Hey there! It’s been a minute, hope you guys missed us as much as we missed showing you all the cool things we’ve been working on. Welcome to the first Fallout Miami seasonal development update.
Those of you who have been with us a little longer are probably wondering “what happened to the monthlies”. Well, we’re a little deeper into development than we were in late 2018 and early 2019. That means things are getting more involved, so there’s less pre-production content getting made. A lot of what we’re working on is more technical and not really that great of a fit for our previous development update format, as you might have seen from our more recent livestreams.
Don’t worry though, we’re still here for you and we’re always excited to show you what we’re working on. We’ve decided that a seasonal update schedule (with update videos coming out at the end of each quarter) is better for us and you. It relieves some pressure from the team to have content presentation-ready by the end of the month, and we can give you more substantial development updates. We’re not going anywhere but forward, and we’re as happy as ever to have you along for the ride!It’s tradition at this point, we’re kicking off with a song! It’s not an ambient one this time, though. Pinch the Barrel, composed by Jeff Brice, is a sunbaked surf-rock sensation. We’ll leave the cheesy surfer lingo to the dudes and dudettes at The Bungo, which is one place you can expect to hear this sweet tune.
Pinch the Barrel and more tracks like it will be available on the Vacation Wasteland’s radio waves as well.
Our factions have been something you guys have been very interested in, especially the Dreamers. Let’s not mince words, the inspiration for them is pretty obvious. That being said, we’re of course going to give it our own spin.
Not all of our favorite Luna junkies will wear animal masks. In fact, these pre-war Halloween party leftovers will mostly be reserved for certain key Dreamers whom you’ll be interacting with. The masks were made by Matthew Stevens and Tyler Woods. We’ll talk more about the characters wearing them in a later video.
Speaking of factions, we haven’t talked about the big two in a little while. We’re currently working on nailing down the visual identity of the Nuclear Patriots, there’s some cool stuff in the works that’s a little too early to show off just yet, but we do have an updated concept for their leader. We introduced you to Axel Slate more than a year ago, and we felt that his look needed an update to match his personality and role in the Vacation Wasteland.
Slate is a man who speaks plainly and isn’t afraid to throw punches. Having joined the Nuclear Patriots as a boy, he grew up steeping in their twin ideals of Strength and Freedom. His combat prowess and natural charisma have made him a beloved leader, and he isn’t too proud to admit that he couldn’t run the Patriots without his trusted aides and advisors. The new concept art for Axel Slate was drawn by Annabel Coe.
On the flipside, we have the Enclave. The characters you’ll meet were part of a team dispatched to Miami to recover a high-value, pre-war military asset. But they weren’t the first. Here we have the power armor that the Enclave in Fallout: Miami will be wearing. Textured by Tyler Woods.
Operation Minerva, now known as Minerva 1, was the first attempt the Enclave made to recover this facility. In the late 2230’s, a team was dispatched from the Capital Wasteland and, shortly after arriving at their objective, went silent and was never heard from again. Thirty-odd years later, a second attempt was made—Operation Minerva 2. A light and mobile detachment was sent out to do recon and find out what happened to the previous team. The only thing they found was their power armor. Lacking such equipment themselves, they refurbished it and began operations in the Vacation Wasteland.
Let’s take a break from new content for a sec. We have an announcement to make!
As we’ve begun to flesh out the main quest of Fallout: Miami in greater detail, it’s become more and more apparent that we simply can’t accomplish our narrative goals while re-using the voiced lines for the Sole Survivor from Fallout 4. We’ve decided to go with a silent protagonist.
This will allow us much greater freedom to craft events and scenarios with deeper roleplaying potential and make dialogue feel more personal and engaging. That being said, the Sole Survivor is still the protagonist of Fallout Miami, they’ll just be losing their voice in the transition from the Commonwealth to the Vacation Wasteland.
We are aware that this will reduce immersion at the start, but it was the best decision we could make given the circumstances. We will be using the Extended Dialogue Interface, which means Fallout: Miami will require the Fallout 4 Script Extender. It’s not without its drawbacks, but we are comitted to delivering the same kind of Fallout experience we, ourselves, would like to play!
Miami is a hotspot for tourists from all over the place. You can’t walk for ten minutes without seeing a bright sign or billboard proudly proclaiming that fact. Our post-post-apocalyptic rendition of it is no different!This is just one of many billboards you can expect to see while out exploring. Drawn by David Mattiacci.
Oh, it’s also important to remember that no marketing material survives contact with the wasteland for long. Part of making our world feel lived-in is making sure that the remnants of the old world bear the scars of a harsher present day.
Speaking of stuff from before the Great War, it’s also important for us to present our alternate history through the environment as much as possible. You might remember us talking about our lore for Cuba and how the United States liberated the island from Chinese communist influence. There will be a museum in Fallout: Miami commemorating this event. Among the exhibits inside, you’ll find this suit of power armor, given a snazzy parade paint job. Textured Alejandro Herandez by in collaboration with Tyler Woods.
But what foreign invasion is complete without an ostentatious monument?
This is the Cuban Liberation Memorial; also by Alejandro Hernandez, with concept art by Gordon Tian. It will be the centerpiece for the garden outside the museum. As you can see, this will be an important worldbuilding location. While not directly involved in the goings-on of Miami by the time the Sole Survivor takes their trip down south, it nonethless serves an important function in fleshing out the world of Fallout Miami.
History is cool and all, but people came to Miami for more than just culture. It’s no Vegas, but it has its fair share of gambling dens both large and small. And that means tables, all kinds of tables. We’ve got more in the works, but today we’re showing off the roulette table, made by Tyler Woods.
Back in February, we also talked about the slaver citadel of Sunshine Cove, formerly the Sunshine Hotel & Casino. By far, the most elite and luxurious hotel in Miami, it can’t just have ordinary gambling tables, they have to have custom branding!
VIP customers of Sunshine Cove can still enjoy losing their money at these tables, more than 200 years later.
One thing we love to show is the progress from concept art to 3D Asset. You might remember the Lifeguard protectron, based on a community suggestion by BlijeKoffie, with concept art drawn by Laura Escoin. Alejandro Hernandez and Tyler Woods took that art and made it a reality.
Expect to see these lovable orange bots patrolling the beaches of the Vacation Wasteland, and getting themselves into all kinds of sticky situations whenever they wanter away from the shoreline
Let’s get in touch with our wilder side. On Halloween, we showed off one of our new monsters, the Snapjaw. No Fallout creature is complete without a couple of variations, our gruesome gator is no different. While we would love to have as many as possible, it’s important to manage the scope of our project, so we’ve settled on four variants.
Albino and Glowing Snapjaws will be rarer encounters that’ll be trying to rip you apart in the less traveled areas of Miami. Textured by Dorian Pillari
Meanwhile, expect Alpha and Mythic Snapjaws, courtesy of our creature artist Penelope Tay, to be defending their nests and hunting down anyone bold enough to venture deep into the brush of Miami’s overgrown golf course and parks.
Unique environments like that require some unique vegetation. Oliwia Białek (Sfaira), our 2D art lead, has come up with some downright alien flora to help realize our vision for what overgrown, swampy, reclaimed-by-nature-but-also-mutated green spaces in an urban setting would look like. And there’s no better example of that than The Green.
David Mattiacci has drawn some breathtaking concept art for this location. The Green, also known as El Verde, used to be the golf course part of the Pantano Royale Golf Club, an elite establishment operated by the Cubanos before the Great War.
The apocalypse makes it pretty difficult to maintain something like a golf course, especially considering the lack of customers. But The Green didn’t become the swampy jungle you’re seeing right now just due to nature. Being no strangers to shady business dealings, the Cubanos accepted money under the table from Miami’s various industrial entities in exchange for disposing of toxic waste. Well, what do you do when you want to make something go away? You bury it in your back yard, or golf course in this case.
Over time, the barrels of waste began to leak, contaminating the area and causing the plantlife to grow out of control. Eventually, all kinds of critters moved in and people began to avoid the area altogether. “Don’t go to The Green” is a common thing the denizens of the Vacation Wasteland tell their children. Of course, there are those who still make the trip, perhaps looking to hunt wildlife uncommon elsewhere or just to grab some gear from unfortunate hunters who never made it out. There are also rumors of people who live in The Green, but everyone that’s been there was usually too busy dodging Bloodbugs and Snapjaws to check. And there’s always those who wind up there by mistake and rarely make it out.
Before we finish this development update up, we’ve got something that you guys have been asking for. A lot of you have been wondering what’s up with the Uzi we showed a long time ago. We’ve been working on it, and it’s getting there. It was originally made by ToastyFresh with weapon mods by TorqueDigital. Maksymilian Genewicz and Nick Reedy have been hard at work making it come to life with animations and sound effects respectively.
Max asked us to tell you guys that this is all very WIP and subject to change, so expect the final animations to look even better!
That’s it for Spring, we’ll see you guys… PSYCH. We’re not going to change our format on you and not make the first time special. Plus, it was E3 recently, can’t just give you the usual and call it a day. Don’t expect this all the time, but we’ve prepared a little bit of ingame footage to show off our worldspace and atmosphere. Everything except the music is big-time WIP and subject to change, but we hope you enjoy it all the same.
We wish you guys a wonderful summer! Make sure to wear enough sunscreen and don’t get discouraged if you’re on a bumpy road, the sun always rises tomorrow! If you’re a wiz at something and think you can help us make Fallout: Miami a reality, send us an application. We’ve also got a little something-something you might enjoy coming up very soon, so stay tuned to our YouTube channel. We hope you’ve enjoyed our first seasonal update , and we’ll see you on the other end of Summer.