Vault Delinquent

Contemporary videogames are traditionally non-linear and even more so now, giving the game player more control over their avatar’s destiny rather than many paths to a single destination. Often, because of this non-linearity, we must study them using non-traditional lenses such as text, design and system. However, media convergences and advanced technologies have seen contemporary games to shift towards emulating other media forms, such as film, in the life-like rendering of characters and settings during game play and in cut scenes that has allowed a more flexible and in depth reading to occur through certain applicable traditional lenses. Across examination of Bethesda’s Fallout 3 (2008) under the lenses of text, design and system, it is possible to see that the non-linearity of the game has a further underlying effect in encouraging the player to explore the world and make a series of moral choices that carry their own implications to the character journey within the game.

Mercenary

The presentation of the character at the commencement of the game alone differs greatly from many RPG game character construction introductions in its integration with the gameplay world and the main narrative. The start of the game opens up with a brief cut scene panning through a bus as the radio turns on to play the Ink Spots’ love ballad “I don’t want to set the world on fire”. The camera pans through the bus showing various items such as a tool box, and children’s toys which become fascinatingly morbid as the video continues to pan out to the music which now appears as an ironic accompaniment to the devastation of the world that lays outside the shell of the bus. Following this opening scene, there is a brief title screen, which leads into another scene that documents the nuclear holocaust history through a vintage styled slideshow with a voiceover explaining the war that ravaged the previously shown city and the function of the vaults, which leads into the introduction of the character and the avatar building sequence. As the character wakes up in the vault, the camera cuts to a first person view from the eyes of the character as a baby, just being born. Liam Neeson’s voiceover integrates the playable character’s gender choice and name into the dialogue, as well as an avatar creation option integrated into the narrative from the beginning. This greatly differs from many popular RPG character creation screens, such as World of Warcraft or Diablo that occur prior to injection into the game and are from a selection of set races with pre-loaded facial inputs. Already, this scene integrating the tutorials with short cut scenes gives the player “an experience that is a simulation of the way in which we might act in a hypothetical world.” (Grodal 2003, 142) The ability of the player to change their personal experience through choices in the game ensures no two players will have the exact same experience, which is “… the key element in agency and thus in the feeling of interactivity.” (Grodal 2003, 142) By giving the player an opportunity to present themselves through the playable character, and introducing emotional connections so early on, it allows the agency of the player to flourish and places more weight on the moral implications to the choices being made throughout the narrative.

Pinnacle of Survival

The character construction stage is swiftly followed in the same vein of integrated storyline, by basic movement tutorials, attribute and skill selection for the character, as well as a demonstration of the choices that can be made throughout the game, particularly that of negotiation or force. Following the character appearance selection, this cut scene resumes, depicting the mother of the character going into cardiac arrest before cutting to a year into the future. This begins the next part of Fallout’s integrated character set-up, teaching the player the game controls through the narrative and forcing them to participate towards the intended solution in order to progress as the character is still a child at this stage and not capable of many controls apart from walking, running and interacting with NPCs (Non-Playable Characters) and objects. Furthermore, this participation shows up as a quest that the player must work towards the objections to achieve, leading to the player assigning themselves their starting primary attributes of Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck. These choices affect the later skill sets that the player is able to level up that include Speech, Lock pick and Energy Weapons, which can all be adjusted depending on what traditional class of character the player wishes to adhere to. The game is once again fast forwarded to the age of 10 and then 16, where the character is respectively taught both how to shoot as well as placed in an interaction that shows the player that many fight situations “can be circumvented by careful negotiation.” (Pichlmair 2009, 109)

This set up provides a foresight into the set up of the gameplay to come throughout the game, and leads into the determination of the primary three skills through a test. The character is required to take a Generalized Occupational Aptitude Test, consisting of vague questions that, based on the answers given by the player will determine which three skills will be focused on. The completion of this step signifies the conclusion of the character introduction stage of the game. Unlike other games in which moral traits are “ascribed to characters rather than being earned… when making a character and thus exist before the character has actually done anything” (Schulzke 2009), Fallout considers this to be the beginning of the character and the player’s journeys, granting them the freedom of choice and consequence. 

Last, Best Hope of Humanity

Once the player completes the control tutorials and character attribute assignment, Fallout 3 immediately demonstrates the weight of the player’s choices to be made. Through the dialogue options that come up with interactions with NPCs, the player is given the “freedom of action [and] the freedom to be moral or immoral… [through] presenting players with complex moral dilemmas that require careful reasoning.” (Schulzke 2009) One of these choices include the option between killing your character’s best friend’s father to escape from the vault, or choosing to talk him into letting the character leave instead. Whilst this main choice does not present much of a choice, all other side quests “can be accomplished in manifold ways [where] you can kill quest givers or they can simply die on their own, even during quests.” (Pichlmair 2009, 111)

The moral implications of these choices can be gauged through the Karma system that Fallout 3 uses. Schulzke (2009) notes that nearly everything the player does affects their karma, through increase or decrease with the numerical value depending on the severity of the morality behind each action. Stealing warrants a minor penalty whilst murdering non-hostile individuals incurs more significant bad karma, all acts that can be gauged beforehand, as the interaction will appear red in colour instead of the standard green. With each deed, the game condemns the bad through incurrence of loss of karma. This is represented instantaneously both visually on the screen with a notification claiming ‘You’ve lost Karma!’ and with auditory cues accompanying, as it does with earning of Karma. These choices that the player is being offered allows for the player to “manipulate their moral identity as though it were any other character attribute… in the same way that one choose their hair color or gender in Fallout 3.” (Staines 2010, 42)

In addition to this, Karma determines the character’s title that is given as the player levels up, depending on whether the Karma numeric places the player in Good Karma, Neutral Karma or Bad Karma. This Karma and reputation system is developed even further in the next installment in the Fallout series, Fallout: New Vegas, where these Karma levels also determine certain locations that can be visited by the player. If a character opposes an enemy faction, then they are welcomed into entry, or if they are allies of an opposition then they will be attacked on sight which increases the replay value of the game as “there is no way to act in the Fallout world without creating new opportunities and closing off others.” (Schulzke 2009) The open nature of the Fallout world encourages the player to explore and make moral choices that, unlike many games, affect the outcome of both the main narrative and side stories that each carry their own moral weight with the decisions made.