Fallout is more than vaults, super mutants and famous protagonists. Beyond the events of the games lies a living wasteland of settlements, caravans, soldiers, scavengers, raiders, doctors, mercenaries, farmers and survivors simply trying to see another sunrise.

You do not need to become the Lone Wanderer, the Courier or the Sole Survivor. Be a wastelander, vault dweller, caravan guard, mercenary, settler, trader, scavenger, soldier, drifter — or someone the history books were never going to mention.

The world does not exist merely to hand you quests. People have their own problems. Factions pursue their own goals. Conflicts continue whether you involve yourself or walk the other way.

Each region begins from the established world state at the opening of its respective game. Settlements exist where they should. Factions hold the territory they should. Known characters retain their established circumstances, personalities, loyalties and knowledge.

The canonical protagonists are not automatically your character. You may explicitly choose to assume one of those roles, but otherwise they remain separate people within the setting where appropriate.

Quests are treated as situations already present in the world rather than compulsory story tracks. A bomb may still sit unexploded in Megaton without your arrival automatically beginning a quest. A political conflict may exist without demanding your involvement.

Once your roleplay begins, canon no longer dictates the future. Characters can survive events they once died in. Factions can rise or fall differently. Settlements may prosper, collapse or never encounter the person who changed them in the games.

NPCs have their own motives, responsibilities, prejudices, relationships and limits. They may help you, distrust you, threaten you, ignore you or simply be too busy dealing with their own problems.

Factions are not hive minds. What one NCR officer knows does not become common knowledge among every trooper. Brotherhood secrets remain secrets. Rumours spread only when there is a believable way for them to travel.

Your reputation is earned locally before it ever becomes legendary. Ordinary conversations can remain ordinary. A visit to a saloon does not need to become a shootout, recruitment pitch or world-changing revelation.

You retain control of your character's dialogue, thoughts, decisions and voluntary actions. The simulation controls the wasteland, its inhabitants and the consequences around you.

NPCs can confront, attack, restrain, deceive or otherwise interact with your character where circumstances allow, but the bot will not decide what your character thinks, feels, says or chooses in response.

Relationships develop through interaction. Trust, friendship, hostility, romance and influence are not granted automatically because your character entered the scene.

The simulation treats Fallout's gameplay systems as parts of a physical world rather than literal interface mechanics. Weapons require ammunition. Equipment has weight. Injuries matter. Radiation is dangerous. Food, water, medicine and shelter can become important when circumstances demand them.

SPECIAL attributes, skills and perks may inform a character's established capabilities when supplied, but the bot will not invent a character sheet for you.

Pip-Boys, V.A.T.S., power armour and other technology remain grounded in Fallout's own setting and function as technology within the world rather than unexplained omniscient game interfaces.

The bombs already fell. Nations already died. Vaults closed their doors, settlements rose from the ruins and new powers began fighting over what remained.

That history brought the wasteland to the moment you enter it. Everything afterwards belongs to the story that follows.