Fallout Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Fallout Wiki
Fallout 3 PA

Brotherhood of Steel paladin

Because, in Vault 101: no one ever enters, and no one ever leaves.The narrator

In the Fallout 3 intro, 1950s style vacuum tube components flicker as the camera pans back from the pre-war radio. This reveals a derelict bus and a ruined city as the radio plays "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire" sung by The Ink Spots. Above the bus windows, there are posters encouraging people to enlist with the US Army and to reserve a place in a Vault (featuring the Vault Boy). The camera then moves outside the bus, showing a ruined city, some Art Deco architecture and a Corvega ad, and finally, a Brotherhood of Steel paladin in T-45d power armor with a newer model of the laser rifle, and a Brotherhood of Steel symbol on their breastplate.

Narration[]

When the city intro fades to black, Ron Perlman's narration begins and states:

War. War never changes.

Since the dawn of humankind, when our ancestors first discovered the killing power of rock and bone, blood has been spilled in the name of everything: from God to justice to simple, psychotic rage.

In the year 2077, after millennia of armed conflict, the destructive nature of man could sustain itself no longer. The world was plunged into an abyss of nuclear fire and radiation.

But it was not, as some had predicted, the end of the world. Instead, the apocalypse was simply the prologue to another bloody chapter of human history. For man had succeeded in destroying the world - but war, war never changes.

In the early days, thousands were spared the horrors of the holocaust by taking refuge in enormous underground shelters, known as vaults. But when they emerged, they had only the hell of the wastes to greet them - all except those in Vault 101. For on that fateful day, when fire rained from the sky, the giant steel door of Vault 101 slid closed... and never reopened. It was here you were born. It is here you will die.

Because, in Vault 101: no one ever enters, and no one ever leaves.

Teaser[]

The cinematic teaser trailer for Fallout 3, consisting of the first part of the intro, was released by Bethesda Softworks on June 5, 2007, after a 30 day countdown on the Fallout 3 website. During the countdown, a new piece of concept art by Craig Mullins was revealed on every Tuesday. The teaser fades to black after the end of the cinematic part, and we hear only the first four words of the narration: "War. War never changes". Then the text "Fallout 3" appears and changes into "Fall 2008". The text of the narration was revealed in July 2007 in Australia's Atomic Magazine.

Notes[]

  • The song I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire was initially going to be used in the Fallout intro, but Interplay was unable to get the license, so it was scrapped and Maybe, another song by The Ink Spots, was used.
  • While it features no gameplay footage, the intro was created in-engine (done with game assets in Bethesda's rendering engine), but is not done real-time.
  • The location used to record the intro is present in the game files, accessible via the G.E.C.K. Using the console command coc intro01 will allow access to the location in-game.
  • The Brotherhood of Steel soldier seen in the intro is an actual non-player character named "Brotherhood of Steel." However, he only has 5.56mm rounds for his laser rifle and thus cannot equip it.
  • The only working car radio "in" the game can be seen in the intro.

Behind the scenes[]

  • The intro was written by Fallout 3 lead designer Emil Pagliarulo. The recording session for narrator Ron Perlman was performed virtually, "over the phone in a conference room" while Perlman was in Los Angeles, and Bethesda was in-studio in Rockville, Maryland. It was directed by Pagliarulo, Todd Howard and Mark Lampert.[1]
  • Many takes were done of the intro, especially "war never changes." As described by Lampert, the session was a "short afternoon" for Perlman, but the Bethesda team were thinking long in advance of how to use Perlman's narration for the game and its trailers, so they requested the narration many different ways to keep their options open. Bethesda has a clip of Perlman saying something along the lines of "Guys, I've given you this thing six ways to Sunday," because of the large amount of takes that were done.[2]

Video[]

Gallery[]

See also[]

External links[]

References[]

  1. Writing the Worlds of Bethesda (reference starts at 29:39):
    Emil Pagliarulo: "I wrote the openings of Fallout 3 and 4... yeah, those opening sequences."
    Kenneth Vigue: "Were you working with him directly in the session, like 'Okay, one more time, Ron!'"
    Emil Pagliarulo: "Uh, well, yes, but over the phone! He was in L.A., I believe, and we were in Rockville and so we were directing, Todd and Mark and I, we were directing those sessions over the phone in a conference room."
  2. The Music & Sound of Bethesda RPGs (Skyrim, Oblivion, Fallout) (reference starts at 5:30):
    Mark Lampert: "We have a lot of takes of Ron Perlman giving us 'war never changes' in many many ways. It's funny 'cause he's at a VO studio in LA. To him, it's a short afternoon. We're thinking of the intro to the game. We're thinking months ahead to the trailers we're going to put together. Let's get plenty of options. What if we want to go long on this syllable here? We've got a great clip of him where he's like, 'Guys, I've given you this thing six ways to Sunday.' It's true, we're just wringing him out. I think it'd be a little easier if he could be there in person, you know? To say it with a smile. It's three of us around a phone going, 'One more time, but this time say changes with a soft A' or whatever. Anyway, he suffers us very kindly and I take all that stuff back and I've got 'war never changes' one through 16 or whatever, and we really will pick and choose over that kind of stuff. Because in the trailer we're lining that up with 'Where is the big visual hit at the end of this thing? Where all the music comes together in its big crescendo and its big last note and we slam to black and give you the title?' One of those takes is gonna fit it a little better than the others."
Advertisement