I was wondering on a scale of 1 - 10 how bad did Bethesda butcher the preexisting lore and canon of the previous Fallout games. According to my favorite Youtuber (who I'm hesitant to name as he's more than a little controversial) Bethesda did a worse job breaking canon in 76 than they did with 4. And from what I've seen myself they did move away from the retro futuristic style quite a bit even if I do love the yet to be released hellcat power armor.

Retcons and plot contrivances have been around since Fallout 2. Fallout Tactics is now considered semi-canon after originally being dismissed by Todd Howard as 100% non-canon.

The fact is that from a business perspective, Fallout is as much iconography and audio-visual branding as it is a setting for a post nuclear role playing game that has a fairly deep lore.

From a marketing perspective, they think people want to see Super Mutants and RadScorpions, and power armor and the Brotherhood of Steel. Those are the essence of Fallout. It's what sells the games. Just look at the box art.

So to sell the games, you need to find a way to shoehorn in ways to get things in game that really don't belong there. This is where you get contrivances such as the Institute somehow getting/developing samples of FEV, or a soft drink manufacturer helping to develop an advanced suit of power armor, or lawyers somehow knowing how to operate, maintain and upgrade full suits of power armor.

Devs play the Rule of Cool card and leave it at that. As long as the games sell and continue to make money, expect more contrivance/lore breaks/whatever term you want to use in any follow up games.

Null343 wrote:

I was wondering on a scale of 1 - 10 how bad did Bethesda butcher the preexisting lore and canon of the previous Fallout games. According to my favorite Youtuber (who I'm hesitant to name as he's more than a little controversial) Bethesda did a worse job breaking canon in 76 than they did with 4. And from what I've seen myself they did move away from the retro futuristic style quite a bit even if I do love the yet to be released hellcat power armor.

There are some contrivances, but nothing that, to my knowledge, actually outright breaks the lore, outside contradicting a single terminal entry from Fallout 4 re: when Vault 76 was meant to open.

The biggest one people usually point to is the Brotherhood appearing in Appalachia, but there are actually pretty solid reasons behind the original Appalachian Brotherhood; they were a group of soldiers (Army Rangers, nicknamed 'Taggerdy's Thunder', some of whom had previous served under Arthur Maxon during the Alaskan conflict) stationed in Applachia who Maxon managed to contact using rapidly crumbling satellite infrastructure after the war. Being the charismatic son of a bitch he was, he convinced most of them that his new creed was the only way to move forward. As such, they began operating as a local chapter of the Brotherhood, and continued to do so after their satellite link to the west coast ceased to function. They were tragically wiped out by the Scorched Plague, but not before developing weapons that would be instrumental in defeating the Scorched later on.

The second group of Brotherhood folks to show up in Appalachia, those lead by Paladin Leah Rahimini, are, in fact, from the West Coast; their origin is a wee bit more contrived, but honestly, not all that out of character. Ostensibly, their job was to do two things: first, determine the fate of Taggerdy's Brotherhood chapter. Second, to perform recon across the country on their way to Appalachia, investigating important technological sites, etc. There was a second, slightly more sinister purpose to this, though: Leah, and many of the soldiers who served under her, were frequently insubordinate or disagreed with the choices of the Elders of the Brotherhood. As such, they were never truly expected to reach Appalachia; sending them on this mission was an attempt to remove their 'negative' influence from the Brotherhood proper.

There's honestly a LOT of really cool lore involved. I wasn't a huge fan at first, but a lot of it has grown on me.

76 is aids cancer word word

I want to say 4/10 but I'd argue they aren't retcons and just additions to the pre existing lore. They did shoe horn in some things that rustled peoples jimmies but their explanation is plausible in the game. Most notable being the Brotherhood of Steel being in Appalachia which at first you think its kinda BS considering it was founded on the other side of the country why the hell would they be in this ringy dingy mountain side? BUUUUTT it does make sense how and why they exist in West Virginia (Bear with me here).

Maxson sent out a radio broadcast telling other military installations about the horrors their government was doing to their own people at Mariposa base and some military bases decided to join up arms with their pre war comrades and in a world where everything is in rubble it makes sense to band together.

Q: "But what about the living brotherhood that came back?" A: well when the Lost Hills stopped hearing back from their comrades in the East Maxson sent out a group of his soldiers to go see what happened. Now I admit this is a bit harder to believe because of the fact the whole country got nuked to hell and somehow they made it across the whole way in one piece and relatively short amount of time is kind of a miracle but I digress they're a military faction with training.

"And from what I've seen myself they did move away from the retro futuristic style quite a bit-" You know this game takes place in rural mountain side right? so it is bound to be rural in some areas, but even then there is retrofuturism still in the game, There's a city that's "The City of Tomorrow" with skyscrapers and the whole city is automated by robots that spring out of the ground to help(now kill) people.

If your source of information is a controversial fallout YT that you're hesitant to mention then you probably don't have the best source to be getting your fallout lore and more than likely its going to be very biased, controversial and misleading at best.

Well I mean every Fallout Game messes with some established lore, I mean I am a sucker for the NCR ranger armor, should it be in west virginia before the Ncr had a foothold no but its still fun to run around in.

Well I mean every Fallout Game messes with some established lore, I mean I am a sucker for the NCR ranger armor, should it be in west virginia before the Ncr had a foothold no but its still fun to run around in.

While NCR does manufacture its NCR ranger combat armor its not an exclusive armor to that faction. It existed in prewar times as riot gear and used by the military so its not far fetched to see the armor in other locations around the wasteland.

Being the complete noob I am,gonna ask a question
Was gonna pick up 76 just because but wondering can I add mods to it?