If you’ve been on the Internet at all in the last couple weeks, no doubt you’ve heard the buzz surrounding Bethesda’s next chapter in the Fallout series, Fallout 4.
The fallout series is an open world action first or third person shooter, with each game centered around surviving in the world after a nuclear war. Each game begins similarly, the player wakes up in what is called a “Vault”, community nuclear shelters, around 200 years after the nuclear detonations. You emerge from the vault, located in Boston in Fallout 4, to find the surface world to be a barren, scarred wasteland filled with bandit gangs, mutated animals and humans, and scattered radiation. Because the war happens many years in the future from now, there are a plethora of modern and futuristic weapons, armors, medicines, and technologies for your character to explore and discover throughout your travels. In the first 24 hours after its release, Fallout 4 sold 12 million copies while raking in $750 million dollars, making it the most successful video game release of 2015. With so that many people playing, the question is raised, just how realistic is this Fallout post-apocalyptic world? In the event of a real global nucle
ar fallout, would the landscape really turn to a barren wasteland filled with mutated creatures?
First off, lets look at one of the most prominent changes in the fallout world, the animals. Nearly all animals have suffered severe mutations, including cows with three heads, giant hind leg walking lizards, and giant scorpions.
These are consistent with pre-conceived notions of radiation exposure, with almost all post apocalyptic, post nuclear war imaginations about animals, two headed, extra limbs, difference in sizes, with of course the most famous example being Godzilla, who was hypothetically created as a result of radiation from the two nuclear bombs detonated in Japan. 
In reality however, the results of radiation on wildlife is much less dramatic, at least in the short term. The best example we have to study today is the site of the Chernobyl disaster. If you don’t know, Chernobyl was a nuclear power plant in the Ukraine that had an explosion, which sent radioactive debris particles into the atmosphere. The accident happened in 1986, and the site to this day is still abandoned. Researchers from Texas Tech investigated the area for years and eventually described it as basically a wildlife preserve. Natural wildlife such as bears, moose, and wolves are in high numbers in the area along with the occasional lynx, bison, and wild horse. Observations of the animals from afar show there to be very little if any serious mutations or genetic weakening. In fact, the area has become home to many endangered species due to the absence of human interaction, providing almost a safe haven for wildlife. So basically, the opposite of the Fallout games.
As for the landscape, Fallout displays a color display of mostly browns a greys. Most plant life looks dead or dying, with the occasional splash of red and green here and there. This sets a very ominous tone for the game, but is it realistic? Does radiation permanently kill plant life? According to Travis Glenn of “The Molecular Ecologist” after years of observation of chernobyl, “it is reasonable to be concerne
d about long-term effects from radiation and the very large number of other environmental contaminants that may induce mutations and transgenerational epigenetic modifications.” In other words, although there were no drastic initial mutations to any species, although the changed environment of radiation may cause long term mutations in species due to natural selection.
So basically, yes, it is possible for a radioactive environment to mutate a species over generations of time to create a world similar to that in Fallout, but according to everything we know now, it would likely be to a much less drastic extent.
I found this post pretty interesting since I have played Fallout 4. There are definitely some things in the Fallout world that could happen from radiation, like mutated animals, but there are also some that I do not think would actually happen in real life. Also who knows how long it would take for radiation to really effect the animals and people in a way that it is extremely noticeable. Mutations from radiation in the world today tends to be things like extra limbs, mangled limbs, or down-syndrome and these things can have negative effects on one’s health. Hopefully the world does not get blown up by nukes so we don’t have to worry about radiation and nuclear fallout.
This post certainly caught my eye as well. I think that this is a really good post and does a good job of connecting video games and science. However I believe that you may have slightly downplayed the genetic mutations that occurred around Chernobyl. After the disaster there were countless mutations and stillbirths from the radiation. I am not sure that the mutations would be passed on as they do in Fallout, but we have never experienced very high levels of radiation. If there was a nuclear war that devastated the planet, the radiation levels would much higher than anything we have ever seen. We can’t be sure of what would happen to Earth in that situation. I found this page about mutations after Chernobyl (warning: it contains very graphic pictures) :
Children of Chernobyl
Christmas is approaching. So is the end of this semester. Naturally, when I see a blog post about Fallout 4 (a game I anticipate buying over break), I’m excited- it means someone has somehow found a way to blend an enjoyable topic into what can be a difficult scientific subject. Immediately upon reading your blog post, I’ll be honest…I was somewhat disappointed. But this is only because I wish I could have grabbed the topic myself, before you did.
Even if I had though, I’m not sure I could have done a job as good as you did. Your examination was very thorough. Your ability to take the topic of a video game and blend it with science was great. At no point in time did I feel as if you were having to stretch, or connect the two subjects with difficulty. The actual science behind Fallout’s monsters and enemies was always something I was curious about, but it only ever remained in the back of my mind,
This topic rose a few questions for me, though. The notion of mutation after radiation is not just scientific fantasy…is it? Is there any point in which radiation will cause animals to mutate…and increase size or grow two heads or anything? Is it possible for any of this to actually occur? I did some of my own research, and this is what I found. (Sorry for the non-hyperlink, I always mess it up and the reader has no way to visit the site I found. So you can just copy and paste this into your URL.) https://www.dnalc.org/view/15529-Radiation-can-cause-DNA-mutations-3D-animation-with-narration.html
Also, Chernobyl has always been something I’ve considered to be very interesting. Many times, it’s been the subject of my google and youtube “sessions”. One thing I have specifically noticed is that there doesn’t seem to be an excessive amount of death- to be honest, there seems to be nearly none at all. The only things dead seem to be the buildings…the cars…the houses..the furniture…and otherwise manmade objects (a topic Fallout 4 holds true to). However, differing from Fallout 4 as you stated, pictures of Chernobyl feature a lot of plant life. In the summer, at the least, there’s a massive amount more of green plants than there is brown, dead ones. So maybe a nuclear disaster doesn’t necessarily spell out death for everything- even if it might be harmful to the human race. It’s an interesting topic that stems from this video game, and is certainly worth investing more time into.
Again, great blog! I enjoyed reading it, with such a great topic with such a kairotic time for it to be posted.
This was a very interesting post. You obviously play this game, and its cool that you found a way to tie it to science and use it for a blog. My roommate plays this game a lot and it is interesting to watch. It is interesting to think about what could cause animal mutation other than radioactivity. This is the link to a site that talks about animal mutations due to pollution, which might be an even more of a possibility in the near future. http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/2004/05/13/airpollution.php