Fallout 3 might’ve launched way back in 2008, but all these years later, fans are still making new discoveries in the game.
Take u/devo752, who went wandering along the radioactive rivers of the capital only to find a Brotherhood of Steel initiate scorching a few mirelurk corpses. “The purified water’s killing all the mirelurks living in the Basin,” he tells the player. “Lucky me, I get to pull out the floaters and roast them.”
So, purifying the water doesn’t just make it safer to drink, it clears out one of Washington’s more dangerous species, adding a bit more flavour to the game’s ending after nearly two decades.
“I Fu**Ing Love Little Details Like This”
It might seem strange that purifying the water would kill a creature, even if that creature is a radioactive mutant living in a radioactive hellscape, but as many commenters point out, clean water probably isn’t the culprit.
It’s not that Mirelurks need the pollution to survive, but that the sudden change in their environment was too much for them to handle. As Oregon State University professor of ecology William J. Ripple explained of our Mirelurk contemporary, the horseshoe crab, “Many of them build shells or reefs from calcium carbonate, which is sensitive to changes in ocean chemistry”.
Horseshoe crab eggs are a key source of food for migrating birds, making them an integral part of our ecological harmony. How Mirelurks fit into a world of radioactive pigeons, though, is a mystery.
So, when their mutated wasteland descendants suddenly found their radioactive home cleaned out in an instant, it’s not surprising that they started dying off and washing up on the bank. The question is, what are the Brotherhood of Steel doing with all the charred corpses? Some fans think they’re cooking up a BBQ: “I wonder if they plan on eating it later,” u/Fear_Awakens said.
Maybe, maybe not. Either way, it’s incredible to see how such a niche discovery can drum up new conversation around an RPG classic all these years later.
Fallout 3
- Released
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October 28, 2008
- ESRB
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M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Use of Drugs
- Developer(s)
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Bethesda Game Studios
- Publisher(s)
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Bethesda Softworks
- Engine
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Gamebryo
