'God it was gutting' to see the Fallout fanbase response, says Fallout Tactics lead: 'fervent and passionate and often horribly toxic'

GamesStrategyFallout Tactics’God it was gutting' to see the Fallout fanbase response, says Fallout Tactics lead: ‘fervent and passionate and often horribly toxic’When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

GamesStrategyFallout Tactics’God it was gutting’ to see the Fallout fanbase response, says Fallout Tactics lead: ‘fervent and passionate and often horribly toxic’When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

(Image credit: Bethesda)

Power armour

“We had two windows into how it was being received,” says Orman. “There was one that we should have just never looked through, and the one that we always look through. Commercially and in terms of how [Fallout: Tactics] was rated and how it was reviewed, it was received really well. For what it was, the journalists who played it just generally seemed to get what we were trying to do, what the limitations of what we had were, and they thought we punched above our weight. I think we did too. I think we made a really great game that a bunch of people enjoyed.”

But a lot of people didn’t: or at least said they didn’t. Fallout: Tactics didn’t just diverge from what the previous games had done, but above all else suffered from the unfortunate fact it wasn’t (the Black Isle) Fallout 3.

“The other window was the existing Fallout fan base and the incredibly fervent and passionate and often horribly toxic people in that fan base,” says Orman. “There was a minority I remember seeing on there who were like ‘Hey, it’s pretty good game. I like what they’ve done to improve these things about Fallout.’ But the vast majority were like, ‘This isn’t a Fallout game. This is not Fallout 3. You screwed up the lore here, here and here. You put hairy deathclaws in, you’re not using charisma properly and all of those things.’ And so there was a huge amount of negativity within the fan base.”

The unfortunate thing was that, even before the team began work on Fallout: Tactics, they were part of that fanbase, and as the game was developed became even bigger fans. Perhaps the wounds cut deep because, on some level, these were the fellow travellers that the developers had hoped to please.

“That was disheartening,” says Orman. “God, it was gutting. The art team in particular were super gutted, because a lot of the visuals of the robots and things like that which they had slaved away on, those were the things that were getting dinged for not fitting the aesthetic. Visually, it was really easy to point at things and go, ‘This doesn’t fit the universe.’ So they copped it hard.

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals

“It was a rough time. And I think we put more weight on the fan base, because we were trying to make people happy. You want to make the fan base happy. You want to make another one too. You want people to like it. So, yeah, it was a gut punch.

“It doesn’t help that there was already a schism in that fan base, between Fallout 1 and 2, because they were totally different games. So there was already that going on. And then let’s add a third game.”

Unbeknownst to Orman at the time, publisher Interplay was in serious financial trouble: and sowhile a Tactics sequel was planned, it would never happen. Interplay was soon in such hot water that it would sell the Fallout IP to Bethesda in 2004, which began work on the game we now know as Fallout 3. Which in itself, oddly enough, lent Tactics something more of a shine.

“Over time that [negativity] did seem to change,” says Orman. “Fallout 1 and 2 was packaged with Tactics, and people came to appreciate Tactics for what it was.

“I also wonder, once Fallout 3 came out, how much that solidified the group to go, ‘Well, that’s not my Fallout.’ So it might have legitimised us a bit there too.”

Bethesda would soon enough decide, however, that it was going to make Tactics a non-canon entry in the series (which “sucked,” Orman told PC Gamer). It remains one of the oddest entries in a now-massive series and, in ways big and small, keeps bleeding out into the contemporary stuff: “little bits and pieces of Tactics you can see kind of are canon now, just through the back door over time,” says Orman. “And that’s good enough for me.”

You can read Jeremy Peel’s full interview here:The Making of Fallout Tactics.

More about strategyWhen 2K removed its annoying launcher it broke a bunch of XCOM 2 modsCivilization 7 has been Steam Deck Verified ahead of its launch next monthLatestToday’s Wordle answer for Monday, January 13See more latest►

More about strategyWhen 2K removed its annoying launcher it broke a bunch of XCOM 2 modsCivilization 7 has been Steam Deck Verified ahead of its launch next month

More about strategy

When 2K removed its annoying launcher it broke a bunch of XCOM 2 modsCivilization 7 has been Steam Deck Verified ahead of its launch next month

XCOM 2 with Warhammer 40,000 customization and weapons modded in

When 2K removed its annoying launcher it broke a bunch of XCOM 2 mods

Digital Ben Franklin looking very perturbed on dark background

Civilization 7 has been Steam Deck Verified ahead of its launch next month

LatestToday’s Wordle answer for Monday, January 13See more latest►

Latest

Today’s Wordle answer for Monday, January 13

Wordle today being played on a phone

Today’s Wordle answer for Monday, January 13

See more latest►

Most Popular

Today’s Wordle answer for Sunday, January 12

Watching an all-romances speedrun of the legendarily janky Fallout: New Vegas is a delight

Activision will send you alarmingly detailed data for every single Call of Duty match you’ve played in the last 4 years if you ask, and players are using it to figure out their mysterious SBMM rankings

Here’s a game about being a depressed, lonely maintenance robot on a long-haul space colony ship

Civilization 7 has been Steam Deck Verified ahead of its launch next month

23-year-old D&D RPG Neverwinter Nights just got a new update thanks to the ‘unpaid software engineers’ of its unkillable community

My Summer Car, the absurdly detailed Finnish life sim about vehicle maintenance and drinking in your underpants, smashes into 1.0 after nearly a decade in Steam early access

Assassin’s Creed Shadows takes a run at improving parkour, as Ubisoft strives to make the system less ‘like a gas pedal’

Today’s Wordle answer for Saturday, January 11

The Last of Us season 2 trailer is a brief look at a story you should probably just play yourself in April

HARDWARE BUYING GUIDESLATEST GAME REVIEWS1Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads2Best graphics card for laptops: the mobile GPUs I’d want in my next gaming laptop3Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most4Best 14-inch gaming laptop: The top compact gaming laptops I’ve held in these hands5Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I’ve tested1Thank Goodness You’re Here! review2Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island review3WD Black SN850X 8 TB NVMe SSD review4Ikea Utespelare desk review5Asus ROG Harpe Ace Mini wireless mouse review

HARDWARE BUYING GUIDESLATEST GAME REVIEWS

1Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads

A bunch of the best Steam Deck accessories on a blue background.

1Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads

Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads

2Best graphics card for laptops: the mobile GPUs I’d want in my next gaming laptop

Best graphics card for laptops: the mobile GPUs I’d want in my next gaming laptop

3Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most

Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most

4Best 14-inch gaming laptop: The top compact gaming laptops I’ve held in these hands

Best 14-inch gaming laptop: The top compact gaming laptops I’ve held in these hands

5Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I’ve tested

Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I’ve tested

1Thank Goodness You’re Here! review

Thank Goodness You’re Here review

1Thank Goodness You’re Here! review

Thank Goodness You’re Here! review

2Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island review

Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island review

3WD Black SN850X 8 TB NVMe SSD review

WD Black SN850X 8 TB NVMe SSD review

4Ikea Utespelare desk review

Ikea Utespelare desk review

5Asus ROG Harpe Ace Mini wireless mouse review

Asus ROG Harpe Ace Mini wireless mouse review

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals#

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals