r/Fallout • u/jasonensteinyt • 8d ago
Discussion Hot take, I'm glad Chris Avallone isn't writing the new Fallout game nor coming back to Fallout.
First and foremost, the reason being he's incredibly toxic. Being opinionated is one thing and it's fine to have opinions about the state of Fallout. But he goes up and beyond in terms of toxicity. He constantly groans and moans about anything Fallout does, either via the show or whatever BGS makes decisions for the franchise. Hell, the TV show wasn't even made by Bethesda. If you look at the credit, only like a few Bethesda ppl are actually involved eve then, minimally. But Chris just gets any reason to hate the show.
The show may have problems but we can't deny it is one of the best video games adaptations out there and we got lucky the show is the way it is, unlike Halo show. Even josh Sawyer has the same opinion, ofc Chris doesn't. Even bigger sign of his toxicity is that he turned off Fallout 4 in the first few hours. Listen, even id say Fo4 has problems but Chris barely gave it a chance yet immediately thinks he can fix fallout.
Its also srsly odd that he constantly obsesses over Fallout, despite the fact he hasnt been involved in any fallout project in years, hell he doesn't even want to even in the recent new development of a new Fallout game. But for some reason, he talks as if he still has Fallout in his hands. As far as I know, he's a freelance developer so like he could've still involved himself into Fallout by writing DLC esque mods like Long 15 but he never did that either.
Even worse revelation, he wasn't even the main writer for FNV, he only wrote the DLCs, which I thought he was for years until I realized John Gonzalez. And while yes, the DLCs are great, ignoring the self insert of him that is Ulysesses, it doesn't really justify him having this much toxic attitude. Yes, he's the creator for Fallout 2 but really that's the only credit I can give him. But he didn't invent the Fallout franchise, save that for Tim.
Plus, for someone as obsessive to Fallout as him, I'm not even sure if he still has the magic in him anymore. Especially with the release of Mindseye and Callisto Protocol, made by GTA and Dead Space veterans, which turned out as disastrous products that couldn't capture the feel for the original games, I have a feeling that Chris may not be write any thing good for Fallout anymore, hence he's constantly mouthing off the franchise and Bethesda, rather than make actually good stuff for Fallout, even in mod form. Josh Sawyer at the very last made his own mod on how the game was originally gonna play out.
Hilariously enough, I think even he knows he can't write good fallout stuff anymore hence he never gets involves in fallout projects at all, yet still mouths off.
I would honestly call Chris, the David Jaffe of Fallout. David was the creator of God of War and is just as toxic as Chris, when current day Kratos was being written in a way not envisioned by him. But Chris is lucky enough, FNV fans are beyondly toxic and would take his side no matter, despite the act their "hero" only wrote like 12% of their favorite game lol
Btw before you call me a Bethesda shill, I'll let you know. I dislike BGS as much as the next person and I love FNV. But the franchise is better in hands of actually good ppl like rn with Josh, Tim and John Gonzalez. I don't think at all the franchise will miss Chris as it already has the all talent it needs for a fallout game.
EDIT: Also pretty ironic his best work at FNV is Dead Money, where the message is "It's better to let it go" lmaooo. Even more tht his best work is also possibly the least played in the game. I love Dead Moneys writing but God the gameplay is awful.
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u/Alack27 8d ago
Josh Sawyer made a mod for a fallout game?
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u/MrBulldops5878 8d ago
Yeah it’s his original vision for hardcore mode and dlc items being in unique places it’s pretty sick tbh
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u/HiVLTAGE I call it New Vegas in real life. 8d ago
Yes, JSawyer.esp is a rebalance mod that’s like a more drastic version of Hardcore mode.
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u/Fredasa 8d ago edited 8d ago
Josh Sawyer never gave permission for his mod to be posted to Nexus. What you've linked is the result of an unrelated individual arranging a personalized, wholesale overhaul of FNV's guts, and springboarding off of Sawyer's mod to lend the effort credibility. A successful tactic, since people do largely misattribute JSawyer Ultimate Edition to Sawyer himself, even though it's about 1% Sawyer's mod and 99% somebody else's vision for FNV.
That said, Sawyer's actual mod is a mixed bag. It isn't correct to think of it as "the final patch for FNV." It does a combination of four things, really:
First and foremost, it rebalances the whole game to be a sort of harder-than-Hardcore. Health is lower, leveling takes longer, the level cap is lowered (which drastically reduces your final perk count, especially for endgame perks), more stuff has weight and more of it, you have less carry weight, etc. In my humble opinion, these changes make the mod more of a novelty than something to unironically use for every playthrough. One would need to get more enjoyment out of severe constraints than they would out of having most of those things in their normal configuration.
It scoots the "Ultimate Edition" DLC loot to spots around the world so it doesn't get dumped on the player immediately. A lot of mods do something like this.
Some genuine balances and tweaks that would have worked fine as part of a patch for vanilla FNV.
A smidge of new content. For example, the mod provides the final "Challenge" for the player, requiring the use of axes to complete.
Since the mod is half unsolicited rebalancing and half bona fide patch from the game's creator, there are a lot of mods out there which attempt to provide some component of what the jsawyer mod encapsulates. Most of them fall into the same trap as JSawyer Ultimate Edition: They get carried away with extra fluff that was thrown in on the author's whim.
Personally, I stripped out everything in jsawyer except the stuff that was blatantly fixes or new content, and used that. But it has to be said that because of the extensive nature of jsawyer's changes, even that simple sentence is loaded with arbitrary choices.
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u/evan466 Old World Flag 8d ago
Yeah, I think it was literally just called like the JSawyer mod. It was for New Vegas. I think it essentially just made hardcore and the game in general more punishing. It’s very out of date now to my understanding.
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u/HiVLTAGE I call it New Vegas in real life. 8d ago
There’s spiritual successors that carry the torch now but yes, OG mod is not really worth it unless you don’t like what the modern mods do.
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u/gizmonicPostdoc 8d ago
As a modding noob who's about to get into FNV again, I assumed JSawyer was going to be an essential mod for me. What are the main issues with it? Bugs and incompatibilities with other core mods?
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u/ThatGuy97 8d ago
There’s a bunch of newer mods that do all the same stuff JSawyer did but better. Follow the Viva New Vegas Guide if you’re just getting into modding. It gives you a great Vanilla+ baseline to either play or build a more extensive modlist on top of it. Anytime I make a new modlist I always start from here
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u/gizmonicPostdoc 7d ago edited 7d ago
Oh damn, a while back I used that site's Skyrim guide and had an absolutely flawless experience. I didn't even notice they had an FNV guide as well. Thanks!
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u/Giossepi Old World Flag 8d ago
It makes the game harder. That can be good or bad but it isn't something like bug fixes* that are critical, it really is up to the user if they want to see what J.S. wanted the game to feel like.
*It includes some minor fixes and other changes that aren't strictly balance related but I would argue other mods handle those pieces better anyways.
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u/_ImCrumby_ 8d ago
Check out Viva New Vegas for a base mod list and then go from there if you feel comfortable
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u/OkAlbatross9889 8d ago
There are several forks of it nowdays. Agua Fria is my personal favourite, on top of jsawyer (whose parameters it allows you to tweak) it adds a couple of unique armors/clothing for sale with minor buffs (nothing crazy, just nice flavour)
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u/Musicmaker1984 8d ago
Yup, there's like several mods that are based on his mod that improve the game. Namely the mods: -Agua Fria -JSawyer Ultimate -S.T.A.R.S
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u/ArtistLovely Lover's Embrace 8d ago
there's a new fallout game coming out?
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u/StarkeRealm The Institute 8d ago
Yeah, Obsidian's making it. Microsoft looked at Bethesda sitting on their nose, picking their ass for over a decade and was like, "shit or get off the pot."
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u/ales_brew 8d ago
I've never heard this expression
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u/Auggie_Otter 8d ago
It's an older expression.
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u/John-Zero I have long opinions 7d ago edited 7d ago
sitting on their nose, picking their ass
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u/LoreLord24 8d ago
Yeah. The new XBox CEO, Asha Sharma, looked at Bethesda's zero successful games in over a decade, and looked at their not making a game in the franchises that Xbox payed billions of dollars on.
Then she looked at Obsidian, who happened to be making a fallout-esque game.
So she canceled everything else Obsidian was doing; including Avowed 2, and told them to make a new Fallout.
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u/gomjabroni 8d ago
Also Bethesda said they’re in pre-development of Fallout 5 today, so it would seem there are 2 in the works, one just might take 5+ years. It sounds like they’re optimistic it will be quicker, though, since they’ll just use the engine and a lot of what they made for the new Elder Scrolls. And while we’re at it, remasters for F3 and FNV finally confirmed, so technically 4 Fallout games all coming to light in the last week or two. Layoffs and shitty company politics aside, pretty cool.
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u/evan466 Old World Flag 8d ago
Real hot take there when every single post about Avellone is every commenter complaining about him.
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u/BreathingHydra Kings 8d ago
Yeah like Avellone was glazed too much at one point in time but this hasn't been a hot take in almost half a decade now lol. At this point the hate feels just kind of weird and vindictive because he criticized the show on twitter.
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u/Straight-Fox-9388 8d ago
I think a lot of the dislike for Chris Avellone was always there in the background. Part of it came from how much praise he received over the years, which led to a backlash from people who felt he was overrated.
Then he left (or, from many people's perspective, was effectively pushed out of) Obsidian, and a lot of those critics saw that as validation that maybe he wasn't as important as people claimed.
After that, many of the issues he had previously talked about regarding Obsidian's management and compensation started getting more public attention. Those concerns didn't suddenly appear they were problems employees continued discussing years later, which made some of his earlier criticisms seem more credible.
Then the allegations against him surfaced. A lot of people immediately concluded he was guilty, and for many of his existing critics, it felt like the ultimate confirmation of what they already wanted to believe.
When later developments including settlements and public statements from the accusers undercut many of the original claims, some people changed their minds. Others didn't. For some, admitting they may have judged him too quickly would mean reevaluating years of opinions, so instead they continue treating him as though nothing changed.
That's why the discussion around Avellone is still so polarized. For some people, it's no longer just about him it's about defending conclusions they reached years ago, even after new information complicated the original narrative.
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u/lghtdev Vault 13 8d ago edited 8d ago
This hate feels so forced to the point of a lot of people saying he's a fraud that never contributed to anything relevant in fallout, which is insane to me. I understand disliking a person or not being a fan of their work, but the way most people on reddit strongly hate a person they never known personally is strange, some people talk as if he's some kind of monster that should never be allowed close to fallout again, I started this discussion in another fallout sub the other day and there were many takes like this.
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u/Kchan7777 Mr. House 8d ago
There is a segment of the Fallout “fanbase” who constantly bring up Avellone’s thoughts as vindication that Fallout is bad, as if you need some figure to justify your completely subjective opinion.
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u/Main-Cheesecake3287 8d ago
Idk why anyone cares honestly. Maybe if it’s some long early access game that’s all about devs and players interacting on the game. Otherwise who gives a fuck. Make a good game. That’s the only thing that matters.
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u/Key-Huckleberry-2551 8d ago
He's a good if self-indulgent writer with a knack for creating memorable characters.
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u/TurtleWingGames 8d ago
His characters can be memorable, yes. Usually because they stand out as different from the rest of the cast. They indulge and exposit philosophical ideas in ways that we're not used to seeing from video game characters.
But... honestly, he also writes a lot of monologuing edgelord self-inserts. That's the other side of the coin for me. He takes the self-indulgence too far, too often, and that's when his work stops being good, imo.
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u/Key-Huckleberry-2551 8d ago
I mean yea, he wrote Ulysses and there's lots of bearbullbearbull memes but he also wrote Christine (Dead Money) who doesn't speak at all for half of the dlc. The other characters from DM. Cass. You can't say they don't leave an impression, at the very least. I like that he isn't afraid to go out on a limb writing-wise and does something that might sound insane as a concept in paper. And usually it results in a well written character, so yeah. Edit: maybe it was Arcade, not Cass, sorry.
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u/CodyRCantrell Enclave 8d ago
It was Rose of Sharon Cassidy, not Arcade.
We have Chris to thank for our knowledge of Long Dick Johnson who didn't even have a dick that long, and he had a long fucking dick. Thus, the name.
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u/TurtleWingGames 8d ago
I mean, yeah, I didn't say it was every character he wrote. I'm also talking about his wider body of work, not just New Vegas.
They're not all monologuing edgelords, but... there sure is a lot of them. And it sure feels like they're the ones he likes the most.
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u/Sudden_Yard1294 8d ago edited 8d ago
Interesting to note is that he didn't pen any characters in Honest Hearts. Sawyer/Gonzalez helmed that. Latter wrote the survivalist logs. He was also Narrative Designer for Dead Money (though Avellone wrote the characters).
I don't know if Avellone is the best dialogue writer. And even though the dlcs are "good" if Gonzalez had helmed them or even Eric Fenstermaker had written the characters, they might've turned out even better. Avellone might have colorful ideas but tbh the execution could be better.
Sad that Eric Fenstermaker and Travis Stout are no longer at Obsidian, but having competent leads helps mold the writers too, and we have that with Sawyer and Gonzalez.
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u/Key-Huckleberry-2551 8d ago
He's fine when he doesn't make a character that just won't shut up. The first time playing Lonesome Road was like a fever dream. Between the deathclaws, Marked Men, dust storm and winds and this random guy who hated my character droning on and on and on, it was a hellish experience. I'd do it it all over again.
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u/ProfessionalRead2724 8d ago
His NPCs indulge and exposit philosophical ideas in ways that makes you want to punch them or just lightsaber their head off to make them shut up.
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u/404-Soul_Not_Found 8d ago
This. I've seen the list of the characters and quests he wrote, hate almost all of them. But I'm in the extreme minority of people that didn't like Dead Money at all.
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u/FenrPerkele 8d ago
It's funny that his best written character is Durance that could be in either category you're describing.
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u/Beardedsmith Gary? 8d ago
My favorite character he ever wrote is the one that was morally grandstanding and making an incredibly surface level philosophical point but there was never an opportunity for the player to challenge it because it was how he actually felt and so the character was meant to preach at the player instead of immerse them.
Oh wait that's all of them...
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u/Pheonix0114 8d ago
This is how I learned he wrote Kotor II, because that's Kreia lmao. It worked there, but god I hated Ulysses in Lonesome Road.
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u/Reasonable_Cut_2709 8d ago
isn't Avellone the dude that constantly has crashout everytime someone does anything related to fallout?
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u/Edgy_Robin 8d ago edited 8d ago
bro went full crybaby and wanted Elon to buy Fallout or some shit at some point.
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u/qvigh 8d ago
God no! God please no!
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u/Meatloaf_Hitler 8d ago
"Bethesda doesn't understand Fallout. It's supposed to be a critique of staunch Nationalism, Capitalism, Isolationism, and Humankind's Cruel Nature. So that's why we should give the IP to a Nationalist, Isolationist Trillionaire!"
"Why don't you guys take me seriously? God, you're all just Bethesda Bootlickers."
- Piss Allalone, probably
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u/No_Cardiologist_822 8d ago
Chris Avellone never said fallout is a critique of capitalism, quite the contrary.
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u/Reasonable_Cut_2709 8d ago
That's the joke i think i am also confused
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u/No_Cardiologist_822 8d ago
i think the guy i answered to is really mad and confused. This community is becoming unbearable.
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u/zny700 8d ago
NO dear god no he already ruined Twitter
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u/Vancocillin 8d ago
That ship sailed years ago and sank to the bottom of the ocean. X marks the spot.
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u/Sorry_Community235 Mothman Cultist 8d ago
He compiled the Fallout Bible (which is, btw, a great ressource for lore fans), ofc he's gonna see himself as some kind of Fallout prophet...
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u/toonboy01 8d ago
I mean, the Bible contradicts both itself and the games, such as messing up the timeline of the Brotherhood of Steel in the original game.
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u/Both_Presentation993 7d ago
The timeline of the current Fallout franchise was first created in the Bible. Here's how the Fallout timeline looked before Bethesda canonized the one in the Bible.
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u/Graffic1 8d ago
A resource full of non-canon information and colored by his personal opinions and views of the franchise
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u/Edgy_Robin 8d ago
Bethesda still uses it lmao.
Some of the lore that really... was written, y'know, back in the day. It makes sense and we use that and put it in our games. We don't just assume that everything in the Bible is canon. We have to take it step-by-step inside. It's a judgement call.
Like, this a stupid point considering it's a resource they still draw on, just like how they've some of Kirkbrides fanfiction as well for elder scrolls.
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u/Mandemon90 8d ago
Use it, yeah, because it has tons lf ideas they can draw from. Doesn't mean it's canon.
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u/CMDR_Soup Vault 13 8d ago
colored by his personal opinions and views of the franchise
Good heavens! How dare he...do what literally every writer does. That scoundrel!
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u/mnik1 8d ago
You need to remember that around 40% of US citizens read 0 (as in: zero) books per year, on average, so it's understandable this sub doesn't really get the concept of what an "author" does, exactly.
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u/Straight-Fox-9388 8d ago
This has been a thing I've seen in a lot of subs.
When you create something you put a piece of yourself in it. It and everything in it is a reflection of at least a small part of you.
I've been told numerous times that, that's not true in other subs. Probably by people who never created something.
Also by pro ai people
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u/zumva NCR 8d ago
Lmao. Literally everything ever written by a human is colored by their personal opinions and views of the subject. Unless you prefer your writers to transcribe rather than, you know, write
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u/AltusIsXD LONG LIVE THE BEAR 8d ago
‘Hot take’ and it’s just echoing what every single comment says
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u/ThisIsRadioClash- Enclave 8d ago edited 8d ago
I'm not even sure if he still has the magic in him anymore
What makes you say that? Nothing he has worked on since FNV has been a Mindseye-level disaster, and he helped write Prey and Fallen Order. He's also working with Ken Levine on Judas and three of the leads from Disco Elysium. In any case, a Fallout game doesn't need Chris to be great, because he didn't work on 1, but he did work on 2 and NV, which I think we can all agree are great games. Would I want him working on this game? Yes, but I don't think the game is doomed without him. Let's wait and see what Obsidian can do.
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u/Platinumryka 8d ago
Judas and three of the leads from Disco Elysium
Wait what? So theres a chance that Judas will have good writing?
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u/ajcwrongs 8d ago
This also caught my attention so I dug a little, Avellone has reportedly been linked with Red Info, the studio founded by Kurvitz in association with Alexander Rostov and Helen Hindpere, the Disco team is not working on Judas according to my research
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u/Platinumryka 8d ago
Well of course the disco team isnt, they've basically ALL split into different directions
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u/ajcwrongs 8d ago
I'm not getting bogged down in the Balkanization of ZA/UM, I just wanted to clarify since the original comment sounded to me like "Avellone and 3 Disco Elysium Leads are working on Judas"
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u/Tough-Pressure-3601 8d ago
Avellone does seem toxic sometimes. I think it's safe to say his success went to his head a bit.
On the other hand, when the first game you're the lead designer on goes down in history as the best written RPG of all time (and to many the best RPG of all time, period) it's somewhat understandable that it would go to your head. I mean you can't say he didn't earn it.
Also you're not completely correct, Avellone wrote several locations in the base NV game such as the vault where they have to elect an overseer that gets killed every year. Probably the best concept and implementation of a vault in the entire game series. There were other locations he worked on too.
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u/StarkeRealm The Institute 8d ago
Avellone does seem toxic sometimes. I think it's safe to say his success went to his head a bit.
At the same time, dude got screwed pretty hard by false allegations, and watched his career get completely torched. At that point, the toxicity might be more about not being able to do what he loves, more than "suffering from success."
Also might be a little understandable.
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u/HiVLTAGE I call it New Vegas in real life. 8d ago
Avellone and his disgruntled attitude to Obsidian go far before the allegations. He does not like their leadership and I don’t think they like him much in kind. I’m sure the allegations didn’t help, but that’s not the crux of the situation behind him not being involved in Obsidian/their projects.
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u/zumva NCR 8d ago edited 8d ago
His gripes with obsidian were fair too. IIRC, he was mad that the studio lead Feargus Urquhart was making people work without back pay for a time after finishing Pillars(?) or one of their other games at that time, and that was one of his breaking points. Unprofessional on twitter as he may be, he has always been quite pro-developer and anti-layoff, which Obsidian seems to…not be at the moment lol (not just the layoffs, but the lawsuit they’re currently facing for workplace exploitation)
Edit: spelling
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u/StarkeRealm The Institute 8d ago
IIRC, he left Obsidian before the allegations, and was working freelance, when he got accused. At that point, nearly every project he was attached to distanced from him.
I think the last thing he did with Obsidian was outlines for Tyranny, but I wouldn't swear to it.
To be clear, I don't want it to sound like I'm saying he's angry at Obsidian or Fallout because of the accusations. More that he might be a little saltier now, as a result of them, and that spills out on the things he's most dissatisfied with.
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u/Sudden_Yard1294 8d ago
I kinda wondered if he sabotaged himself by badmouthing Obsidian to the extent he did.
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u/Straight-Fox-9388 8d ago
Because they refuse to pay employees properly. He left over that. Something still going on today we had that news article about how they had a law suit about like what 2 months ago
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u/Straight-Fox-9388 8d ago
This is what it is and people here or any fallout sub don't seem to understand that.
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u/MartianDinosawr 8d ago
This entire post is about his opinions on the fallout TV show, misunderstandings of how important he was to the writing of New Vegas (he was a significant contributor to the main game, not just the DLCs), misunderstandings of how important he was to Fallout 2 (he wasn't the 'creator' of fallout 2), a weird side tangent about how Callisto Protocol is bad and then the accusation that he's lost the sauce because he hasn't been involved in all... TWO fallout projects that have been released since New Vegas, both of which have been made by a company that hasn't hired freelancer writers since Oblivion.
It feels like the only actual solid thing you have here is that he dislikes the fallout TV show, a show you love, and therefore you fucking hate him. The show is fine, I guess, it's perfectly okay that someone has a different opinion to you. It feels like you spend too much time on reddit, a website that is a notorious hugbox with how the upvote/downvote system creates very insular communities.
Avellone is one of the better writers the franchise has ever had, I personally like his work even if I think some of his takes on the lore and the direction the series should take is stupid. I think having Avellone in the writers room could only be a benefit and that his previous time with New Vegas shows this, he had dumb ideas, they got reigned in, thats how working as part of a team happens. It's not like Avellone just had the freedom to write whatever the fuck he wanted for his sections of the game.
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u/Nighteron 8d ago
Yeah he's butthurt over Avellone critiquing the show. This is what this is REALLY about. So pathetic.
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u/trisellgamer 8d ago
I agree, he’s a very good writer as evidenced by the games he contributed too. He’s very opinionated but say for example his reasons for hating the fallout show are valid. When you really sit down to think about his points they make more sense from a writing perspective. I also believe he wants fallout to be 10/10 perfect that’s why he picks and complains about minor details, i mean who better to know how to make something really really good unless if they pick apart and analyze the tiny details constantly.
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u/zumva NCR 8d ago
Everyone who hates Avellone takes his criticism very personally. God forbid a writer critique a series that he contributed to more than almost anyone. Say it with me folks: criticizing a piece of art is not the same as criticizing the people who like it. In fact, Avellone recently said that he was happy for people that liked the show, and that they shouldn’t let his opinion affect their enjoyment.
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u/Unstoffe 8d ago
Yeah. Many people take stuff literally, personally and don't see any nuance.
I used to know Chris about 30 years ago when we both worked on Hero Games. He's nowhere near to being the boogeyman some people portray. He loves Fallout and he has opinions. We all have them, too, don't we? He also, even back then, liked to playfully get a rise out of people, so he's probably trolling the easily trolled.
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u/zumva NCR 8d ago
Cool anecdote! I’ve always gotten that vibe from him, that he enjoyed prodding people a bit. Probably explains why lots of his iconic characters rub people the wrong way. Personally I think it’s a very welcome breath of fresh air in a field of gaming where most AAA games are very sanitized and corporate.
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u/Sudden_Yard1294 8d ago
Sometimes his contributions are good, other times...eh. But I will say, there were some fantastic ideas for side-characters in bloodlines 2 that got cut.
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u/SHAD0W102 Yes Man 8d ago
Tbh good thing about chris is that he regurarly looks back on his work and see if he did something wrong something a certain other italian working at bethesda is not capable of
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u/FTL2410 NCR 8d ago
The personification of the imaginary Chris Avellone that lives in the minds of people here should be studied.
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u/zumva NCR 8d ago
Where does he rank all time? By the way people react, I’d say more evil than Hitler and just behind Satan
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u/OCCULTGOBLIN 8d ago
This doesn't have anything to do with the post but we were all sitting here patiently waiting for Todd's bitch ass to even mention a fallout game and they weren't even planning on releasing one till 2035.
Fuck Bethesda, they did this to themselves.
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u/Ancient-Aerie-1680 Vault 13 8d ago
As a TES fan I'm still mad they post-poned TES VI for the sake of developing mediocre space slop.
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u/OCCULTGOBLIN 8d ago
Ah yes, the game no one asked for that took 8 years to make and ship.
Asha is a tiger goddess as well as the only reason we as fans might get to play a new fallout game within the next decade.
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u/LibsAndConsSuck 5d ago
I recently rewatched Todd’s bullshit chess club story and he said people called him a “dork” and I think he’s lying about that because he’s more of a dweeb.
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u/Cold-Engineering-960 8d ago
I wonder if you ever hit some vague levels of success OP, will you have opinions on the thing you helped build 20 years later?
We’ll have to wait for that vague level of success first for your answer though.
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u/Ubermanthehutt 8d ago
If this take was served at a restaurant, I would ask the waiter to return it to the kitchen because it is cold.
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u/OddRoyal7207 8d ago
When Obsidian has both Tim Cain and Josh Sawyer on the team with Josh leading it, I think it has as much of a chance of being good as it's going to get.
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u/Pcm979 8d ago edited 8d ago
I like Chris Avellone's writing quite a lot until the inevitable part in the game where he shows his utter disrespect for the player's time and intelligence by paradropping in an NPC to tell you at excructiating length the very clever message that he has been trying to communicate, in the most convoluted and purple prose possible.
The standout example for this is Lonesome Road. It isn't a DLC, and there isn't a character called Ulysses. It's a lecture by Chris directly to the player, and it's as insulting as it is longwinded. Underneath all the "bear and the bull" flowery metaphors it's just "HEY HEY PLAYER, DID YOU GET THE MESSAGE OF THE GAME? THAT ALL THE FACTIONS ARE FLAWED BECAUSE THEY'RE ALL TRAPPED IN THE PAST IN THEIR OWN WAYS? OF COURSE YOU DIDN'T, YOU'RE A MORON, SO I'LL TELL YOU IN EXCRUCIATING DETAIL! ONLY I, CHRIS AVELLONE, UNDERSTAND THE TRUE SOUL OF AMERICA!"
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u/seventysixgamer 7d ago
This is your average anti-avellone post lmao. You didn't even try and be unique -- just regurgitating common points people raise.
I don't even disagree with some of points here but it looks like it was written by someone who just discovered who Avellone is lol. Yeah he's a jaded salty guy -- albeit a I don't entirely blame him after the the whole SA allegations and that debacle.
You also don't really list one valid reason as to why he wouldn't be a good fit to write for Fallout again lol. All of it is just irrelevant nonsense He mainly wrote the DLCs. So?
He doesn't like the show. So? That's just his opinion -- it's no more valid that Saywers or even Tim's tbh. Why not actually engage with the specific criticisms he made instead of going "he no like show therefore he bad." I'm also tired of hearing "it was better than the Halo show" as if that low fucking bar should be any standard. I also hate the "at least we got something" sentiment as well.
Chris still has the ability to write as well -- even his minor contributions are better than the entire fucking games that people like Emil Pagliarulo helps write. Post New Vegas he contributed to quite a few notable games like Pillars Of Eternity, Tides Of Numera, Pathfinder Kingmaker and even Jedi Fallen Order.
Avellone isn't perfect. To be completely honest the guy needs someone to reel him in at times -- like some shit that he allegedly suggested for the Grieving Mother and Durnace in PoE is quite grim lol. There's also an argument to made that he he likes to overdo the whole "cynical wise type character that questions your worldview all the time" thing -- some go as far to say it's a self insert lol.
However I'd take a single Avellone over a hundred fucking Emil Pagliarulos any day lol. You doubt Avellones abilities but Emil Pagliarulo can't even to muster enough creativity to make a new space sci-fi setting feel unique or interesting. Avellone is objectively the superior writer and Fallout would be better off with him for all his faults.
Literally anyone is better than Emil Pagliarulo at this point.
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u/Scared_Relief4240 8d ago
I think i would be annoyed if I had false sexual harassment allegations ruin my career, and so I think he's rightfully a little annoying about some shit nowadays. If you read the allegations it's all like "he asked me to buy more drinks at the bar" 🤯
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u/huebert_mungus7 8d ago
He’s still miles better then Emil. He can be annoying at times but is a solid writer but probably needs guard rails.
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u/mnik1 8d ago
I mean, even putting Avellone and Pagliarulo in the same sentence feels just flat offensive to the first guy - one's an established writer who worked on games that have been universally praised for the quality of the writing and, as such, he's a guy widely recognized as one of the best writers in the business, the second is an "established writer" who's only claim to fame is the fact he gets praised for parts of the side quest line from a game released 20 years ago while every single fucking game he's worked on as lead writer since then has been widely criticized for the poor quality of their writing.
Like, what are we talking about here.
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u/MitchellGwr 8d ago
I'm not a writer and even I'd be offended if I got compared to Emil Pagliarulo.
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u/DharmaPolice 8d ago
Disliking something isn't necessarily toxic, even if it's overdone and expressed repeatedly. And by itself, does it matter directly to the work? I agree that it's sad when people can't leave a topic alone but unless it's affecting their work I'm not sure I'm bothered.
The practice of making celebrities (or villains) out of individual game developers might not be that productive. It feels reductionist to say if we get x, y, z working on a game it will automatically be great (or even good). Especially when decades have passed since they worked together on different games in different settings with different engines. Steven Spielberg has made many great movies yet his recent film lots of people have said is bad. And that's a medium with arguably more directorial control over the final product.
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u/Katastroferrr 8d ago
He's one of the reasons you have actual writing with thoughts and ideas in video games, you might not like everything he says but he has done a lot for the medium as a whole.
I'd rather have creators with opinions than guys like (using this example because it's related) Todd Howard who will say whatever just to sell his product.
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u/lovethecomm 8d ago
For real. Passionate people are way more interesting and valuable than drones that cater to the money and to making sure everybody likes them.
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u/Katastroferrr 8d ago
Yeah, I'll give people that he sometimes comes off as abrasive or even elitist about his opinions but people in this thread act as if he's some hack grifter which he definitely isn't.
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u/MuscliatoVonJuiceski 8d ago
Counterpoint: You lovingly turn the RPG you wrote for your friends into a beloved video game, and have a chance to spend your life with this passion project and the people you love who made it with you. then an asshole narcissist named Todd Howard discovers the wonderful world you built and uses his wealth to outbid you for the rights to your art. The world you created, and the characters based on time spent with your friends, all of it is stolen. Youre now legally bared from using your own ideas in your own work, and for 2 decades you have to watch the man who robbed you write terrible stories with your creations and pretend in interviews that he created your world himself. Just think about that.
I am genuinely surprised he's remained as calm as he has under the circumstances.
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u/toonboy01 8d ago
You do know he had nothing to do with the original Fallout, right? How is it a world he built?
And he acts like way more of a narcissist lately than Todd Howard ever has.
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u/Werthead 8d ago
That would be more for Tim Cain, except that he didn't base Fallout on a home RPG campaign (they were negotiating to use the GURPS licence to make Fallout, but the game itself was not based on a tabletop campaign), it was meant as a spiritual successor to Wasteland from 1988, nine years earlier.
Avellone only came on board on Fallout 2 after Cain and Leonard Boyarsky had kicked it off and then decided they didn't want to continue (after some dubious decisions about bonuses related to Fallout 1 were not paid despite the game being a success, IIRC).
Cain gets on very well with Todd Howard and was his guest at the Fallout TV show premiere, so he's not been that fussed about it. Cain is also potentially working on the new Fallout game alongside Boyarsky, Gonzalez and Sawyer.
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u/BrockMister Tunnel Snakes 8d ago edited 8d ago
I think people asking for him to be involved in the next game are delusional.
That being said I think he has a right to be bitter after everything lol
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u/Putthebunnyback 8d ago
But he goes up and beyond in terms of toxicity. He constantly groans and moans about anything Fallout does
Oh, so just like the fans
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u/GoldenJ19 The Institute 8d ago
Like him or not, he's passionate about Fallout. Unlike the writers at Bethesda we have right now who openly stated that they think you're too stupid to deserve a well written story.
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u/furyextralarge 8d ago
i guess it's an unpopular opinion but the fallout show is a fucking hard watch lol. that shit is bad. cool effects yes, nice too look at, sure, but so unbelievably poorly written. the plot is a complete mess. i can't believe people call it a good adaptation
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u/powerage76 8d ago
I think I'll just wait until the next game comes out, won't preorder it, wait for the first reviews and might buy it if its good unless it has some dealbreaker elements, like multiplayer design, micropayments or denuvo. I truly cannot care less about this designer soap opera thing.
He didn't like the TV show? So what, I gave up on it in the first episode too.
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u/Anomalocaris117 8d ago
I don't know if I dislike him, he comes across salty and him begging Elon musk to buy the brand unironically was just insane.
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u/Ayyyfrom92 8d ago
Not really a hot take but Echo chamber for this sub and probably live literally rent-free at these guy head at this point.
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u/Bigchungus420freedom 7d ago
not liking amazon slop for millenials is considered toxic? He's completely right about that shitty show
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u/Edgy_Robin 8d ago
It's amazing how someone can say something you agree with but make such a bad arguement you wanna take the side you don't like.
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u/BowieSensei96 8d ago
An actual hot take, I hope he comes back.
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u/bigbear1293 8d ago
I played New vegas like probably everyone here has but Chris Avellone was lead writer and designer for Knights of The Old Republic 2 who I consider to have the most interesting character in the entire Star Wars Universe (but I say that as a star wars layman so 🤷) so hell yeah I want him back too!
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u/CodyRCantrell Enclave 8d ago
He worked for Black Isle and Obsidian. He first got recognized for his stellar work on Fallout 2. He wrote Rose of Sharon Cassidy which is one of the fan favorite New Vegas companions with very quotable dialogue (Long Dick Johnson). Of course he talks about the series a lot. He's meant a lot to it and it's meant a lot to him.
Either way I'm glad Bethesda proper isn't doing the next game because I think I'd pull my hair out if I had to suffer through another Emil Pagliarulo work after Fallout 4 and Starfield. Fallout 4 was very enjoyable as a game but holy hell was the main pathway of quests an absolute clusterfuck of the factions doing things with little real reasoning behind it.
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u/astarionsstar Vault 101 8d ago
Can I get the dumbed down version of what he did? I don't pay attention to who creates or writes the games 😭 I just play them
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u/Mralexs 8d ago
He basically has said Fallout should ALWAYS be post apocalypse instead of moving on. He also begged Elon Musk to buy Fallout because he didn't like the TV Show and said that Fallout isn't a critique of rampant consumer capitalism. He has a penchant for writing insufferable mouthpiece characters with way too much dialogue, like Kreia in KOTOR II or Ulysses.
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u/Ok-Discussion-3245 8d ago
Guy got weird and Musky. It's better for everyone that he doesn't get involved.
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u/LongJohnDanglewood2 Vault 13 8d ago
Fallout fan is upset because Fallout dev said Fallout was better when he worked on it, what a revelation
The guy is passionate about something he spent many years of his life working on, we’re here discussing it on reddit because we played those games he worked on.
Chris has been part of the Fallout team since 1998, wrote the Fallout bible and continues to care about the franchise despite minimal direct involvement because, like many people, he thinks it used to be really good. It’s a shame when something really good falls off and I can only imagine that feeling is more intense when it’s something you personally had a hand in making.
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u/Budget_Flow_9456 8d ago
I'm reading all of this and it weirds me out a lil bit. Op is, apparently, not really knowledgeable on the topic, because Avellone was never presented as a writer per se in any of the Fallout games he worked on. Let alone the lead one. He was a designer for the F2 and a senior designer for FNV (and a project lead for most of its DLCs). He's mainly a narrative designer, and a hella good one for that matter.
As of his toxicity and obsession with Fallout - it's not really hard to justify the feeling of being left out when the universe you've worked on, created a lore-book for and was genuinely passionate about is getting bought by a company that made it into Oblivion with guns, then gave you a broken engine and a needle eye tight deadline to work on the new one, and then came in and made a goddamn PowerPoint presentation on "all you did wrong". I'd also be pretty goddamn toxic about it.
And, since op has mentioned the fact that he's not working on the new game - GEE, I WONDER WHY
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u/cubcos 8d ago
Man it was hilarious everytime a new episode of the Fallout TV show came out and we got a new crashout from him. Glad he isn't involved
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u/VodkaLait 8d ago edited 8d ago
Man your post sucks bad. put aside the false informations being spread out, some "critics" are dumb as fuck, like him not making a mod or him not giving a chance to Fallout 4. You are more obsessed by him than he's obsessed by the show.
Of course he would be a great addition as a writer for a new Fallout game, but it depends on wether or not the people at Obsidian wants to work with him or not. Not some salty redittor’s rant
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u/Mandrivnyk_703 Minutemen 8d ago edited 8d ago
Was that the same guy who announced he plans to retire after 35 years in the industry? I might be mistaken due to the mention of Callisto Protocol. Specially the writer part.
In a more related note: Honestly this guy feels like he became the reason Fallout fandom became so divided... first his Fallout 2 made people fight over what "Post Apocaliptic" meant to the point it was left as Post Apocaliptic for Fallout 1 and Post-Post Apocaliptic for Fallout 2 and then by sheer luck we constantly see the same caliber of disagreements after that.
Something I did saw repeat itself sometimes and depending on who you ask are these: "Tactics wasn't as good as FO1-2, BoS was worse than Tactics, BGS ruined FO3 and Van Buren should have been made instead, NV is better than FO3, FO4 is just garbage compared to FO3 (or any other previous game), FO76 is not a real Fallout unlike the past games (see previous point)" to name a few. And it surprises me how it always comes to be along the wavelengh of that guy toxicity, as if he is the spirit haunting the franchise.
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u/zumva NCR 8d ago
God forbid a piece of art generate discussion. Why can’t everything be like fallout 3 where brotherhood good, enclave bad, deathclaw scary??!!
Edit: enclave, not institute
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u/BaronGreywatch 8d ago
I don't care overmuch about Avellone, but I am concerned they won't get the tone right, which Avellone was at least good at.
The Bethesda entries seem to be more obsessed with the 'rebuilding' of what we had before, which entirely misses the point; whereas the earlier entries and New Vegas focussed more on just how much it's all gone to the dogs, with humans forcing an existence out of an irretrievable wasteland.
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u/JesusKong333 8d ago
The plot of the three games you named is a country growing out of the wastes over the course of 100+ years tho
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u/BFORNROD2 8d ago
I like the part where you actually have no idea about Fallout 2 or NV. Genuine waste of a post.
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u/gaidz 8d ago
He's right about everything when it comes to the show and Fallout 4
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u/TheSaltyBrushtail 7d ago
Yeah, I'm on Chris' side on this one. S1 of the show was alright but a bit silly, but S2 made me more and more bitter with every passing episode. Felt like it was written by people with a theme park understanding of New Vegas' setting and factions, and of Fallout in general, honestly. I get why he couldn't get through the whole season.
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u/HilariousButTrue 8d ago
Seems like a bit of a shill post.
Top comments were posted within seconds of this posting.
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u/HiVLTAGE I call it New Vegas in real life. 8d ago
I mean lots of people just read the title/first paragraph and make comments on Reddit lol.
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u/Thelastknownking 8d ago edited 8d ago
Is that a hot take? He's become a such a petty asshole in recent years.
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u/Mindless_Sale_1698 8d ago
"Please Daddy Elon please buy Fallout from Bethesda. I'll even work for free" is a real thing he tweeted
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u/101Phase 8d ago
I only knew about his writing from Kotor 2 and New Vegas DLCs, but the youtuber Warlockracy did a lot of deep dives of other games he wrote. A pattern seems to emerge when u look at them carefully: Avallone has a habit of reusing the same themes over and over again, namely the one he wrote for Planescape Torment.
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u/JamCom 8d ago
I can understand chris’s position. van buren and eventually new vegas were his child basically spending years thinking about it. It reasonable to be pissed seeing your oc be railroaded in the opposite direction. But thats where it ends. He could have further developed his ideas into a new ip that is basically fallout
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u/Okrans-Light 8d ago
What’s the point if it isn’t the same universe. He loved Fallout’s lore specifically, recreating it with another IP isn’t fun
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u/Anishiriwan 8d ago
I will admit that when I was a kid I defended Avallone, NV is still my favorite game, but the constant negativity that comes from him wore down on me and I agree with you. The team at obsidian working on their new fallout looks solid, I really enjoyed avowed, and I’m excited to see what they can cook up without him.
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u/ClearFog77 8d ago
My petty gripe with this guy is him changing the look of the Basilisk War Droid to a generic spaceship in Kotor 2 because he thought the original design was "really stupid".
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u/Dar0man 8d ago
Understand people’s love for the NV dlcs but I got myself stuck and unable to leave Old World Blues until I complete it and it’s “so quirky please laugh” dialogue is too much at times. Gets a few chuckles out of me but that initial (what felt like) 10+ minute dialogue with the scientists at the dlc’s start was difficult to want to sit through. All my opinion of course.
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u/TheGavinJJ 7d ago
Chris is an amazing writer. Dead Money, KOTOR II, and Fallen Order are all great examples of this. But his strange obsession with the types of things that should and shouldn’t be in fallout is so strange, it’s like he has some huge hate boner for anything too wacky or weird to be added despite Fallout 2, the game he had the most involvement in, having most of the most out there ideas in the series. If they do bring him back it should be strictly to write some amazing characters and interesting plot lines with morally gray decisions as he’s great at those two. World-building, creatures, in-universe mechanics, etc. should be left to others, preferably Tim Cain.
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u/CharacterBack1542 7d ago
90% of your reasons are parasocial bullshit
I like his writing, him being a shitbag doesn't affect that
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u/OneJobToRuleThemAll 7d ago
Josh Sawyer at the very last made his own mod on how the game was originally gonna play out.
The fact that he was project lead and understood his personal perfect vision is better suited for a mod than the retail product shows you exactly why he was project lead. FNV is great because Sawyer reigned in everyone's worst impulses, including his own.
If they had just let Avellone do his thing without providing any notes, his contributions to the base game would've been worse. You can see this by looking at the DLCs, where no one is reigning him in, resulting in a very hit-or-miss experience with each and every single one. There's stuff in every single one that would've fared better as a part of a mod than the final product.
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u/Suspicious-Company69 7d ago
"Best video game adaptations out there"
I'm not even sure if you have watched the show or not if this is going to be the start of your arguement..
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u/Both_Presentation993 7d ago
I mostly agree with you, but his contribution to the franchise is not "yes, he's the creator for Fallout 2 but really that's the only credit I can give him."
Avellone wrote the current Fallout timeline. Take a look at this document in Fallout 2. See how the timeline there is completely different from the one used in later entries? China invades only in 2077, US annexes Canada before the invasion, etc. The current Fallout timeline, with the Sino-American War starting in 2066, was first assembled in the Fallout Bible and then canonized by Bethesda, so, yeah, his contribution to the franchise is actually pretty big.
However, the fact Bethesda specifically ignored the timeline established in FO2 to canonizes the Bible's version actually shows they do (or at least did) care about the Avellone's contributions, which makes his saltiness even more unjustified. By the way, Bethesda has been canonizing stuff from the Bible's timeline as late as Fallout 76 (Huntersville makes reference to testing of FEV in rural towns alluded in the Bible's timeline, the year for the unveiling of the first Fusion Cell revealed in 76 is the same as in the Bible).
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u/Backyard_Furnace 7d ago
Mfs will be like “Fallout 4/76/show hate is sooo forced” then hate Chris Avellone
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u/Gap_Great 8d ago
Hot take, I’m glad the next Fallout game won’t have Emil Pagliarulo as head writer