ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Fallout spinoff games, looking at all of the Fallout spinoffs other than Fallout Pinball, through the lens of canonicity. This chapter begins by examining Fallout Tactics, which resides in a semi-canonical state: much of the game’s story is considered noncanonical to the larger world of Fallout, though some small references to the game exist in the larger Fallout canon. This chapter discusses Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel next, a game that is considered noncanonical and is not even referenced on Bethesda’s website for the Fallout franchise. An analysis of Fallout Shelter provides a framework for the concept of metacanonicity, a notion that helps to describe how the game operates both within and outside of the Fallout canon and which is addressed in the next section of this chapter. This chapter concludes with a discussion of Fallout: New Vegas, the only spinoff game that is considered fully canonical within the Fallout franchise. Overall, this chapter argues that the Fallout franchise is designed to be redesigned, allowing various video game companies to contribute narratives to the world of Fallout, even though not all of those narratives are considered fully canonical.
