If you ever decide to play Fallout as a pacifist and go through the entire game without killing anyone, you’re using something that shouldn’t exist in the first place.
In a recent video posted on YouTube, Fallout franchise co-creator Tim Kane emphasized that the concept of a pacifist playthrough was included in the original Fallout (1997) by mistake, but the game’s management liked the idea so much that they decided to continue working on it.
Fallout is a post-apocalyptic series in which players must survive in a vast wasteland inhabited by bloodthirsty raiders, grotesque mutants and factions vying for control of resources. It is an inherently brutal game, presenting players with the despair of a world torn apart by nuclear destruction. This is a series that stood at the origins of the genre and has amassed millions of fans over more than twenty-five years.
In his latest video, Tim Kane addresses the concept of a pacifist playthrough. He emphasizes that he is a proponent of this style of play and that when creating games, he tried to always have this concept present. In Fallout, this makes things a little more difficult because there are so many situations that will “require” you to rely on combat and brutal carnage.
In Fallout this happened by accident. We developed the game, made the main quest and everything. And at some point, I guess someone in QA said, “You know, you can play without killing anyone.” It turned out that this was a side effect of the fact that most of the game’s dialogue options did not result in anyone dying.
This idea was then supported by the entire team and several changes were made to increase the ability to play the game with pacifism from end to end. Since then, every Fallout game has supported a pacifist playthrough.
But in a world filled with handheld nuclear launchers, miniguns and gloves made from the claws of huge creatures, do you really want to not kill anything?