Black Isle and Interplay revolutionized the idea of post-apocalyptic role-playing when they debuted Fallout, and they were able to expand on the dismal setting they had created with the sequel, Fallout 2, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. The game debuted on September 30, 1998, and continued the story that had caught the attention of so many.
Fallout 2 picks up 80 years after the first game, in the year 2241. The player controls a member of the primitive village of Arroyo, who just so happens to be a direct descendant of the Vault Dweller from the original Fallout; after the town suffers a great draught, the player character (referred to as the Chosen One) is sent on a mission to retrieve a Garden of Eden Creation Kit, or GECK. The GECK is allegedly a device that can create new life in the apocalypse, and the Chosen One ventures out into the wasteland to find one.
However, after returning to Arroyo, they find that the town has been captured by an organization known as the Enclave – the last few remnants of the original U.S. government. Using advanced technology, the Enclave intends to experiment on the villagers with the Forced Evolutionary Virus (FEV) with the aim to remove all mutated creatures and humans from the wasteland. The Chosen One must then rescue their friends from this experimentation and put an end to the Enclave.
Much like its predecessor, Fallout 2 was a significant commercial and critical success, moving a large number of copies and being reviewed remarkably well. The game was praised for being an improvement on the inaugural entry in the franchise in terms of its storyline and overall gameplay, but faced some criticism for the amount of bugginess the game suffered from (a criticism that somehow still follows the franchise decades later). Despite the glitches, Fallout 2 remains one of the best-loved entries in the franchise, and is often called one of the best RPGs of all time.
Despite the success and popularity of Fallout 2, a new main entry in the series wouldn’t be released for a decade. Black Isle Studios was closed down in 2004, and Bethesda Softworks published Fallout 3 in 2008.
