Fallout 3 lead writer and designer Emil Plagliarulo has talked about the original plan for DC’s Metro underground and lessons the studio learned after it.
I’m replaying fallout 3 now and I do everything I can to avoid the underground metro.
Also, if the lesson learned was “sometimes being realistic isn’t fun,” then what the hell happened with Starfield?
it was even less fun before they reworked some features, allegedly
Huh. I made a big paper map of the metro, because the way it connected to the outdoors was confusing in places. Making that map was pretty fun.
Speaking as someone in the DC Metro Area, it’s no worse than if you have to ride the thing.
Is it still regularly on fire?
yes
It’s not that it wasn’t fun. It just kept insisting I go there so much.
Fallout 3 is a game that desperately needs a remake, instead of a remaster.
The biggest issue with Fallout 3, for me, is that instead of being a big book with a lot of good chapters… its more like a compilation of unconnected short stories.
Almost nothing you do anywhere, affects anything else in any signifncant way. Theres no feeling of the world being connected across its locations, everything feels isolated and contained, like traveling from snowglobe to snow globe… The Karma system and being hunted by regulators/Talon for being too bad/good just feel like slapdash attempts to make consequences…consequential.
But the world spaces could definitely also use a heavy makeover and improvement as well, like the DC metro area. But not only the DC metro area. the whole world space of fallout 3 feels like the bombs fell 30 years ago, not almost 200 years after the bombs fell.
The difficulty and confusion in navigating was my favorite part. It could certainly be refined, but to toss the idea away because of friction is par for Bethesda. They want their gameplay to be as frictionless as possible, which means they sand away anything interesting about them.
