Fallout gay
Fallout Isn’t Gay Enough
Things are going adv for the Fallout show. Fans and critics alike seem to be pleased with it, and while it hasn’t officially been renewed yet, the producers are already talking about season 2. But there’s a difficulty, something many hadn’t considered, but the brave folks at Pride.com are bringing this issue to the forefront so we can keep in mind what’s really important: Fallout isn’t gay enough. I know, I know… why even bother watching it now? I’m sorry to have wrecked your anticipation, but isn’t it worthwhile to know beforehand so you don’t waste your period on some tedious show that doesn’t have pride flags and characters who mention how same-sex attracted they are in every conversation? You’re welcome, America.
According to Pride.com, “Textual queerness is only fleetingly on screen and none of the main characters — at least so far — hold explored a lgbtq+ romance.” I don’t know what “textual queerness” is, and when I looked it up, I couldn’t find it mentioned anywhere else, with none of the permutations of the phrase seeming to fit the context Pride.com uses it in, so I assume it was made up on the notice to make this whining sound more thoughtful than it
Oh Fallout…
I contain so many judgments about you – and not all of them are totally positive. Hell, some of them are just downright negative. But even I have to admit that you are an iconic franchise. You took the gaming society by storm, introduced the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. (strength, perception, endurance, charisma, agility, and luck) system, and provided a much needed escape from the fantastical fantasy worlds of other RPGs of the period (okay, Wasteland did it first). Your characters have always been interesting, your lore has always been a delightful mixture of zany and serious – you’re a excellent franchise.
I’ve already spoken in length about my experience with Fallout. New Vegas played a very large part in how I feel about queerness in gaming. It shaped a lot of my very staunch beliefs about the subject. After all, here was a reasonably large title that included some mostly-decent queer stuff. To this day, I can’t find one gay gamer who wasn’t pleasantly surprised to the notice bespectacled Arcade Gannon was not only gay, but definitely interested. Not to mention every other character.
And it doesn’t stop there!
A lot of the majo
Whenever we think about LGBT history within Fallout, our minds always seem to go straight to Fallout 2. After all, we’ve talked about it quite a few times and how it was one of the first instances of gay marriage in video games. It would be hard not to talk or even believe about it with a reputation like that.
But there were still steps made towards LGBT representation in Fallout 1 (known as just Fallout, but we’ve used 1 here to make it obvious we’re not talking about the series), steps that were important during the year of 1997.
As fans of the games will recognize, you play the role of a vault dweller and can choose to play either as a man or a girl. While sexuality doesn’t perform a huge role in this game, you are able to have sex with sex workers, as well as a several other NPCs.
Unfortunately, queer male players get the short end of the stick in this game. They are able to flirt with one male NPC, a guard who stands at the entrance of the Brotherhood of Steel, but the guard will not be interested. The only ‘good’ thing about this is that the guard also rebuffs female players too.
Female players, much like they did during Fire Emblem T Fallout 2 was released in 1998, a time where diversity was not as celebrated as it is today. Since it’s emit, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 4 have been released into the world, and with them, a string of LGBT characters – from Arcade Gannon to Piper Wright – that we all know and love. These characters have shaped players in many different ways, but it was Fallout 2 that paved the way for a feature in-game that has since been included in games enjoy Fire Emblem, Dragon Age, and Fable: same-sex marriage. Same-sex marriage in the US officially was legalized 17 years later. To say that Fallout 2 was ahead of the curve is possibly the biggest understatement of the year. In mid July, imaginative blueprints of The Sims were released by programmer and creator Don Hopkins. These blueprints included the fiasco of Maxis firing a gay programmer for including LGBT content as easter eggs, as well as Hopkins possess thoughts on the relationship plan being ‘heterosexist and monosexist’. When I sent over my questions to Chris Avellone, one of the designers for Fallout 2, the question of whether anyone at Black Isle Studios