The editor can be a brutal but necessary evil of the creation process. They are responsible for flow, pacing, but more importantly—particularly in the gaming industry—budgeting concerns. While stuff could be cut for many reasons, keeping a project on time and within budget is a great concern.

The Fallout series, while clearly full of content, has not been spared with machinations of the editor. Often time gets away from game developers, and things need to be cut. Or perhaps, an idea that seems good on paper, doesn’t pan out in reality.

Now, this list certainly discusses how plot holes could be addressed if certain cut content remained in the final product. However, I am gonna focus more on how this deleted content doesn’t always fix hard plot issues. Rather, missing content hurts immersion, depth of gameplay, or the overall aesthetic of the games they were removed from.

It is also a good opportunity to see how game development changes over the year. As earlier games in the Fallout franchise were freer to included content as much as the like. Back in the 90s, game development was like the Wild West, almost anything went. Now, as gaming is becoming more of a business instead of an entertainment industry, financial concerns are paramount in a games development. Often this leads to increasing amounts of cut content. Though, the modders don’t see to be complaining.

15 Look At All The Stuff Down Here

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The water surrounding the Commonwealth is quite disgusting. However, there is a wealth of stuff to be found beneath the brown sludge. Try running the Clear Water mod to see for yourself. There is a myriad of sunken ships, piping, containers, and … corpses to be found. But why is all this stuff hidden away from the player?

Turns out that Bethesda may have had more plans for the Fallout 4’s waterways than we got in the final product. A deleted quest entitled “20 Leagues Under the Sea” was discovered lying around in the game’s code. What was found was quite intriguing. There were assets for an underwater vault, a Chinese nuclear sub, and unique harpoon gun, which is completely different than the gun you receive in the Far Harbour DLC.

This signals that the water was meant to be a more interactive space. Though I am more curious about the sub!

14 Fallout Has A Human Experimentation OBSESSION

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Even the older Fallout games weren’t immune to the whims of the editor. Fallout 2 was supposed to have a very large area of high tech wonders, and inhumane practices for you to explore. This place was called the Environmental Protection Agency.

This place would have been quite large and featured many different elements. For instance, there would have been holographic NPCs that would act as guides and sometimes enemies. A museum of post-war relics (very interesting!). And a very odd petting zoo filled with feral humans, who are cannibalistic. We don’t know the story behind the latter, but it does fall in line with Fallout’s tradition of government agencies experimenting on its citizens.

In addition, there were random NPCs that had been held in cryosleep since before the war; an idea that would later be picked up for Fallout 3.

13 Today’s Hottest Hits, And Pompous Tidbits!

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The Tenpenny Tower is located just to the South West of Megaton. The proprietor of this Tower is Allistair Tenpenny. He is a recluse, who never leaves his penthouse suite, and you only get a brief moment to speak with him.

There are so many questions about his past that are left dangling. Why is there an 80-year-old Englishman in the irradiated US Capital? How did he get his fortune? Why is he so reclusive? And how the hell is he so clean?!

Well, some of these questions could have been answered if his own personal radio station was left in the game. The station was full of Tenpenny’s musings on life. There were even programs, such as “Tenpenny Truisms,” in which he would bless the masses with his wisdom and his gospel on progress.

It seems like he could have been the Capital Wasteland’s very own Andrew Ryan.

12 One Day, I’m Gonna Be A Contender!

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Y'all recall the Combat Zone just outside of Diamond City. This was a fighting area filled with rowdy raiders betting on fights and getting drunk. But that’s it, you walk in, kill all the raiders, get Cait as a follower. It seems very odd to create a unique area, filled with rules, shops, and even the announcer alludes to the betting system.

Turns out that the Combat Zone was supposed to be a place where you could bet on other fighters for cash, or even bet on yourself as you participated in the combat. But alas this was cut.

Though, it seems that Bethesda had a dark streak with attempting to add fighting pit type locales to their games. A similar gladiator area was cut from Skyrim. A fighting pit was supposed to be located in Windhelm.

However, modders have been able to retrieve much of the assets from both areas, and have attempted to recreate the content.

11 A Petting Zoo Of Horrible Nightmares

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Mirelurks have always creeped me out. The crab-like variety was never really a chore, but the Mirelurk Kings that pop up on occasion always got me. They were super strong at lower levels and always made me think twice about going near the water.

There are many other varieties as well, hunters, queens, and all variations of glowing and Nuka-Cola infused nightmares. However, there were efforts to place one more into the game. The Catfish-like Mirelurk. What made them creepy, was that they resembled a human in their shape and movement. Who wouldn’t want a human fish monster chasing you in the dark?

In addition, the Wanamingo from Fallout 2 was supposed to make an appearance in Fallout 3. This would have been interesting for the story as these were FEV created bioweapons, and it would have been cool to see them brought from the West Coast to the Capital Wasteland.

10 Those Sores Sure Are Mystical

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To me, Mama Murphy always felt like an incomplete concept. She is touted as being some sort of substance-fuel mystic, who uses the powers of chems to divine the future and fortunes of others. But when you look at here and speak to her, she feels more like a regular old addict and not a mystic. She looks sickly and just talks nonsense.

Exploring the Fallout 4’s concept art, we see a different individual. She is older, looks wiser, and is dressed more like a cloistered mystic than a haggard chem fiend. More interestingly she was depicted floating around in a wheelchair made from a converted Mr. Handy.

Leaving this in the game would have made Mama Murphy the mysterious mystic that she ought to have been.

9 The King Of The Wasteland

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Fallout games are known for their creativity in the weapon department. The Cryolator, Fatman, and rocket-assisted hammers are some of the more creative entries. However, some are just down brilliant. Not for their stats, or damage output, rather they are just genius in their satirical nature.

One such weapon, the “Excalibat,” was unfortunately left out of Fallout 3. This bat would have been fully repairable and would have been discovered, embedded in a rock, glowing with all of its cheesy glory.

Clearly, this is a nod to the legendary sword Excalibur from King Arthur. But the humour-value that is lost from not including this in the game is truly unfortunate. Think of the role-playing value that’s lost.

Crazy man of the wastes, enchanted bat in hand. Only he can bring justice to a lawless land… EPIC!

8 Pin Their Head To The Wall!

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Fallout 3 was a revolution in the Fallout series. It went from me a static point and click adventure, to a fully rendered 3D world. It included tonnes of advancements in gameplay as well. However, there is only so much a game could have, and some mechanics were dropped in the eleventh hour.

For example, the game was supposed to have a throwing skill. Which is very unfortunate as this would make logical sense. You just come out of the vault and you run out of bullets. You’re surrounded by angry raiders. Are you gonna tell me that you’re not gonna start chuck rocks or whatever loose bottlecaps you have at them?

A little thing, but it certainly would have made the world more believable and desperate. Which is something that Obsidian picked up on, as they included the skill in New Vegas.

7 Who Needs Homeless Shelters, Just Delete Them

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Fallout: New Vegas is considered by many fans to be the best the series has to offer. It felt grittier and more close to experiencing that Interplay was trying to cultivate with the first two installments in the series. However, one main criticism was the underwhelming presentation of New Vegas and its surrounding areas. Which makes this cut all the more unfortunate.

The town of Freeside was supposed to have a collection of varied, and unique NPC types. Two that were cut were the beggars and the pickpockets. I’m sure time or budget constraints kept these NPCs from making the cut, but their addition would have made the who post-apocalyptic city experience that much better.

The beggars would have depicted the harsh reality of the wasteland, while the pickpockets would have provided that element of unease, forcing the player to always be alert. Too bad.

6 You Sure Hear A Lot For Someone Without Ears...

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Rotface is a very knowledgeable ghoul. He was filled with some much knowledge and random information that it became suspect as to how he acquired such vast repository of info. But Obsidian left it at that, without further developing his character. Which is unfortunate, because some speech options allude to there being more to the story.

There was an entire quest that revolved around Rotface that was cut from the game. You would have been able to decide his fate. You would have been able to learn a little bit about his past as well as push him in certain directions.

For instance, as he became rich off of his information brokering, you could encourage him to spend like a baller—which leads to him getting killed by jealous rivals—or just leaving the town of Freeside. It would have been a nice little tidbit to round off the story of a unique character.

5 The Climax That Could Have Been

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Another area that was lacking in New Vegas was the final sequence. For much of the game, the final battle between the NCR and Caesar’s Legion was touted as the battle to end all battles. However, when the time comes, each side only has a handful of troops. They shoot at each other briefly, and one side wins rather spectacularly.

The scrapped idea was to actually give each side a respectable force; complete with medics from the Followers of the Apocalypse. Other factions were supposed to get involved in the battle as well, based on who you pissed off or impressed during your playthrough. In addition, there was supposed to be an entirely new area between the Hoover Dam and the Legate’s Camp.

I suppose logistics forced this content to be cut, as there were a lot of moving parts. But it is nice to imagine how complex and grand things could have been.

4 This Type Of Matchmaking May Be A Little Too Much

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Fallout 4 did a pretty good job of leaving a lot of its quest content intact. Next, to the underwater quest, there was supposed to be a quest entitled “The Replacement.” Not much is known about this, but we can speculate what it could have been.

An unused quest log, a Vault Boy and Vault Girl couple in the PipBoy style, and an introductory script are all that can be found in the game files. These indicated that the quest was supposed to start at Bunker Hill, and the imagery suggests that perhaps this would have been some attempt to recreate your murdered spouse as a Synth.

Besides the moral ambiguities of creating a being to satisfy your sense of loss. It would have added a lot of emotional gravity to the game. I imagine this could have gotten really heavy as the player character broods over the loss of their partner and the conversations with their followers.

3 A World Without Kids Might Be Alright

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Now to be 100 percent honest, I am not a fan of kids. In fact, I despise them. Always with the questions, the feigned innocence, and the aura of self-importance that follows them around… But I digress, this is a Fallout piece, not group therapy.

So concerning kids in the series. Way back in the mid-90s, Fallout was released, and everything was killable. And I mean everything. People, pets, monsters, and kids. Some countries took exception to this, and rather than get their game banned entirely, Interplay just removed children from the game entirely.

But this is where the brilliance of the story comes. Interplay trolls this removal of the children in their own game. This is one of the few instances that Fallout breaks the 4th wall, and it does so to hilarious effect. Taking censorship down a peg has never been more fun.

2 I Remember This Place Being Bigger

Fallout: New Vegas was a fun game. But when it came to development, things didn’t always pan out as planned. Time became a factor and things needed to be scaled back in order to make the game a polished as possible. The city of New Vegas itself and its surrounding slum—Freeside—suffered the most. For a game named after New Vegas, the city itself was major let down.

Both cities were supposed to be two large areas, rather than being broken up into load zones. They were also supposed to contain more stuff in general: shops, people, casinos, etc. We already spoke about the beggars and pickpockets that were removed from Freeside.

This would have given the area a completely different feel and would have gone a long way in addressing the game's main issue. It would have made the place more vibrant and alive, rather than the hollow and empty ghost town that we got.

1 KHAAAAAAAAAN! (:p)

The Great Khans were a unique band of raiders from Fallout: New Vegas. Up until that point, raiders had always been disorganized, roving bands, wandering the wastes… raiding. The Great Khans were a truly organized and even embraced a type of culture based on warriorism.

Cut content would have had you participating actively in this culture as a “Rite Master.” Now, we don’t know exactly what this means, as on the player dialog was found, but we know that you would move through the ranks of the Khans by fighting for respect.

In addition, you would have been rewarded with faction status, a follower, and unique items. There is also an unused map location that is marked in the code as “Greatkhancave.” The cave leads to a large open space, with nothing in it. Some believe that this could have been used for a potential town. Seems like we missed a lot with this one.