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This page is about the game itself. For an overview of Fallout Tactics-related articles, see Portal:Fallout Tactics. For the game with a similar title, see Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel. |
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Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel (truncated as Fallout Tactics) is a tactical computer role-playing game developed by Micro Forté and 14° East and published by Interplay Entertainment. Released March 15, 2001, it is the third video game to be set in the Fallout universe.
Gameplay[]
Fallout Tactics is the first non-standard CRPG and the first to feature a multiplayer mode in the series. The gameplay is similar to real-time strategy games, focusing on squad-based combat and introducing a continuous turn-based play-style.
General[]
Unlike the previous two games in the Fallout series, Fallout Tactics emphasizes tactical combat and strategy over roleplaying. Players are not able to respond to non-player characters, but they can still trade and gamble. Instead of towns, Fallout Tactics centers around Brotherhood bunkers and missions. The bunkers serve as a central point for the Brotherhood, and players can obtain the services of quartermasters, mechanics, personnel yeomen, and medics. Characters from completed missions occasionally visit the bunkers.
After receiving a mission briefing from the general in charge of the bunker, the player's squad can then move to the area where the mission will take place. Among these locations are towns, factories, military encampments, or even a vault. There, the player is given a map of the area marked with objectives and notes.
Combat[]
Unlike the previous two Fallout games, which feature an individual turn-based system, and more recent ones that feature a real-time gameplay system, combat in Fallout Tactics operates differently. Fallout Tactics features three modes of combat: Continuous Turn-Based (CTB), Individual Turn-Based (ITB), and Squad Turn-Based (STB). In CTB, everyone can act at the same time, and action points are regenerated at a rate based on the Agility stat. ITB is the system used in the original games. STB is a variation of that wherein each turn is given to a squad. Other changes include the ability to change stance, modifiers for height, and setting sentry modes, which let characters shoot automatically in CTB upon encountering an enemy.
Character creation and advancement[]
The player character has primary stats, traits, skills and perks - all numerical values which determine actions' chances of success according to mathematical formulas, as well as derived statistics such as Hit Points. Beginning stats are chosen during initial character creation.
Experience Points are awarded for successful completion of actions. Acquiring enough experience points causes the player character to level up, upon which skill points are distributed by the player and an additional perk chosen.
SPECIAL[]
Despite not being a traditional RPG, Fallout Tactics uses the SPECIAL character system.
Skills[]
Fallout Tactics largely uses the same skills as Fallout and Fallout 2. The only exception is the removal of Speech and the addition of Pilot.
Traits and perks[]
Fallout Tactics features the same traits as the original Fallout with a few race-specific additions. The arsenal of available perks is expanded.
Races[]
Although the main character in the single-player campaign has to be human, recruits from the Brotherhood and characters in multiplayer matches can be of any of the six races featured in the game. These are as follows:
- Humans: Humans are the most common race in the wastelands. Their strength is versatility, which can specialize in the widest range of abilities, though lacking exceptional strength in any one area. Humans gain perks every three levels.
- Super mutants: Modified by the Forced Evolutionary Virus, super mutants are hulking beasts that are excellent at combat but lacking in intelligence and agility. Unfortunately, they can't use Small Weapons such as pistols or rifles. Super mutants gain perks every four levels.
- Ghouls: Ghouls are humans who have mutated due to the radiation of the wastes and have extremely long lifespans. Although not as strong as humans, ghouls are luckier and more perceptive. They gain perks every four levels.
- Deathclaws: Deathclaws are massive beasts that use their size and strength to tear their enemies apart. Unfortunately, they can't use most items or wear armor and can only use Melee Weapons (brass knuckles, etc.). Although lacking in intelligence and charisma, the bodies of deathclaws are far more durable than humans. They gain a perk every four levels.
- Humanoid robots: Robots are machines created to fight. Although they always have an average amount of luck and no Charisma, robots are strong and tough, resistant to most attacks, and immune to poison and radiation. Robots never gain perks.
- Dogs: Dogs are canines that have adapted to life in the Wastelands. Their main strengths are perception and agility, but they cannot use weapons or other tools. Dogs are not available as recruits during the campaign, but can serve as companions in multiplayer games. Dogs gain perks every two levels.
Multiplayer[]
Fallout Tactics has a multiplayer option of creating a squad and or person based on the value of how many points you can put into your person or squad. Currently, multiplayer only works via Steam's servers, or by modifying a GameRanger server.
Options[]
The game difficulty setting does not affect how much experience characters will receive. However, when creating a character, there is a Tough Guy setting which awards 30% more experience at the cost of being unable to save while on a mission (this is increased to a 100% increase in experience points with Patch 1.27); the game may still be saved inside Brotherhood bunkers.
Story[]
In the years leading to the nuclear apocalypse that would eventually destroy the world, a network of high-tech vaults were constructed to preserve the best and brightest of humanity. By being shielded from the imminent blasts, the offspring of these people could reclaim and repopulate the Earth. However, the network could not be completed before the nuclear war broke out. In California, the survivors who nonetheless made it to the vaults eventually emerged from these pre-war bunkers. Armed with significant quantities of advanced technology, including military-issue power armor and high-tech weaponry, they soon developed into a regional power called the Brotherhood of Steel. Over the years, they tamed the wasteland of raiders and mutated threats as they searched for more technology of a bygone era, which they were dedicated to preserving in order to rebuild their civilization.
Although the Brotherhood was one of the most powerful forces in the wasteland, attrition was still an issue, and the group found itself at odds over the need for new recruits. One faction supported allowing tribals (human outsiders) to join the organization and bolster their ranks, while others wanted to keep the Brotherhood pure. In the end, the majority supported keeping the Brotherhood exclusive, and the minority supporting outside expansion was sent east across the mountains on great airships to destroy the remnants of a fallen super mutant army. However, a catastrophic lightning storm struck the convoy during the journey, tearing apart and destroying many of the ships and taking the leaders of the expedition with them. The survivors were forced to crash outside the ruins of Chicago in the Midwest, unable to contact their main bases for assistance.
Despite the grim situation, the Brotherhood forces found they had much to offer the native population, many of whom had never seen such advanced equipment. They developed a working relationship with the locals, offering protection and medicines for food and labor. New recruits were eagerly welcomed. Free from the restrictive ideology of the main organization, the Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel was free to forge its own identity, which reflected the inclusive ideals they had fought for all along.
The plot of the game takes place in the American Midwest in 2197. When the game starts, the Brotherhood is trying to claim territory surrounding Chicago. By offering protection to villages of tribals, the Brotherhood is able to draft recruits from among the tribals. At the beginning of the game, the player character, known as the Warrior, is an Initiate, a new recruit to the Brotherhood, tasked to lead a squad of soldiers made up of other available initiates, while General Simon Barnaky briefs them on their missions and keeps them updated on the Brotherhood's situation. The Warrior's squad operates out of the Brotherhood's various military bunkers spread throughout the region. Raiders in the area are the first challenge to the Brotherhood's authority, so the Warrior's squad of initiates is dispatched to kill the bandit leaders and mop up the bandit threat. As the campaign against the raiders succeeds in dispersing them into the wasteland, the player character is accepted fully into the Brotherhood and learns the ultimate goal of the Brotherhood: a campaign west across the Great Plains towards the Rocky Mountains in search of Vault 0, the one-time nucleus and command center of the pre-War vault network, where the most senior government, scientific and military leaders were housed and the highest technology available was maintained.
The next challenge in the Brotherhood's campaign are the Beastlords, psychic humans who are able to control the animals of the wastes, and who have come to use deathclaws as their servants via keeping the deathclaw mother captive. After a fierce conflict, the Brotherhood raids Mardin, the lair of Beastlord leader Emperor Daarr, destroying the Beastlords and freeing the deathclaws, who have been recruited into the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood once again emerges victorious. Before the Brotherhood can rest, however, they encounter a new foe as they push into post-war Missouri, an area known as "the Belt": Gammorin's army, the remnant super mutant militia they were initially sent to destroy.
Entering into conflict with Gammorin's army, the initial battles are costly to the Brotherhood. Outmanned and outgunned, the Brotherhood is overwhelmed outside of St. Louis. There, General Barnaky, is captured by High Inquisitor Toccomata, the leader of the mutant army. Although the Brotherhood is able to withdraw, they remain under constant attack. A squad dispatched to destroy a munitions manufacturing plant instead finds a laboratory dedicated to curing mutant sterility. The Brotherhood claims the lab in order to use it as a future bargaining chip. A few days later, at the ghoul town of Gravestone, in the ruins of Kansas City, Brotherhood scouts find an intact nuclear bomb. The Brotherhood defends the town from several mutant encroachments, and they are soon able to remove the weapon to a safe bunker.
Brotherhood scouting reveals the base of the super mutants to be at Osceolla, near the ruins of one of the wrecked Brotherhood zeppelins. A squad fights its way into the base. Inside, they find Toccomata, who is dying. He reveals that General Barnaky had been lost to an unknown menace from the west that was too powerful for even the mutant army. As the squad enters the room where the mutant leader was hiding, they find Paladin Latham, one of the leaders of the Brotherhood air convoy. He tells the squad that after crashing, he fought Gammorin in hand-to-hand combat for leadership of the mutants. Latham won, but a head injury from the battle became infected, and he soon became delusional. Latham assumed the identity of Gammorin, and led his new army against his old allies. The squad kills Latham before he can endanger the Brotherhood further. With Gammorin's army defeated, super mutants are recruited into the Brotherhood while those who remained independent enter negotiations with the Brotherhood to continue researching a cure to mutant sterility.
Soon, the menace from the west reveals itself: a vast robot army is sweeping across the American Midwest. The Reavers, a cult dedicated to worshipping technology, is caught between the Brotherhood and the robots as the two armies clash in Kansas and the Brotherhood-Calculator War officially begins. Although the Reavers attempt to wage a two-fronted war, they are quickly beaten, and seek sanctuary among the Brotherhood in exchange for an experimental electromagnetic pulse weapon, the pulse rifle prototype. The Brotherhood agrees, and a squad armed with the new technology destroys Canyon City, a robot repair plant, as they push into Colorado, towards Vault 0. It is revealed that the robots are originating from Vault 0, and are being directed by an enigmatic enemy known as the Calculator. Evidence uncovered by the Brotherhood points to a catastrophic experiment in the Vault that created the Calculator from a fusion of computers and human brains. The robots regroup, but the Brotherhood is able to use the momentum to destroy Buena Vista, a robot manufacturing plant. The robots disrupt this plan when they capture Bartholemew Kerr, a merchant who had worked among the Brotherhood bunkers. If the robots could gain information from him, they would be able to destroy the Brotherhood. The squad arrives in time, however, and they put an end to the tortured merchant's life. While there, they also discover the lobotomized body of General Barnaky.
As the robots press hard, the Brotherhood creates a plan to destroy the robots at their base at Vault 0. Using the captured nuclear warhead, the Brotherhood hopes to blast an entrance into the vault. After a tough fight up the slopes of Cheyenne Mountain, a Brotherhood squad places the warhead. The explosion does its job, and two squads enter into the ancient vault. The power was disabled by the blast, however, so one of the squads must find the auxiliary power so the elevators can be used. Meanwhile, the robots are attacking the Brotherhood's bunker. At the vault, the power is soon restored, and the squad proceeds to the bottom level. There, they encounter the last of the robot army, led by General Barnaky, who has been reconstructed into a lethal cyborg warrior. The General must either be killed or convinced to stand down by reminding him of his promise to make the world safe for his wife, Maria. The squad then makes it to the Calculator.
Endings[]
After defeating the last robots that guard the bunker and destroying the brains that kept the Calculator alive, the squad is asked by the Calculator to join minds with it in order to end the destructive war and bring peace to the world. The squad is given the choice to either destroy the Calculator, sacrifice a character to join with it (although any squadmate can be used, the story assumes that the Warrior was the one who joined with the Calculator), or allow General Barnaky to join with it if he was kept alive.
Allowing the Calculator to self-destruct permits the Brotherhood to capture Vault 0 and use it as its new primary base of operations. However, the Calculator itself was, in fact, the most valuable asset the Vault housed - without its databanks, the vault is just another cache of old technology, not a new industrial resource. Nevertheless, Vault 0 becomes the new Brotherhood of Steel base of operations. From here, the Brotherhood rebuilds by deepening its technology and educational trade with tribals and other settlers, gaining new recruits and survival techniques in return. While at first, the Brotherhood is damaged and unable to fight raiders as well as they could previously, guerrilla tactics and swelled recruit ranks eventually allow the Brotherhood to bring some order to the Wasteland. Unfortunately, despite the recovery and improvement of the environment, the Brotherhood has to put any plans on going back west to reunite with the original Brotherhood of Steel on indefinite hold.
Repairing the Calculator with a character's brain means the Vault's resources are fully available to the Brotherhood, increasing its power exponentially. The Midwest will be restored to its former glory in decades, not centuries. However, that character's ethics now guides the Calculator's actions.
- If the Warrior had good karma, a new era of prosperity and welfare spreads across the wasteland as all races labor side-by-side in harmony to restore the world to peace, comfort, and security, fueled by the Brotherhood and the Calculators' combined wealth of advanced pre-war technology and Old World scientific knowledge. Led by the Warrior, the new post-nuclear utopia soon becomes fertile and habitable, and anti-mutant bigotry is outlawed. The primitive inhabitants of the wasteland receive advanced education. With a revival of Old World glory well within sight, new settlers from outlying regions immigrate en masse to what was once a war-torn hellhole rife with conflict and mutual hatred, contributing to the rebuilding efforts. When the question of what is to occur when the Midwest Brotherhood re-encounters the original Brotherhood in New California causes debate among many, the Brotherhood hopes to reunite with the original chapter on good terms and resolves to focus on the present reconstruction efforts, leaving that fated encounter as a battle for another day, and perhaps another hero.
- If the Warrior had evil karma, the reborn Calculator quickly erases all of its mechanical flaws and errors. With Vault 0's advanced pre-war technology and systems restored to full functionality, the Calculator allies itself with the Brotherhood. Choosing not to serve the organization directly, the Brotherhood elders disappear under mysterious circumstances during their expedition to meet with the Calculator in Vault 0. Although an investigation is launched, no trace of the high command is found. With a devastating blow dealt to the Brotherhood's morale, the Calculator forcefully integrates itself with surviving Brotherhood leaders. The reborn Brotherhood spreads across the wasteland, absorbing many settlements and villages, restoring pre-war infrastructure, and beginning the process to return the brutalized wasteland to its former glory. Anti-mutant bigotry is outlawed, and mutants provide secondary support to reconstruction efforts. When the question of what is to occur when this new Brotherhood re-encounters the original Brotherhood in New California causes debate among many, the Calculator projects millions of different possible scenarios and decides that to ensure that only one scenario will prevail, one where the reborn Brotherhood is willing to eliminate anyone or anything to unify the wasteland, and so the original Brotherhood must someday be destroyed as well.
If Barnaky integrates with the Calculator, the new Calculator will resolve to rescue pure-blood humanity from destruction, in order to make good on its promise to Maria to make the world safe once again. The combined forces of the Brotherhood and the Calculator's robot army sweep across the wasteland, savaging raider holdouts. As pre-war infrastructure is slowly restored to the wasteland and the surviving populace is "re-educated", the contaminated mutant degenerates of the wasteland are rounded up and sent to brutal concentration camps, performing labor considered too dangerous or simply beneath pure-blood humans. Humans who speak out against this cruelty are disciplined and suppressed, while mutant refugees are hunted down and killed like animals by the Brotherhood's elite army, with these victims crucified across the wasteland as a grim reminder that any disobedience from lesser creatures or impure humans will be brutally punished without mercy. The dissidents of the wasteland organize into the Mutant Liberation Army, whom the Brotherhood persecutes. Any being suspected of supporting this rebel movement is seized and interrogated by the Calculator's handpicked inquisitors, and is often never seen or heard of again. However, for every disappearance and for every rebel hung up around the wasteland, another defiant soul joins the movement. Soon, the Brotherhood finds itself under repeated attack. The Mutant Liberation Army attempts to utilize guerrilla tactics to offset the overwhelming combined force of robot and Brotherhood soldiers. The rebels fight for many reasons now: revenge, freedom, and a chance for a better life. Some join the battle because waging war is all they know. Without sufficient resources or manpower, the Mutant Liberation Army is pushed back west, towards the original Brotherhood lands.
Music[]
The game soundtrack for Fallout Tactics was composed by Inon Zur, which contains only Fallout style background music and is the only Fallout game that has no ambient music from the 1940s and 1950s.
Reception[]
Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel received a Metacritic metascore of 82/100.[3]
Behind the scenes[]
- In 2020, Emil Pagliarulo stated that elements of Fallout Tactics have been included in subsequent works;[4] one example is the existence of a Brotherhood of Steel detachment in Chicago, mentioned in Fallout 3 and Fallout 4. In April 2024, following the release of the Fallout TV series, he included Fallout Tactics in a since-deleted post on X showing the timeline of the Fallout series, suggesting its partially canon status.[5]
- In 2007, prior to the release of Fallout 3, Bethesda Softworks' Todd Howard stated that for Bethesda's purposes, the story within Fallout Tactics never happened.[6]
- Curiously, the GOG version of Tactics has some Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel artwork as bonus content, such as the home-made machine gun and flamethrower.
Developer quotes[]
- If Interplay had allowed more time (and money), MicroForte would have been in a position to deliver a better game. That's fairly typical of the publisher/developer relationship. It just hurts more in this particular case, because there was a higher expectation of quality due to the Fallout name. The project wasn't completely on schedule in reality, but that was due to a couple of changes in direction during development and wasn't due to any major problems with the developer. Interplay should have taken a step back, slipped the game 3-4 months and released a higher quality game. That doesn't mean I take any less responsibility for my duties on FOT and my failure to keep the FO lore as close to canon as possible. - Chris Taylor (RPG Codex forum)
- Something else that I remembered: when we (IP and MF) sat down for that original week of pre-production design, the game was strictly turn-based. We had discussed how we wanted to implement TB/RT or some sort of hybrid, and the decision was made to do TB combat only (RT until combat, just like FO1/2).
The TB combat wasn't ready in time for the 2000 E3, so we showed a quickie RT combat (as is common for those demos, much was faked under the hood). That particular demo was one of the main reasons RT combat went in. - Chris Taylor (RPG Codex forum) - Keep in mind that the amount of testing on Fallout Tactics was tragically short. IIRC, Interplay received the first full beta/fully playable to the end on a Saturday. The following Wednesday, after one - maybe two - revs, it was sent off for mastering. That's an amazingly short amount of time (most projects have at least a month between fully playable and gold mastering, RPGs usually have longer). Myself and a few others asked for more time to do more testing and we were denied. There was a strong desire to get the game out as fast as possible by someone at Interplay. I don't think it helped that I had walked out of a marketing meeting a month or so earlier, so my opinion towards the end wasn't well received.
Additional testing time would have allowed: more bug fixes, better balancing (especially in Turn-Based, since the limited amount of testing time, most of QA was testing in real-time) and more tweaks to the game system. It would not have allowed for any major changes to the story, characters, plot and game system.
In hindsight, we should have not implemented both TB and RT. It did end up costing us a substantial amount of QA time and resources. Or, we should have kept RT only for multiplayer. That would have given us a little more time for balancing the single-player campaign.
MicroForte wasn't responsible for nearly as many problems on FOT as Interplay was. And I would be surprised at the amount of problems Interplay's QA department was able to find, except I know how hard they worked and the problems they were working against. They did as good as job as anyone could have done under the circumstances.
Of all things, I'm still bummed we never got a song in for the intro movie. I had wanted "Jesus Just Left Chicago" by ZZ Top. Chris Taylor (RPG Codex forum)
Gallery[]
Pre-release[]
Concept renders
Release[]
External links[]
References[]
- ↑ FREELANCER: Fallout Tactics News, 18.05.2001
- ↑ GAMASUTRA: Postmortem: Micro Forte' s Fallout Tactics by Tony Oakden
- ↑ Metacritic - Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel
- ↑ Emil Pagliarulo: "For us, it's always... for us, canon always starts with what is in the games. And so... it's what is in Fallout 1, Fallout 2... even some of like, Fallout Tactics is- there's some stuff from canon from Fallout Tactics as well."
- ↑ Emil Pagliarulo on Twitter (archived)
- ↑ Todd Howard: "For our purposes, neither Fallout Tactics nor Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel happened."