The F word

At the end of the beta for Fallen Earth the devs ran an event which is commemorated by a monument outside Embry Crossroads. It bears the name of the clan that won the day – or at least their initials. B.O.S. aka The Brotherhood of Steel.

Call it a variation on Godwin's Law – the longer any discussion of Fallen Earth goes on the more likely it is that someone will mention Fallout.

At times in the history of the game this has been a touchy subject. Fallout 3 had been released less than a year before the launch of Fallen Earth, and it cast a long shadow. The Help channel – which did double duty as a global chat channel despite the best efforts of the GMs to keep it on-topic – saw plenty of discussion of whether or not Fallen Earth was, in all but name, Fallout Online.

For some players that was what drew them to the game, but the implication was, at times, that this was an inferior rip-off, which went down with the FE community as well as might be expected.

On the other hand it's undeniable that being the closest thing to a Fallout MMO that existed at the time did bring in new players. For a new indie MMO being 'a bit like' a big name title did have its advantages, especially when there was no sign of an actual Fallout MMO on the horizon.

Was Fallen Earth influenced by Fallout? I imagine it was, to some extent, at least by Fallout 1 and 2, since the game was already far along in development when the release of Fallout 3 revived that series. Really though any similarities are more due to both games being part of the post-apocalypse genre. If Fallen Earth owes a little to Fallout, it owes a lot more to Mad Max.

As does Fallout.

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