If you’re in front of the library, turn around, and you will be presented with the lovely Trinity Church. We couldn’t possibly cover every famous place in the game in one day, so we got some help plotting our course from Burnam’s Walking Tours of Boston, and here’s what we have to show for it. To highlight this shared iconography, we spent an afternoon in downtown Boston visiting a whole slew of really touristy old buildings and monuments that are steeped in historical significance, and frankly look pretty neat too. Fallout 4 embraces this cultural heritage from very early on, with the plot almost immediately taking us through an extremely patriotic “Freedom Museum,” an analogue to the very real Concord Museum of early Americana. Boston is one of the oldest cities in the U.S., and it has a mountain of iconic history and architecture to show for it.
Of course it’s not just the general aesthetic that impressed me, but also the numerous and very specific landmarks that I can personally identify. I always thought there was something a bit grim about this time of year. The wildlife feels strikingly similar too, which is kind of funny it’s supposed to be a post-nuclear wasteland, but it really looks just like that awkward gap between the end of fall foliage and the first snow of winter. Bethesda hit it out of the park as far as achieving a truly New England aesthetic - many of the basic set piece buildings I’ve passed from Concord all the way into downtown Boston have had that very distinctive rustic look and New England structure that you can find in every town in Massachusetts. They mastered the western wasteland and now they’ve come for us here in New England.Īs someone who grew up not far from Boston, playing Fallout 4 has been a particularly immersive ride for me. Each time they make a Fallout game, they choose their setting from one of many colorful and diverse areas of real-life America and then they load the game with as many visual and cultural references to that real place as is reasonably possible.
This rings true for both the stunning fantastical landscapes of The Elder Scrolls as well as the bleak yet remarkably stylish wastelands of Fallout. While budgets may vary (the episode featured here is a multimillion-dollar project, but there are many episodes with more realistic budgets), there’s one thing these homeowners have in common: an unwavering passion for old houses and a dedication to their rehabilitation.When Bethesda makes an RPG, they really put their heart and soul into the expanse and detail of their open world. Unlike many shows, which end with a perfectly staged and completed home, this program often concludes with a semi-complete job and plans for what’s to come. This show doesn’t offer an idealistic view of the restoration process.
She is joined by architectural historian Kieran Long and social historian Kate Williams, who are tasked with uncovering as much as possible about the house’s history and the people who originally built it. The host, Caroline Quentin, chronicles the often extensive and unruly restorations. Restoration Home -which ran on the BBC from 2011 to 2013-follows individuals, couples, and families who buy neglected but architecturally significant English country houses and decide to restore them.