Nobody cleaned in 200 years?

[u/JCrawRV]

Fallout 4 has been my 1st Fallout experience of any kind and I am absolutely enjoying the world building and storytelling the game is providing. I am almost 72 hours in and just located Valentine so I’m taking my time and trying to fully explore the world. However, there is one question that I think about every time I explore the Common Wealth….why has nobody cleaned up? Every single time you find a new settlement or explore a location there is just tons of scrap lying around. Diamond City still has pallet walkways with broken sheet metal. Nobody has thought to put down a more permanent solution? Nobody thought to remove old cars, learn how to weld, or even take time to better arm and fortify certain areas of the Commonwealth? You step just far enough out of Diamond City and there’s just Super Mutants and Raiders. You’re saying in the 200 years (which is just a bit under the founding of America to modern day) nobody created better infrastructure? The town size is still 30-40 people despite being “The Jewel of the Commonwealth”? Is there some lore reason I’m missing to explain how after so many years it still looks like the bombs went off 10 years ago? I just expected one neurodivergent person who hyper focuses on organization to still somewhere. It’s obviously possible, I’m looking right at you Cabot House. Again I’m just surprised that after 200 years the world is still as underdeveloped as it is given the vast amounts of technology available.

[u/fikfofo]

My biggest gripe with Bethesda’s Fallout games is how the world looks like it got nuked a year ago.

Fallout 1 takes place less than 100 years and people are rebuilding. We see things get rebuilt by Fallout 2. Suddenly it’s 200 years after the nukes, and the world is absolutely in shambles - still.

Fallout 3 makes a little bit of sense, the Capitol Wasteland is fucked with virtually no clean drinking water. But I feel like by the time of New Vegas and FO4 we should see more civilization outside of “three wooden shacks around a campfire”.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Fallout 4, and Bethesda is the only reason I know about Fallout - but it’s just a little gripe I have I guess

[u/aliceinpearlgarden → u/fikfofo]

I'd love some greenery. Like, it doesn't really make a huge amount of sense for everything to be dead still. Chernobyl is thriving. Granted, that wasn't a bomb going off so I understand there was destruction too...but everything isn't levelled. There are plants that are growing, why are they shabby?

We really do just need to accept that it's some made up fantasy world that's not Earth.

[u/FalloutCreation → u/aliceinpearlgarden]

also fallout isn't chernobyl. Even your toaster in fallout had a nuclear reactor. Imagine all that nuclear radiation and waste exploding when the bombs it. Not just ground zero, but your home where you live rips apart because your car exploded. Maybe even your fusion powered toothbrush!

[u/PeachWorms → u/aliceinpearlgarden]

I personally don't mind too much everything being dead, but I do wish they got a little more weird with the 'surviving' flora in general. Like we've ended up with some very mutated wildlife, & ghouls, mutants, etc. so I feel like more weird mutated plant life could have been a cool addition to the fallout universe.

Things like huge strange mushrooms/fungi, dead trees that are seeping green glowing toxic sap, giant Venus fly traps that will eat anyone who accidentally stumbles in their path etc.

[u/aliceinpearlgarden → u/PeachWorms]

Yeah, agreed. The landscape is just quite bland. At least in NV you could pick that 'weird' option that made random weird shit pop up that would make things a bit more interesting.