Fallout season two’s finale might not have paid off all the various story threads this season set up, but it did tease a location rarely seen in the games and featured the reveal of something big returning from Fallout 3 and Fallout 4. Spoilers below for the season in general and the finale episode in particular. If you haven’t watched it yet and don’t want to be spoiled, don’t keep scrolling!
After two seasons of following the Ghoul as he searched for his family, Fallout season two’s finale finally brings him face to face with…their empty cryopods hidden deep in a secret Vault below Mr. House’s Lucky 38 Casino. Dang. But inside his wife’s tube is a postcard for Colorado, giving him hope that his family is still alive in the midwestern state.
So off he goes on a new quest to hopefully find his wife and daughter after a heck of a 200 years. During the credits, a billboard reinforces the idea that next season will, at least partially, be set in Colorado. What do we know about Colorado in the Fallout universe, and what can we expect?
Colorado In The Fallout Universe
Colorado is a state that has been mentioned a few times in past games and Fallout media, but has rarely played a big role. It, like most of the rest of the United States in Fallout, was mostly wiped out by the nuclear bombs dropped during the Great War. Colorado’s biggest appearance in the games thus far happened in Fallout Tactics, a game that isn’t wholly canon, but parts of it might be (it’s weird). In that 2001 tactical turn-based RPG spin-off, we are introduced to Vault 0.
Vault 0 is set in an expanded version of the real-life Cheyenne Mountain Complex, a large underground U.S. military bunker designed to survive nuclear war and other massive attacks. Exactly what happens in Fallout Tactics isn’t really important, but Vault 0 and the Cheyenne Mountain Complex could play a part in season three. We know the Enclave is still around, and it would make sense for them to hole up in something like that to hide away from the rest of the wasteland.
Interestingly, as pointed out by PC Gamer, in the lead-up to Fallout season one, Amazon posted an hour-long video about the opening of Vault 33. And during the stream, an announcer says this: “Unless you’re the President of the United States or something like that, and you have a mountain in Colorado to go under and direct the events of the world.” And who did Cooper Howard run into in this season and hand off the Cold Fusion capsule to? The president. I suspect Vault 0 or a version of it will play a role in season three.
One other interesting thing to note about Colorado is that the original version of Fallout 3 that was being developed by Black Isle Studios before it was canceled was going to be partially set in Colorado. Fitting that Colorado will likely play a big role in season three of Amazon’s Fallout show, given that it was previously featured in both the third Fallout game ever made (Tactics) and the original Fallout 3 (Project Van Buren).
That Other Big (Wink) Tease
After all the credits, Amazon included a post-credits teaser scene featuring Elder Cleric Quintus and Dane back at the Brotherhood’s Area 51 base we saw earlier in the season. Chaos is continuing there after Maximus took off with the Cold Fusion capsule. Anyway, Dane brings Quintus a scroll. He tells the scribe that Quintus the Unifier is no more. Instead, he is now Quintus the Destroyer and unrolls the scroll to reveal a blueprint for Liberty Prime.
We technically saw what appears to be Liberty Prime earlier this season in a photo featuring Mr. House’s body double. But this is the giant democracy-defending robot’s first real appearance in the show. Or, well, he appears as a blueprint schematic. Close enough.
This seems to be a new version of the big robot, named Liberty Prime Alpha, and is different from the mech that first appeared in Fallout 3 and later in Fallout 4. I’m not yet convinced this ragtag chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel is going to be able to create its own Liberty Prime. Perhaps it’s buried away in Area 51? We’ll have to wait until season three to find out.
Amazon has announced its Prime Gaming October update, which sees it add a fresh batch of games that users can add to their libraries for free. The most noteworthy additions are probably Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition and Fallout: New Vegas. With the of Prime Video’s surprisingly excellent Fallout TV show arriving in December, it’s an ideal time to acquaint yourself with the games it’s based on. New Vegas is particularly relevant, as season two looks like it’ll primarily be set in that game’s world and will presumably be heavily influenced by Obsidian’s beloved 2010 RPG.
Beyond that, XCOM 2 is probably worth a look, and there’s a handful of games that are giving Halloween vibes — how can you go wrong with Tormented Souls or Hellslave as we approach spooky season?
Here’s the full list of October games that you can claim for free. Most come in the form of codes you can redeem on GOG, though some others are available on the Epic Games Store or Legacy Gaming.
Vampire: The Masquerade – Reckoning of New York
Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition
True Fear: Forsaken Souls Part 1
True Fear: Forsaken Souls Part 2
Lost & Found Agency Collector’s Edition
Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition
You Will Die Here Tonight
Werewolf: The Apocalypse — Heart of the Forest
Amazon also yesterday that it’s giving its cloud gaming platform a bit of an update. As well as continuing to offer a rotating library of free games to Prime members, the company will also introduce a collection of party games designed to be played with friends on your phone. The new GameNight library will include original games developed by Amazon, such as the excellently named Courtroom Chaos: Starring Snoop Dogg, as well as classics like Angry Birds and Ticket to Ride.
The company also announced that Prime Gaming’s Twitch-related benefits will remain available after Prime Gaming is absorbed into Luna. Prime Gaming actually got its start as Twitch Prime, a benefit to Amazon Prime subscribers that eventually grew into the wider gaming offering it is now. The name is changing yet again, but it might be better in the long run for Amazon to put all of its gaming offerings under the Luna brand.
Erik Todd Dellums, the voice of Fallout 3’s Galaxy News Radio DJ Three Dog, is keen to be involved with the show for Fallout Season 2.
Three Dog Wants in on Fallout Season 2
Dellums, whose voice can be heard in The Dragon Prince and presence seen in Homicide Life on the Streets, responded to a fan clamoring for some Three Dog in the show. While Three Dog is situated on the other side of the country in Fallout lore, Dellums would be happy to play a new DJ in the hit Prime series
He was joined in wanting to appear on the show by Wes Johnson, the voice of several Fallout characters, including Mister Burke, Uncle Leo, and Fawkes in Fallout 3. Johnson also voiced the Protectrons which don’t feature in the show in Season 1.
The Fallout show creators Geneva Roberston-Dworest and Graham Wagner were recently asked what the future holds for the series and if Fallout Season 2 would follow the formula of the Fallout games, which often feature new characters, stories, and locations.
“We don’t want to do too many spoilers, but we are ideating right now on a potential season two,” said Robertson-Dworet. “Fans should look forward to the finale as a little flick towards what we’re going to do with a potential second season.”
Throughout its first season, Fallout tees up what seemingly are a bunch of mysteries that are either not connected at all or by the loosest of threads—why is the Ghoul so fascinated when he learns Lucy’s full name? What’s going on with dwellers from Vault 31? How did Moldaver make her way from the pre-war days to lead the New California Republic, and just what did she need from Wilzig the Enclave defector? What really happened to Lucy’s mom, and will she be able to save her dad? Will Maximus be able to make his way back to Lucy—and away from the Brotherhood once and for all?
All this smashes together in the finale (appropriately called “The Beginning”) to reveal that actually everything is much messier, more personal, and interconnected than anyone thought. As Lucy comes face to face with what was always her goal from the moment she left Vault 33, we and she alike get to learn, thanks to a flashback to Cooper’s perspective, that it was Vault-Tec itself, spearheading a conglomerate of multiple pro-war companies, that fired the first bombs that set off the apocalypse, ensuring their products would be used. Also, along the way, Vault-Tec froze all of its managers—from the lowest assistants to the highest bosses—to control the world that came after the fallout and ensure that capital remains in their own hands. And not only that, we’ve met a bunch of those Vault-Tec staffers throughout the season, like Betty, and of course, Hank himself—revealed as the assistant to Cooper’s wife, Henry, in pre-war times.
It does a lot to make clear the way the show views Fallout’s world, while once again putting all three of the main characters together, if not ideologically or geographically, in just how related to all this mess they each are.
Okay so maybe don’t hit Kyle McLachlan with the CG-deaging-ray but still, in spite of that, it all works!
Making games is hard. Not just on a technical level, but imagine getting a handful of unique personalities into a room, working towards a common goal. Even when everyone is moving in tandem, and something truly remarkable is made, there’s bound to be a few flumps. Let’s take a look at games that are—or were—super glitchy but still a lot of fun to play!
10. Dead Island
Image Source: Techland
Welcome to Dead Island, where zombies can be hulking beasts or tiny creatures of destruction no bigger than a foot. Do you like whacky physics and random collisions? Well, you’ll certainly get your fill here. Witness zombies get toppled like bowling pins by a mere gas canister or sent flying from one well-placed swing. And let’s not forget a fan favorite: limbs that contort and separate on their own!
Okay, we’re done poking fun at the game. Honestly, Dead Island’s myriad of ways to kill zombies is highly concentrated dumb fun, only heightened by the ridiculous bugs you encounter. That fun is then multiplied when you bring in a few buddies!
9. Pokemon Red & Blue
Image Source: Game Freak
There was a time in gaming history when games had to be stable and as bug-free as possible. Developers couldn’t rely on a magical day-one patch. That’s not to say Pokemon Red and Blue were an unstable mess—it certainly wasn’t—but a few bugs squeaked by.
One of the most famous examples was MISSINGNO, a glitch “Pokemon” you could battle and capture. It was really easy to find, too, and if you caught it, well, you could duplicate items in your inventory. So, hello hundreds of Rare Candies or countless Master Balls! It’s a glitch you can still find in the digital versions of Pokemon Red and Blue!
Another great example is leveling your Pokemon past 100. All you had to do was feed it Rare Candies up until it reached level 255. Or how about catching Mew? Through a combination of Fly, a trainer battle, and choosing specific locations, you can get a low-level Mew to appear!
8. Cyberpunk 2077 (On Launch)
Image Source: CD Project RED
What Cyberpunk 2077 is compared to what it was is night and day. It was an incredible mess on launch day, and many weeks after that, it was pretty astonishing to witness. The story was appealing and featured several noteworthy characters like Goro Takemura (my personal favorite), Judy, and Jackie Wells, to name a few.
The gameplay was also solid, though the skill tree had left a lot to desire. If you were lucky, like me, and only experienced graphical glitches and bugs most of the time, Cyberpunk 2077 was still a fun ride from start to finish. Well, assuming you made it to the end. You couldn’t round a corner without seeing a random T-pose, questionable pathing, NPCs who defied the laws of physics, and vehicles with minds of their own.
7. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II
Image Source: Obsidian Entertainment
Despite its numerous bugs, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 is still a great game. Unfortunately, it was rushed, which meant some quests could break, crashes often occurred, and some events and cutscenes failed to trigger. Not to mention, there was a level-up glitch that made you god-like. Finishing the game meant enduring a hellish gauntlet and a lot of saves, but I’d be lying If I said it wasn’t worth it.
Thankfully, it isn’t 2004 anymore, and the community surrounding it has grown. Modders stepped in and made TSLRCM, an unofficial patch that fixes a bunch of bugs and even restores some content that was left out. Of course, if you want a more pure playthrough, there’s also an unofficial TSLRCM Tweak Pack that leaves cut content out. Either way, KOTOR 2 won’t be such a headache to play on modern machines!
6. Bethesda Game Studios
Image Source: Bethesda
If we’re going to discuss glitchy games that are still fun to play, Bethesda gets its own entry. It’s a running gag at this point that stretches back over two decades, from Morrowind to Starfield. Anyone who enjoys Bethesda’s catalog expects it, too. You might get launched into the stratosphere, take damage from walking over a wheel of cheese, or witness NPCs take a nasty right hook to the head while you’re talking.
Luckily, the bugs and glitches are mostly harmless. You can usually work through most of them by saving a lot. It’s tedious, sure, but losing a few minutes of progress is better than an hour, which I’m positive all of us have felt at one point or another. Autosave has saved my playthroughs more times than I care to count, too.
5. Marvel vs. Capcom 2
Image Source: Capcom
If there are any fighting games on the planet that are more broken than Marvel vs. Capcom 2, I’d love to see it. Not some sole developer working on a passion project, but from developers as well-established as Capcom. It’s incredible the community embraced it like they did because underneath all those travesties is still a top-notch fighting game.
For example, there are player-activated game freezes (Ruby Heart, Gambit), infinite juggles (Cable’s Air Hyper Viper Beam), and the ability to spam unblockable attacks (Sentinel). That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Naturally, players exploited them so frequently that it was fair game, even in tournaments. Only a few lines were drawn in the sand, like freezing the game and infinite dead body loops, though the latter is allowed to a finite degree.
4. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Image Source: Bethesda
The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind deserves its own entry, just because many of its bugs and glitches are incredibly beneficial. They can be exploited to such a degree that, with a few simple tricks, you can make yourself an all-powerful god, even stronger than Vivec. Honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way; it’s what makes Morrowind unique compared to later entries.
Take Alchemy, for example. The strength of your potions is partly determined by your Intelligence. So, you brew an Intelligence potion, chug it, and then brew another even stronger version. After a while, your Intelligence (and other stats) are in the thousands. It’s handy for enchanting gear with ridiculous effects, too.
Then there’s spellcrafting. By adding a secondary target effect, in addition to the buff you want, you’ve created a permanent buff. This trick often gets referred to as the “Soultrap Effect Glitch,” but it’s not Soultrap that’s causing the bug; it’s the Target effect.
3. Mass Effect 3
Image Source: BioWare
To be honest, Mass Effect 3 merely continues the tradition of bugs that started long ago in the franchise’s history. It being the last in a trilogy and having the bugs and glitches it had was icing on the cake. No hate from me, though; I still love them just as much as everyone else.
The kinds of bugs you’ll find in Mass Effect 3 are actually incredibly entertaining. You’ve got NPCs breakdancing after being hit by biotics, allies T-posing, and getting stuck in the air after performing a biotic charge. It’s mostly harmless unless you’re the poor soul who can’t deal damage after migrating your ME2 save file over to ME3.
2. Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing
Image Source: Stellar Stone
Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing is the kind of game—and I use that term loosely—that’s so laughably bad, it’s entertaining. The type of bad that makes movies like The Room a treat to watch. Playing it just makes you ask so many questions, like, Who thought this was okay? How did this get released? Is this some elaborate joke? You won’t get answers to those questions, by the way. Big Rigs remains an enigma throughout.
First off, the opponent you race doesn’t actually move unless you download the only patch ever released, in which case they’ll move but stop just before passing the finish line. That means you can never lose. Lastly, your truck can accelerate at ludicrous speeds… in reverse. Then there are buildings you can pass right through and terrain that clips in and out of existence. If you can get your hands on a copy of Big Rigs, it’s worth experiencing at least once.
1. Goat Simulator
Image Source: Coffee Stain Studios
It’s not every day you see game developers intentionally keep bugs in their game and be entirely open about it, but that’s precisely what Coffee Stain Studios did with Goat Simulator. Why? Well, honestly, because it makes the game a heck of a lot more fun. It was already entertaining, but the glitches just make the experience that much more better. Promise!
Coffee Stain Studios follows one simple rule: if a bug or glitch doesn’t break the game or cause instability, it’s kept in. So, welcome all manner of whacky physics, bring on the stretched-out limbs, the clipping, and bizarre NPC behavior. You’ll be giggling like a madman the entire time!
No doubt there are dozens more examples of fun, glitchy games, but these stuck out to us the most. Several were even high-profile games, like Mass Effect 3, Cyberpunk 2077, and Bethesda’s lineup. Let us know some of your favorites; we all can use a good laugh! It wouldn’t hurt to check out our other lists, like the best game sequels of the past 10 years.
About the author
Brady Klinger-Meyers
Brady is a Freelance Writer at Twinfinite. Though he’s been at the site for only a year, Brady has been covering video games, and the industry itself, for the past three years. He focuses on new releases, Diablo 4, Roblox, and every RPG he can get his hands on. When Brady isn’t focused on gaming, he’s toiling away on another short story.
In the months (nay, years) leading up to Starfield’s September 6 release, the hype for the Bethesda RPG grew and grew until it was a heretofore unseen beast, a giant Kaiju of expectation that threatened to take down Sony, upend 2023’s GOTY race, and suck up all of gamers’ precious free time.
Head of Xbox Creator Experience Sarah Bond joined in on the fun, calling Starfield “one of the most important RPGs ever made.” Bethesda head Pete Hines said it took him well over 100 hours to properly start Starfield. All of the hype whipped Xbox fans into a frenzy, and indirectly fueled the flickering flames of the console wars. Starfield’s scope, its potential, even made the then-unreleased game a talking point in the FTC trial regarding Microsoft’s purchase of Activision-Blizzard.
Then, after a few days in what Bethesda dubbed “early access,” available to deep-pocketed players who shelled out big bucks for one of several premium editions, Starfield launched. It is surprisingly not buggy, and jam-packed with side-quests that offer a steady drip of serotonin. But it’s woefully inaccessible, its UI is daunting, and it is, ultimately, just a new Bethesda game. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s a stark reminder that hype trains are just marketing tools in a different font. Starfield is a good game, but it is not a groundbreaking one.
Before I got a chance to dive into Starfield, I wondered aloud (and on social media) if the game would occupy a similar space in my life that Skyrim has held on more than one occasion. Skyrim never floored me and never lingered after I powered off my console, unlike Marvel’s Spider-Man’s version of Manhattan, or story beats in Mass Effect 2. But every time I dropped back into Skyrim, I fell into the same satisfying loop, emerging from a lengthy play session a little dazed, uncertain of the time, blinking to reaccustom my eyes to the real world outside of its pixels.
Every time I jumped into Skyrim I’d go off searching for some tucked-away relic or NPC in need of help and end up climbing to the top of a peak I saw in the distance, or scurrying through caves like a little gamer Gollum, furiously lining my pockets with shiny objects. I’d “just one more side-quest” myself into the wee hours of the morning, surreptitiously pulling tokes from a pre-roll resting on the table in front of me. No matter what I did, whether it was becoming a vampire or participating in a drinking competition, I was never blown away or taken aback by what Skyrim unfurled before me—I was, however, hooked.
I’m about 20 hours into Starfield and can safely say it is exactly like Skyrim in space. The steady serotonin drip of overhearing a conversation, marking the quest associated with that conversation on my map, completing it, then going back to the list and selecting the next thing is unparalleled. It is the kind of game that completionists salivate over, the kind that I find myself longing to return to and get lost in during my workday, on the train home, while finishing off a workout.
After progressing the main campaign a bit, I violently veered into side-quest territory, spending nearly four hours straight on the Blade Runner-esque planet Neon. I joined a gang, I helped Starfield’s version of Björk recover her music, I tried to console a grief-stricken widow in the shadow of a fish corpse. I paid for VIP lounge access at a bar, helped squash a squabble over a robot that had been vandalized, and rented a room in a hotel just to say I did. Starfield has hooked me in a way that only Bethesda games can, because it is so thoroughly a Bethesda game with a shinier coat of paint.
Image: Bethesda
Expectation versus reality
There is nothing wrong with Starfield feeling familiar—Bethesda’s formula works, and has for over two decades, so I’m not crucifying Todd Howard for refusing to reinvent the wheel. I am, however, noting that there’s a clear disconnect between calling a game “one of the most important RPGs ever made” and that game then reusing long-existing RPG gameplay mechanics and storytelling techniques throughout.
As Kotaku’s Zack Zweizen points out, Starfield is “still a Bethesda RPG. You can almost feel the ancient bones of Morrowind and Fallout 3 poking through bits of the scenery and menus as you play.” Companions still linger behind NPCs chatting you up, players are still almost always overencumbered, enemies still fall over like action figures when you send a gust of gravity their way that feels almost exactly like Skyrim’s Dragon Shouts.
There’s nothing groundbreaking about Starfield, save for maybe its scope, which is possible largely because of the technological advances that have taken place within the last several years, and are now readily available in consumer-facing products like the Xbox Series X/S and modern PCs.
But as for Starfield bringing new ideas to the genre, or adding anything new to its well-worn formula…it doesn’t. Bethesda has been quietly moving its own role-playing goalposts closer to the more shallow end ever since The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, narrowing the scope of what the player can actually influence, placing you in a world that feels perfectly carved out for you to slot into, its problems cleanly laid out for you to solve. Cian Maher’s quote from an Oblivion piece for TheGamercomes to mind: “I also don’t reckon Skyrim ever managed to carve out a portion of its world and imbue [it] with the necessary narrative significance for a conclusion to not seem like deus ex machina.”
Aside from extensive ship-building mechanics, there aren’t any shiny new gameplay additions in Starfield. Building an outpost is just Fallout base-building, leveling your lockpicking or melee abilities follows similar logic to Skyrim, and there are many eerie similarities to Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds. The most noted difference comes not in an updated role-playing system or deeper NPC interactions, but in gunplay—Starfield improves upon Bethesda’s infamous combat clunkiness, and it’s welcome.
But Starfield feels the same way Fallout 4 did, which felt the same way Skyrim did, and that does not make it “one of the most important RPGs” ever made. It just makes it a good Bethesda game, a game made by a studio that Microsoft spent $7.5 billion to acquire. We’d do well to remember that, both as consumers and critics, going forward.
