The Fallout community on Reddit has a time-honoured tradition every year: an informal poll to see which Fallout entry is the most popular in the series, discover other interesting facts about the community, and collectively dunk on Fallout 76. And to no one’s surprise, Fallout: New Vegas is leading the results by a landslide, with 52.6% of responses listing the game as their favourite. This is followed by Fallout 4 in second place, with 25.5% of players ranking the game as their top Fallout title. In fact, New Vegas’ popularity also saw the game topping the list of Fallout games that players want to see remastered or remade—surprisingly trumping the foundational Fallout games that were originally developed by Interplay Productions, but now feel largely dated.

Conversely, Fallout 76 is said to be the weakest game in the Fallout series—a popular consensus by 30% of the respondents. But one of the more perplexing results is that the Fallout 4 companions were also the most popular ones among the community at 49.5%, besting even those of Fallout: New Vegas. Bethesda has never really been great at creating believable characters; I can barely remember most of Fallout 4’s companions aside from Preston Garvey, and that’s mostly because of his ceaseless, inappropriately timed reminders about settlements that need my aid.

Related: Comparing The Openings of Fallout 3, Fallout 4 and Fallout New Vegas

Of course, the poll is by no means comprehensive or is carefully calibrated to contain an optimal sample size. Plus, the results were similar to that of the poll from the previous year, which may simply mean that New Vegas has some of the most overzealous fans in the community. But the fact that New Vegas remained so popular only demonstrates the game’s staying power. It’s a title so smartly written and acutely self-aware that it’s chock full with layers of irony, kitsch and political intrigue. Few games have allowed you to discuss the intricacies of centralised rule, imperialism and military might with a fascist ruler like New Vegas did—and the game has that in spades with the Caesar’s Legion faction.

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In contrast, Bethesda’s Fallout games aren’t renowned for their storytelling, but instead contain more elaborate worlds that are ripe for discovery. These games have maps that are a joy to explore—for all their flaws, the unmarked quests and trails of Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 are some of the most riveting to experience (the poll results also skews the same way; Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 are the top two games when it comes to having the “best world to explore”). But Bethesda also wants these worlds to become a playground for post-apocalyptic warfare and resettlement. All these have come to a head in Bethesda’s Fallout 76, a multiplayer game derided for its unironic love of nuclear hellfire, undisguised embrace of militarism and its supposedly game-breaking lore. The newer games have pedalled so far off from Fallout’s garish satire of American jingoism, that it’s perhaps why Fallout fans have long been yearning for another Obsidian-made Fallout game.

You can see more of the poll results by heading over to the Reddit thread.

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