people online, and if I do, they probably want to be left alone like me). I’ll happily pay a fee to experience the post-apocalypse alone.
But this isn’t the real post-apocalypse, of course, and it’s not supposed to be. The dead America in the Fallout games is some otherworldly version of the United States. A sci-fi future as envisioned in the 1950s. Retro-futurism we call it. We get rocket-finned atomic cars, ray guns, old-timey music, and of course a cold war turned hot. As far as I can tell, in this counter-factual reality, style and political thought get stuck in the 50s all the way to the mid-21st century when a nuclear war finally erupts between the superpowers of the day, the USA and China.
As I walked alone through this imagined wasteland, I wondered what this extrapolation of the 50s was like. Did they miss the explosion of art and music of the 60s? Did they have the civil rights movement? Were women finally admitted to elite colleges? (In our reality, some schools didn’t admit women until the 1980s.) There’s really not much in Fallout 76 to begin to unearth what society was like in its fictional pre-apocalypse. I imagine it as a kind of dystopia of patriotic paranoia, war-frenzy, xenophobia, racism, and sexism. It makes the loss of such an outwardly beautiful world sting a bit less. I know that even though the rocket fins on the cars were spectacular and the Jetsons architecture spoke of sleek futures full of promise, the reality was much more brutal. This was a society doomed to fail because it became trapped in one way of half-formed thinking. Perhaps there’s a lesson in there for us as well.
I digress about my invented history for the doomed world in Fallout 76 because thinking about things other than the actual game is a big part of the gameplay in Fallout 76, at least for me. You see, comrade, there is little story to be had in this iteration of Fallout. Not like in previous games which were equal parts story, peaceful wandering, and fighting mutated horrors that want to feast on your flesh. Fallout 76, as a solo player, is mostly about killing mutated horrors (some raider people too, but they’re just as bad). So, as I wandered through this particular wasteland in West Virginia, looking for the next fight, I found my mind wandering as well. About this and the other thing. About what happened to sexism and racism in this strange counter-Earth? About all the drugs I found. Where did they all come from 25+ years after the apocalypse? And the food. Does Fallout pre-packaged food really last this long? Or am I eating some kind of mutant immortal cereal? Etc.
I also thought a lot about superheroes. Since there’s so little story, I found myself inventing my own stories. These were mostly backstories for my character. I mean I have to wonder how a simple vault-dweller can become powerful enough to punch a Behemoth (a sort of SUPER super mutant) in the face. So, when I picked up disused clothes and costumes in the forgotten rubble of civilization, I created superhero alter egos for my character. (As a note: I went boring with my character and just made myself; trademark no-smile smile, bald head, and lonely-gray eyes that have seen too much). Below is a non-exhaustive list of the heroes I invented based on wardrobe opportunities:
Officer 76 - I found a dusty cop uniform and some mirrored glasses and decided to become a vigilante to bring law and order to post-apocalypse Appalachia.
Madman, Warrior of Delta Centauri - an old ragged straight-jacket served as the main part of a costume for Madman. A lost soul who thinks he is a superhero alien who has come to Earth to save it but is driven mad by the realization that he was only a few decades too late. He wanders the wasteland, trying to help those he can, according to what his ruined alien mind thinks is right. Or rather what he believes the alien would think.
Death Clown - a skull mask and a clown suit were all it took for Death Clown to leave his particular corner of hell and roam the world once more. What does the Jesting Reaper want? Other than vengeance and death, who can say?
The Street - A peaky blinders cap and some suspenders were perfect for this corner tough to lose his cool and beat some sense into a world gone crazy. I mean what’s a legitimate criminal supposed to do when there’s nobody left to squeeze for some beer money?
Captain North - a raid on a civil war museum yielded a musty Union army uniform and a new persona. Captain North seeks out the remnants of a secret society bent on restoring the Confederacy in the post-apocalypse. No hail of bullets will stop Captain North from punching secessionists in the jaw!
Atomic Cowboy - easy one with a vaguely-cowboy-shaped hat and duster jacket. All I was missing was a nuclear-powered six-shooter. I really don’t understand why they haven’t added such a thing to this universe. But whatever, Atomic Cowboy prefers to serve knuckle sandwiches for lunch and dessert.
Businessman - A spotless black suit and tie in the dust-filled ruins of the future? Such a thing must hold great power. In fact, it holds all the pent-up energy of every conference call and strategy coffee break cut short by nuclear war. Now, Businessman roams the hellish landscape in a mythic quest to find the final IBEDA statements of the Five Great Corporations. When he does find them all and unites them, he can make his long-awaited report to the great Board of Directors of Eternity and vest his infinite shares in Cosmic Capitalism.
Metal Fighter S - a few mismatched pieces of hi-tech armor and a power fist created the pinnacle of post-apocalyptic power! A man who has mastered the art of robokata! The ultimate fusion of martial arts and machine! He is no cyborg! (No cyborg surgeons in the lonely post-apocalypse). Instead, he temporarily fuses metallic components to his skin with his electro-chi! “Robokata Flowing Data Dragon Attack!” is something I don’t yell at my monitor when Metal Fighter S charges into battle!
The unifying element to all of the characters of this Punchalla League of Superheroes is their preference for unarmed combat. I can only play a game so long that has no martial arts in it, or at least the promise of a few jaw-cracking punches.
In Fallout 76, this means using the unarmed class of weapons. Sadly, there seems to be no way of mutating your fists into some kind of atomic death manipulators. I started with a pair of brass knuckles and progressed from there to Deathclaw gauntlets and finally Power Fists, which are strange little jackhammers you put on your forearm. I say knuckles, gauntlets, and fists, but that’s misleading. You can only ever punch with your right arm in Fallout 76. I guess they never had South Paws before the atomic war. Never mind the ambidextrous such as me. Luckily, I still find the wild flaying that is unarmed combat in Fallout 76 rewarding enough. And I can continue on my mad quest to punch everything in the universe.
Why did I create so many heroes and play for so many hours if there is really only one or two punches in the game? For all the lack of varied cool animations, the punches feel like they have weight to them. The enemies react to my punches, or if they don’t, they sometimes fly off a hundred yards when I kill them. Sometimes I even punch them off cliffs or catwalks. It feels more like fighting than the usual number scrolls that accompany combat in video games. And unlike Path of Exile, I can actually run and punch things. Those running punches pack more power too. Very satisfying to charge in, time that one punch just right, and send a Deathclaw flying.
I should say that I’m not a fan of Numbers in video games. I get that weapons have to do some amount of damage and that bad guys need to be able to take more than one hit to kill. But, outside of some futuristic real-time physics analyzer, we would never see such numbers in reality. Seeing endless scrolls of numbers kind of breaks the immersion in the game. It’s the worst in fantasy games. Detailed spreadsheet breakdowns of sword edginess don’t belong in the kind of medieval world most fantasy games emulate. Outside of how many goats and sheep they had, people didn’t think about numbers with the post-doctorate precision we see in video games. When they did think about numbers, it was from the point of view of numerology and how certain things in the world could be linked to higher spheres of existence; “Three being the holy number thou shall count to, not two or one, not four,” and all that.
Focus on Numbers also leads to all sorts of silliness in Fallout 76. Like if my gun isn’t powerful enough, I can shoot an enemy in the face multiple times and they don’t even flinch. Fallout 76 is especially guilty of this because it tries to be an MMORPG with ever-escalating tiers of numerically (more hp) superior enemies that require numerically (more dmg) superior weaponry. The result of this is I shoot a super mutant in the face, see the virtual “decal” that is supposed to be their “wound,” and see that the super mutant isn’t at all concerned by this. Then I look to the constantly scrolling ledger above their head, and I see that the damage Number is too small to subtract a substantial portion of their hp pool, and I should find something that makes bigger Numbers. At this point, I’m not immersed in a virtual fighting game but in a kind of accounting simulator that only Businessman would enjoy. I think you can turn off the floating Numbers in Fallout 76, but then you don’t have good feedback on whether you’re doing enough damage. More immersion but lesser chance of getting anywhere.
I suppose Businessman could square the immersion issue. Maybe his superpower is that he sees the Balance Sheet of Reality; a sort of Profit Vision. He can actually see the numbers behind the physics when something happens, so he can determine whether doing any small thing leads to profitable outcomes. Imagine, picking up a pencil and knowing how many exact letters it has left to write, or how much damage the soles of your feet take whenever you take a step. That is the curse and gift of Businessman.
Outside of Businessman profit/loss-based view of reality, I would say hide Numbers altogether in games, from player characteristics to hp and damage numbers. But then the player wouldn’t know how much damage they’re doing and whether they should be doing something else. What’s really needed is a game where the Numbers are invisible and enemies react differently based on the strength of the hit. That would be something. I would love to play a fantasy game with no Numbers, just swords cutting deeper, drawing more blood when they do more damage.
Oh, and this Numberless game would have to have punching, and a couple of kicks, of course. We can’t forget about the kicks. Too many games these days include a punch or two and call that unarmed combat. Unarmed combat is using your whole body, fists, feet, forehead, even a hip bump now and then. Maybe even a music-and-Capoeira-based combat engine in which you collect different tracks to inspire your character to new movements. You could make it a rhythm-based game like Guitar Hero but then I wouldn’t be able to play it cause I’m as bad at rhythm games as I am at PVP.
What was I on about? Oh, yeah. Numbers. The stock ticker scroll of Numbers is another reason why I like playing as an unarmed fighter in Fallout 76. If shooting things in this game is an accounting class, then fighting with fists is also an accounting class, but taught by the cool high school teacher who people say threw a desk through a window one year. He wears Ray-Bans and old jeans, quotes Shakespeare, and somehow makes you forget that it’s numbers you’re reading off the blackboard. Likewise, when I charge into a bunch of dumb-as-rocks super-mutants with my Power Fist, I don’t have time to think about the Numbers above their heads, I just punch things as fast as I can. And it kind of makes sense that I can punch something multiple times and they don’t die (unlike a visible bullet hole in their head). Then I knock out the last super-mutant, sending them flying off a bridge, and it feels a bit like a scene in an 80s action film. I want to pull off my sunglass and utter some witty epitaph at their plunging over-muscled corpse, like: “ring around the rosie, they all fall down.” Then I walk away, as the whole Balmco Mac’n’Cheese factory explodes behind me, showering the wasteland in golden deliciousness.
Speaking of explosions, there’s also a legendary perk in Fallout 76 called the Exploding Palm which I swear they made just for me. You get a mini-explosion on some of your punches. It makes no sense. Does my character strap mini-grenades to his knuckles? But never mind that. It is the closest I’ve come to a transcendental experience in recent times. I swear in those small moments, in those rapidly-expanding superheated gasses, I catch a glimpse of Punchalla and it is glorious: Its many cosmic fight rings float in the void of dead stars. In those rings, warriors of a thousand realities fight their eternal struggles, not for victory or glory, but for the love of their art. And each eon, they do not crown a champion but choose a humble fighter who trains the hardest. This Scholar of the Fist they send out into panfoamic everythingverse to bring back cosmic martial arts techniques never before seen in Punchalla.
The vision of Punchalla recedes and words fail me. Now, I must go meditate on this under the uncaring branches of the Tree of Woe.