If you’ve ever decided to play Fallout from the perspective of a pacifist and go through the entire game without killing anyone, then you’re leveraging something that was never supposed to exist in the first place.
In a recent video uploaded to YouTube, one of the creators of the Fallout franchise, the ever-transparent Tim Cain, stressed that the concept of a pacifist playthrough was included in the original Fallout (1997) by mistake, but the game’s leadership team liked the idea so much that they decided to keep working on it.
Pacifism In a Violent World
Fallout is a post-apocalyptic series that sees players survive in a vast wasteland populated by bloodthirsty raiders, grotesque mutants, and factions vying for control of resources. It’s an inherently brutal game, presenting players with the desperation of a world torn apart by nuclear annihilation. It’s a series that spearheaded the genre and has drawn in millions of fans over more than twenty-five years.
In his latest video, Tim Cain addresses the concept of the pacifist playthrough. He stresses that he’s an advocate for this style of play and that when he was building games, he tried to make sure that this concept was always present. In Fallout, it makes things a little tougher, as there are so many situations that will ‘require’ you to rely on combat and brutal slaughter.
Cain said:
It was accidental in Fallout. We’d designed the game and done the main quest and all that. And at one point, I believe someone in QA said, ‘You know you can play without killing anybody.’ It turned out it was a side effect of most of the dialogue playthroughs not resulting in anyone dying.
It was then supported by the wider team and a few tweaks were made to increase the possibility of undertaking a full pacifist run, end to end. Since then, every Fallout game has had the potential to support a pacifist playthrough.
But in a world filled with handheld nuclear launchers, miniguns, and gauntlets made from the claws of hulking creatures, do you really want to avoid killing anything?
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