My Life as a Fallout 4 NPC
Philadelphia had been sheltering in place for about six weeks when I started my second playthrough of Fallout 4. It seemed like everyone in my life was planting orchards and selling turnips on an island full of charming animal friends, and I got nostalgic for my carefully tended tato gardens, rattletrap cabins, and grumpy villagers. The Fallout 4 aesthetic seemed well-suited to my melancholy mood, thanks to the somber instrumental score and the crushed remains of human civilization littered around the irradiated wasteland. As I started a new save, I reflected that the first characters you meet in the Commonwealth are defined by their losses: the Abernathys lost their daughter; the Minutemen, their home; the Sole Survivor, her entire way of life before the bomb. After six weeks of grief, anxiety, and total physical isolation, I too felt like I had lost something. (more…)
Sara Davis is a recovering academic and marketing writer who lives in Philadelphia. Her PhD in American literature is from Temple University. She blogs about books, games, climate change, and other obsessions at literarysara.net.
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