Todd Howard has no plans to take Fallout out of its iconic ‘Americana’ setting

Since the launch of the Fallout series, players have been able to explore different corners of the unforgiving nuclear wasteland that was once the United States, and Todd Howard says you shouldn’t expect to cross those borders any time soon.

In a recent interview with Kinda Funny Games host Greg Miller, head of Bethesda and the Fallout series Todd Howard responded to a question about considering other locations outside the U.S., and while he didn’t outright completely dismiss the idea, he did suggest doing so would rob the franchise of one of its core components.

“My view is that part of the Fallout shtick is on the Americana naivety,” Howard said. “For us right now, it’s okay to sort of acknowledge some of those other areas, but our plans are to predominantly keep it in the U.S.”

Since the first Fallout was released in 1997, the series has always stayed state-side, starting in Southern California before heading to other regions via the franchise’s main installments, including Washington D.C., the Mojave desert, Boston, and the mountains of Appalachia. Even the various expansions that explore new locations in Fallout 3, Fallout 4, and Fallout New Vegas all stay within the States.

That isn’t to say the rest of the world doesn’t exist in the world of Fallout, but they’re only touched upon in brief mentions. In the intro to the first game, it’s explained that the European Commonwealth dissolved “into quarreling, bickering nation-states” as soon as the oil fields in the Middle East dried up, before the whole continent was ravaged by nuclear strikes in the Great War. Canada was annexed by the U.S. during the war against China.

While an official Fallout set outside of the U.S. doesn’t appear likely, there are fans who have been eagerly awaiting the Fallout 4 total conversion mod, Fallout London. The massive mod, featuring Baldur’s Gate 3 voice actor Neil Newbon, has just recently been delayed though due to the Fallout 4 next-gen update. It appears, inadvertently it seems, that Todd Howard gets his wish to keep Fallout set solely in America for the time being.