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.