games

Where its own analysis falls over is a shift away from Ozymandius and into more familiar tropes typical of post-apocalyptic/fall-of-civilization fiction. The focus shifted away from the juxtaposition and towards an analysis of the people that lived in those ruins. We no longer see the games as a critique of Hubris, but a critique of their world, and (increasingly) a critique of the post-war inhabitants. The pre-war civilization went from haunting to set dressing. It's easy to point to Bethesda for this phenomenon, but (if we're being really honest with ourselves) the problem started in Fallout 2. The game became a franchise, and its own lore began to eclipse the general irony. In the original Fallout the pre-war culture was as alien to the world's inhabitants as it was to ours. Part of what made it work was the very little that was revealed in the bombed-out ruins. Now we have a fairly liberal (yes, even in FO2 and FNV) takes on the human condition, while the player has an encyclopedic knowledge of the pre-war world.

In a very real sense, where does the franchise go from here? Truthfully, nearly all post-apocalypse/fall-of-civilization fiction falls into this trap. Zombie fiction suffers from this phenomenon the most. In Fallout's case, returning to the haunted nature of the old world might breathe new life. It lends itself to a mysticism and reverence by the people living among the ruins.