Since we’re all replaying Fallout 4 right now anyway, it seems as good a time as any to put together a list of dream settings for the next installment, which will presumably be called Fallout 5 (or potentially Fallout 77). It’ll give us something to mull over as we pick through the ruins of Boston and nearby chunks of Massachusetts. Like with the Grand Theft Auto franchise, knowing the location of each Fallout tells fans a lot: likely spots they’ll visit, the tone of the game, even some of the story elements that will probably be in play, like the kinds of factions they might encounter or the sort of moral quandaries they may face.
Given Todd Howard already confirmed that the series will never leave America, we’ve got plenty of time to speculate. Especially considering Bethesda just released Starfield last year and have Elder Scrolls VI to tie them up until 2026, all while Fallout 4 gets set to celebrate its tenth birthday. On the bright side, the Fallout show just got picked up for a second season and Fallout 5 is a near-certainty. Much like wasteland survivors, we just have to focus on living that long. So, as Nick Valentine would say, “Let’s get this show on the road before more of my face-skin falls off, see?”
[We chose images from games set in the following locations, and not from the Fallout franchise.]
San Francisco
Let’s address S.F. first, and not just because the author of the list lives there. This list is in “what would make an interesting read” order and not preference order, but it’s been rumored that Fallout 5 will be set in San Francisco, and you know what they say about rumors: they’re usually true. Whether it’s a foregone corporate-level decision or legitimate payoff to some of the San Francisco references scattered throughout Fallout 4, it could be fun to crawl across a bombed-out Bay Area. The combination of steep hills and tall buildings in the city itself is perfect for vertical combat, like clearing bombed out rooms from across the chasm with a rock-it launcher. That’s worth mentioning first, because the last time S.F. appeared in the franchise it was two-dimensional. In Fallout 2, we learned that San Francisco survived the Great War — still mostly ruined, of course — as a hub of trading, shipping and technology. The last time we checked in, it was mostly controlled by the Shi, descendants of survivors from a Chinese submarine who expanded and developed the area.
Whether the Fallout 5 writers stayed true to that lore or evolved it, S.F. also has plenty of iconic sights in and around the area to play with and riff on, from Alcatraz the island prison, to the garish tourist trap Fisherman’s Wharf, to the overgrown confines of Golden Gate park, where mutated bison now roam free. Angel Island just offshore features an abandoned military base, although whether that’s swimmable or add-on material, we leave to the developers.
Then there’s the region’s compelling history from the gold rush to its importance in the Pacific theatre campaign of World War II. Like the gang of Elvis impersonators from Fallout: New Vegas, you could run into colorful, area-appropriate factions like bands of crusty, demented prospectors, beat poets that are clearly in a cult, and herds of the filthiest hippies you’ve ever punched to death in a suit of power armor.
As for the series’ signature moral issue at the center of its swirling plotlines, look no further than San Francisco’s key role in Japanese internment camps, when thousands of American citizens were shipped inland and locked up because of their Japanese heritage. Much as Fallout 4 uses smuggling androids as an analogy to update Boston’s historic role as part of the Underground Railroad, the idea of a community under threat from the outside turning on a portion of itself is very Fallout, and maps to sci-fi fairly easily. What if the Shi forge an alliance with the Brotherhood of Steel that requires packing all the city’s ghouls away, feral and friendly alike?
Chicago
Okay, with the projected favorite out of the way, let’s throw the American Midwest a bone for once. The series once stuck in the Southwest has now ventured to the Northeast and South, and even to Alaska in the Fallout 3 add-on Operation Anchorage, but has never come to Chicago, home of Al Capone, John Dillinger, and Roger Ebert. You’re telling me you can’t see yourself running from some throwback mafioso raiders and diving into an abandoned theatre to find two dead skeletons with their thumbs up? That’s as on-brand as a Nuka Cola shirt. We’d also get to tangle with the Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel, an intimidating splinter group who, last we heard, control most of the region.
Aside from being the biggest city in the Midwest, the Windy City has plenty of great stuff to ruin or turn into an armed encampment. It would be pretty fun to get a mission from an NPC who’s taken over the Skydeck in Willis Tower (previously called Sears Tower), the third tallest building in the country. The Skydeck is a big, clear plastic box sticking out the side at the very top – good place for some crazy guy’s throne, just saying. You could rampage through Museum Campus, an area that features the tiered stadium Soldier Field, a planetarium, and aquarium, and multiple museums. Or visit nearby Oak Park and flamethrower a larger collection of Frank Lloyd Wright’s buildings than anywhere else in the world!
From deep dish pizza to corruption in city government to its role as a historic rail hub and “freight handler to the nation,” Chicago has a lot to offer the Fallout formula, like maybe a town built into a trainyard that uses conscripted railway bulls to enforce order and keep outsiders away. But this would also just be a good excuse to check in on a part of the country we haven’t heard much from. Each new region of Fallout‘s America we explore is a mostly-blank canvas, an opportunity for the writers to introduce new ideas and evolve or pay off existing story threads and lore. Center it around a Chinatown-style corruption scandal involving the flow of resources through the city and out to the rest of the wasteland and you’re good to go.
New York City
A franchise set in different corners of America can only resist the pull of New York for so long, which is perhaps also its greatest weakness. We feel like we just swung through a pretty good facsimile of New York as not one, but two Spider-Men. And even if they call it Liberty City, we know what’s up. But a lot of interesting stuff happens when you cram an unthinkable number of people into a relatively small area and leave them there for centuries, and N.Y.C. has that going for it in spades. So let’s recall that we have until 2026 to start worrying about this, and that a New York in ruins is quite different from your standard Times Square simulator.
Zipping right past the obvious set-pieces like sniping from the Statue of Liberty’s torch like on the Civil War poster or jumping from the Empire State Building just to test the ragdoll physics, one reason Manhattan is so fun to gamify is that it’s already famously broken into boroughs, each with its own little personality and local flavor. From a faction of insane thespians holed up on Broadway with thousands of moldering costumes at their disposal, to a syndicate of Wall Street douchebags determined to revive pre-war capitalism at all costs, to a gang of roving cabbies with tire irons — from subway punks to buddhist monks — the creative opportunities are endless.
Speaking of the subway system, it immediately opens up an entire labyrinth of spooky possibilities and fast travel. Stretch a bit further — or condense the geography — and you could explore some of the highlights of the surrounding region, like Niagara Falls, the site of Woodstock, or Adirondack Park, which is bigger than Yellowstone, Glacier, Everglades and Grand Canyon National Parks combined. And given that the area around New York City was host to a third of all Revolutionary War battles, Fallout’s evergreen themes of personal liberty versus the demands of survival and resiliency in the face of war would be exceedingly easy to tap into and weave through the plot.
Seattle
Outside of the Far Harbor add-on, Fallout mostly stays out of the rain. But with the move to Boston for Fallout 4 and Fallout 76’s West Virginia setting, it’s clear that the franchise is evolving into a broader look at various wastelands all across this great nation, rather than just the lower-left desert parts. So why not present a different kind of post-apocalypse? Equally ruined and monotonous to trek through, but this time with the patter of rain instead of the glare of the sun as your constant companion. Plus, Seattle’s known as “the city of goodwill,” which will read really ironic when you splatter the welcome sign with brahmin blood and hang a couple raiders off of it.
Seattle sports a lot of the normal big city things that are fun to ruin, like Pike Place Market, the Space Needle, and a waterfront complete with a giant ferris wheel and aquarium, but the main reason for its Fallout appeal is as the historic site of Boeing. Builders of airplanes, satellites and spacecraft alike, the company hasn’t been too healthy lately, so the post-apocalyptic version could even be an upgrade! Assuming it survived, the Boeing Everett Factory features the world’s largest building by volume, which sounds great for nuking, and more importantly would open the series up to exploring robust flight mechanics and space plotlines for the first time. Maybe make up for Starfield and give us some ships you can actually pilot during takeoff, you know? After flirting with alien visitation for decades, it would be fun to see a mainline game take us to the stars, or at least low orbit.
New Orleans
Wandering St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 looking for clutches of mirelurk eggs to scramble. Setting up a base in the swamp and remembering to include both a fan-boat dock and enough defenses to keep the gatorclaws out. Traversing Louis Armstrong Park while listening to “Kiss to Build a Dream On” through your Pip-Boy. The Big Easy is a city of atmosphere and culture anchoring an area that’s seen its fair share of struggle against widespread devastation. Between regular flooding, hurricanes and swathes of land that are actively sinking (imagine what that’ll look like in the 23rd century), the area is rich with challenge and the kind of vibrant personality that grows from it.
In fact, emergency response and disaster relief are themes that resonate with the history of the region and immediately connect to the Fallout apocalypse. What unique challenges does a community that includes elements of Creole, Cajun, French, and Voodoo cultures have after the bombs drop? What unique assets? New Orleans’ role as a port city and its special connection to Mexico also opens up the possibility of some interesting add-on content, or at least story elements that give us a peek at what’s happening outside the U.S., which the franchise has so far largely shied away from. If nothing else, it’s hard to resist the chance to tune the radio to a jazz classics station and go wild at whatever kind of blood orgy Mardis Gras has become.
I’m a Wanderer
One of the most compelling aspects of the Fallout story has been expanding our knowledge of how each part of America was changed by the bombs. Every region featured has had its own idiosyncrasies, narrative focus, and unique baddies, all of which contribute to one of the most built-out game worlds around. Wherever Fallout 5 is set, you can expect power armor power fantasies, a stellar soundtrack, and a handful of seemingly separate plotlines that all intersect at the end like an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm with radioactive ghouls.
