10 4 drop locations that feel more like horror stories than RPG locations

Officially speaking, Bethesda Game Studios has never released a horror game. Todd Howard’s bread and butter has always been acting. However, certain titles developed by that group contain some of the most effective horror that gaming has seen in the last 20 years. One of these is Fallout 4.

The Fallout Series has always been famous for its variety of memorable locations. Some of these would give the locations in Silent Hill and Resident Evil a run for their money. This shines through in the series’ environmental storytelling, whether that’s through the corpses exposed and displayed in the Raider camp, or the more dubious explorations carried out by Vault-Tec.

10

Fort Hagen

Like Backrooms, But With Guns

Fort Hagen is memorable because it plays a part in the main story of the game, but it can be easy to forget how oppressive and unsettling the place becomes as you go deeper. A cold, military atmosphere is carried throughout the facility and leads to a desolation feeling unusually clean and clinical in a way that feels completely different from anything else in the Commonwealth.

The first time I passed Fort Hagen, I remember feeling strangely uncomfortable despite the fact that there was nothing scary about it. Small corridors, artificial lights, and endless concrete walls create a sense of isolation similar to The Backrooms, to the point where you might forget that Fort Hagen is located within the universe like other abandoned buildings in the game.

9

Suffolk County Charter School

Evidence That Vault-Tec Should Not Be Allowed Near Children

One of Fallout 4’s greatest strengths is rewarding players who are willing to go the extra mile to read terminal entries and handwritten notes left by victims of evil. Perhaps the word “reward” is the wrong word. Perhaps “paining them beyond belief because they dared to dig so deep” might be more appropriate.

Suffolk County Charter School fits this mold. At first glance, it looks like another abandoned educational institution. That is until you start uncovering the details of the experiments that take place there. The students and staff of this school became unintended participants in a nutritional experiment that left most of them transformed into red-pink ghosts.

If it weren’t for the posters and pictures of children that still adorn the walls of the school’s classrooms, you wouldn’t even be able to tell that this place was a normal school before a brutal, inhumane research was done to destroy it by flooding it with monsters.

8

Parsons State Insane Asylum

The Place Where Fallout Stops Making Sense

I mean, exploring an abandoned shelter would be pretty scary at the best of times, but exploring an abandoned shelter after a nuclear apocalypse is a whole different ballgame. Just look at the exterior of this building. Its architectural design alone is shocking and unsettling before you even walk through the front door.

The deeper you go into the questline, the more it becomes clear that Lorenzo Cabot is not just another wasteland eccentric. Fallout is often very good at explaining its mysteries with radiation or pre-war science, but Parsons State Insane Asylum is one of those rare places where those explanations stop feeling adequate.

7

The company HalluciGen Inc.

Trust me, that gas is not good for you

HalluciGen Inc doesn’t just throw the player out, it distorts your perception of reality. At first, the place actually seems innocuous compared to some of the others on this list, but it soon becomes clear that the things inside the walls of this place are just as dangerous, if not more so.

The first time I passed this facility, looting everything in sight, (as one does in the fallout game), I remember being put on the edge when a cloud of test gas suddenly hit me in the face, causing strange visions. It happens suddenly and suddenly, you question your eyes, not knowing if what you see is true or not.

6

Federal Ration Stockpile

Help Ain’t Coming

Fallout 4’s ability to tell stories of despair and tragedy in a subtle, indirect way is one of the game’s greatest strengths. Usually, titles like The Last of Us are praised for their post-apocalypse environmental storytelling, but the Fallout series laid much of the groundwork for that kind of narrative design.

The Federal Ration Stockpile is a good example of this. Initially this center was built for the purpose of distributing food and goods during times of crisis. However, when you come across the evidence left behind, you quickly realize that the people who needed these resources never received them. People depended on this place to help them survive and that help never came.

5

Episode 81

This place almost fooled me

When you first stumble and enter Vault 81, the strangest thing about it is that it seems to thrive. I remember being lulled into a false sense of security, not knowing, thinking that this might be one of the few Vault-Tec facilities that actually came out successful.

Unfortunately, when something seems too good to be true in Fallout 4, it often is. Once you explore the hidden section under the vault, you’ll find the remains of a dark experiment involving human experimentation subjects. It’s a reminder that Vault-Tec had no other purpose than to turn the inhabitants of each location into human test subjects.

4

Episode 75

Vault-Tec Somehow Found A Way To Make School Worse

Anyone remotely familiar with Vault-Tec will know that if they are allowed anywhere near the identification of genetically superior children for testing purposes, things will likely not end well for anyone involved. Unfortunately, that’s what happened in Vault 75, located under Malden Middle School.

As you explore Vault 75, they are not disturbing enemies. Rather, it is an act of reading the logs and integrating what happens there. In the end, what you get is not just scary, but downright sad. Innocent children were separated from their parents, constantly tested, and ultimately discarded if they failed to meet Vault-Tec’s expectations of them.

3

Pickman Gallery

The Commonwealth’s Worst Interior Designer

I remember when I first came across the Pickman Gallery, I just thought it was just another common hideout for intruders. Then I realized that the corpses around the camp were not just the remains of people who died in the fire, they were placed and arranged as a display. It makes my skin crawl.

Before you meet Pickman, you already have a strong idea of ​​the kind of sad, twisted man he is. He considers himself a kind of twisted artist, but it is clear that he is dealing with the most disturbed person in the Commonwealth; and that is a really high bar.

2

Museum of Witchcraft

A Deathclaw Encounter You Will Never Forget

Instead of throwing enemies at the player immediately upon entering it, Museum of Witchcraft slowly builds a sense of suspense and tension within the player through the use of spatial clues and careful pacing.

The first time I played in this area, I walked slowly through it, expecting a surprise around every corner. When Deathclaw finally appears, the reveal feels earned because the game spends so much time building anticipation for its arrival. The Museum of Witchcraft proves that Bethesda understands the structure of a well-crafted horror level, and is able to recreate that in a Fallout game.

1

The Dunwich Borers

The Quarry That Sounds Like It’s On Silent Hill

There are plenty of scary places throughout Fallout 4, but the Dunwich Borers is the only one that made me wonder if I’d accidentally switched to a different game entirely. When you start wandering around, it appears to be little more than a quarry inhabited by raiders. However, things start to get a lot stranger as you get deeper into its trenches.

Unlike other Fallout horrors, the Dunwich Borers can’t be explained by the use of radiation or some pre-war experiment gone wrong. As you explore the Dunwich Borers, you begin to experience strange visions of the past that suggest this quarry was a hellish place to find yourself long before the bombs were dropped.

Released

November 10, 2015

The ESRB

M FOR MATURE: BLOOD AND VIOLENCE, STRONG VIOLENCE, STRONG LANGUAGE, DRUG USE

Engine

Creation

Cross-Platform Play

no

Cross Keep

no