I have had this thought before and I also wrote about it, not sure when a few years ago, but the thought overcame me last week as I was replaying Fallout 4 on PS5, the PS5 edition and it looked marvelous. Off course I knew most locations and had played it all, but the feeling of getting the upper hand over the wasteland never leaves you. And as such the idea of the expansion came calling like a good Vault-tec sales person. The idea was that an export option on the Fallout shelter is added and that is nearly all that is to it. But the tiny stuff (that Bethesda contributes) comes into play now.

At first I wondered how to incorporate this into the current game. The first thought I had was is how to do this. The idea that a message via a fallout Eyebot is added, when you come within a distance of it, you can pick it up on your radio whenever you are near the Cambridge police station. It will be near there and the eyebolt has up to three keys as you can have 3 vaults in your Fallout Shelter game. Then the nifty part comes. Bethesda has a system to make your 2D map a 3D world. So how to give you a changing challenge? Well I was thinking that if you have only one map there is a 50/50 chance it is P or D (i’ll get to that), if you have 2 vaults, there is a first setting that the first is P/D then for the second is if the first is P you will always get a D, if the first one is D, you get a second chance for the vault of be P or Z. So there is the option of Pristine, Damaged, or Zero. If you have all three used they will one each. Fallout Shelter has 26 levels, as such we get 8 levels per 3D level. So that you have three levels, the last two are added to the deepest level. From there, there is one additional setting. In case of the Pristine version, the Overseer room will have an additional room which is your living room. So the Small, Medium and Large rooms will be set to that exact setting and ‘Bethesdisissed’ onto a 3D spaces. The only other thing is that if you have altered elevators, it will show in the new design as well. So what’s the setting with Pristine?
Well good question, you have up to three versions and it is randomly assigned, so don’t get any bright ideas. Pristine is a shut vault, as such when you open it, everything is new, Damaged and Creatures or Raiders have taken over the vault, the vault is mostly good and you get a new cleaning crew function, when that is done you can add and upgrade the entry point with all kind of goodies (turrets) and you can upgrade the entrance and create a safety entry. At which point the fast travel becomes in the vault. The third setting is Zero. The vault was destroyed (by unknown reasons) and there is an upside. They all have one legendary weapon and legendary armor, in case of the Damaged one, it will be in the boss chest, the Zero and Pristine one will have it in the overseer room (on a mannequin).
The idea is to use DML to create a changing setting on how the rooms are drawn. So you can relive these settings in Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas and Fallout 4 (and Fallout 5) if they ever get to it). A simple setting to add materials to a game and I am surprised that Bethesda didn’t get there on their own. There is no way that scores of Fallout Shelter fans didn’t think that it would be so cool to have this in their games on whatever system you play it.
So Bethesda, don’t say I never give you anything because you are part of Microsoft now. Have a good day and enjoy the challenge you are giving to 230 million gamers (Fallout Shelter was downloaded that much). It was a simple equation and I wasn’t doing too much at present, the AI bubble and the American Tourism setting are starting to bore me.
Have a great day, my midweek is starting with a nice cup of coffee. It’s still Tuesday in Toronto and Vancouver. Time to see the day and seek opportunity.
Fallout, Bethesda, Microsoft, gaming,