I enjoyed Fallout 4. It may not have that New Vegas secret sauce or be up to par with the original game, but there are aspects of it I like. The USS Constitution. Dogmeat. The entire Far Harbor DLC. It’s a fun sandbox if you’re either willing to go deep into the roleplaying aspect of things or mod the shit out of it.
However, it’s probably my least favorite Fallout game. That’s fine, I can just go back and play one of the old ones if I get a hankering for post-apocalyptic action. But a bunch of old Fallout 4 screenshots have been doing the rounds again on social media. Back when the game was new, fans tweaked their camera settings to make it look like an old-school isometric RPG a lá the first two games. It’s one of those things where you whack a couple of filters on there and it goes viral all over again, thousands of players — myself included — suddenly transported back to memories of New California.
Eagle eyed
The judicious application of an isometric perspective and CRT filters may make Fallout 4 look like an old game, but you can’t play it like that. It’s a trick, like the forced perspective to get the hobbits to look four feet tall in the Lord of the Rings films. Even if you could play Fallout 4 top-down, it wouldn’t fix the game’s biggest sins. It doesn’t change the cheesy dialogue, the ineffectual choices, or the unappealing narrative. But Fallout 5 could.
Imagine it’s the year 2039. RobCo is still a twinkle in Robert House’s eye, and the bombs are yet to drop on our real world. Like I say, use your imagination. You’re loading up Fallout 5, the final brainchild of Todd Howard before he’s cryogenically frozen, to be thawed in time to develop Fallout 2077, a prequel to be released in the same year it’s set. You’re settling down to load up Fallout 5 on your Steam Machine (v4, with an OLED screen to warn you of imminent apocalypse).
Instead of being met with a hyper-realistic first-person vision of mundane vault life, you’re looking at the opening scene from above. You feel omniscient as you’re transported back to the games that made you fall in love with the medium. Your heart races, your vault dweller – probably called The Rememberer or The Reminiscer – deals with a radroach infestation in turn order. Fallout is back.
I’m not just saying this because I think ‘old games better’ or I’m nostalgic for the games of my youth. Okay, I’m a little bit nostalgic, but there’s good reason for Bethesda to stop banging its head against the same first-person open-world formula game after game.
Back to basics
Bethesda needs to look back at its successes to create a more holistic Fallout experience…
Modern developers are increasingly rewarded for doing things differently. Disco Elysium focused on writing and artistry over industry trends, culminating in unprecedented success. Baldur’s Gate 3 iterated on decades of Larian’s distinct turn-based formula, but rose to unexpected glory thanks to mastering its craft. Most recently, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 won multiple Game of the Year awards not through copying the successes of triple-A games before it, but by being true to its own focused creative vision. What’s the common denominator? These developers have all mastered their craft to create a specific, intentional experience.
A shift in perspective alone won’t fix the Fallout series. Bethesda pretty much nailed the Fallout brief with Fallout 3, despite switching the series to a first-person POV. New Vegas is (correctly) lauded as the best Fallout game in the series, and it also reneges on the original games’ isometric, turn-based origins. Bethesda needs to look back at its successes, and the successes of other developers’ efforts in the series, to create a more holistic Fallout experience next time around.
Dialog. Quests. Decisions. All of these are more important than the retrofuturist aesthetic or post-apocalyptic open world. Every Fallout game will include Deathclaws and power armour, but it’s more important that Bethesda nails the narrative than checks all the IP boxes.
These are the roots that Fallout needs to return to: quests that linger in your memory, NPCs like Fawkes or Harold brimming with unique personality, and decisions that haunt you for the rest of your playthrough and beyond.
The isometric perspective is evocative of the best RPGs of my childhood, and doesn’t deserve to be consigned to the ‘retro’ corner of your local GameStop. But as much as these clever screenshots make me ponder the possibilities of a turn-based Fallout 5, Bethesda needs to focus on the strong writing and thoughtful quests of the series’ past if it wants the next Fallout to succeed, no matter what perspective we experience it from.
What’s next from the Microsoft-owned studio? Check out all the upcoming Bethesda games we know of in 2026.
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