Fallout 4’s Super Mutants Make Me Miss The West Coast Versions
Super Mutants are as iconic in Fallout as deathclaws and Vault suits, but their appearance and behavior in Fallout 4 continued a trend that made me yearn for the earlier entries in the franchise. Appearing in every Fallout game since 1997, the hulking Super Mutants make for terrifying enemies as they barrel toward their targets, which sometimes means the best strategy is to run. However, newcomers to Fallout 4 might not realize that these giant brutes used to act very differently in prior installments.
First appearing in the first Fallout game, Super Mutants have always been a major part of the franchise, often playing the role of antagonist with some wonderful exceptions. In fact, some of the best non-human companions in Fallout history have been Super Mutants, such as Fallout 3's Fawkes and Fallout: New Vegas' Lily. However, those examples only serve to illustrate my point that previous iterations of Super Mutants have been far more interesting than the ones the Sole Survivor can meet in Fallout 4.
Fallout 4’s Super Mutants Were A Massive Downgrade
Previous Versions Felt More Dangerous
The Super Mutants that appear in Fallout 4 are a far cry from those encountered in Fallout and Fallout 2, with the most noticeable change being their lack of intelligence and personality. While Super Mutants in California, and later the Mojave Desert, were huge and strong, they were also clever.
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The intelligence of Super Mutants added an interesting layer to the danger they posed. Bethesda's changes to Super Mutants reduced them to little more than damage sponges in Fallout 4, leaving them to play no real role in the plot or setting other than to add another enemy type.
Bethesda Made Super Mutants Too Dumb
Fallout 4's Super Mutants Lack Personality
One of my favorite things about the Fallout universe is the stories that can be told in such a fascinating setting. I remember being genuinely worried about running into Super Mutants the first time I played Fallout way back in the late 90s. Their dedication to the Master and Unity made them a faction to be reckoned with, as his defeat left its mark on his intelligent soldiers, something that was expanded on fantastically in Fallout 2. Here, their leader’s fall had left them scattered, and it was hard not to empathize with Marcus and the others in Broken Hills.
New Vegas added to the story of the surviving Super Mutants on the West Coast with Marcus again reappearing as the founder of Jacobstown. Here, Nightkin can live peacefully while a cure for their mental illness can be researched, serving to further emphasize that Super Mutants were people with stories and personalities just like any other characters encountered in the franchise. Unfortunately, this nuance was not something that carried over to the East Coast with Bethesda’s versions of Super Mutants.
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While the lack of intelligence in Fallout 3’s Super Mutants could be explained away by their creation with the inferior FEV strain, the same excuse feels lazy for Fallout 4. By reducing the intelligence of the Super Mutants, Bethesda reduced the stories that could be told with them. While Fallout 3 had the articulate and compassionate Fawkes, Fallout 4 had Strong, a one-note brute cliché trying to find the "milk of human kindness," which never actually amounts to anything. But worse, the Super Mutants as a whole are wasted as regular enemy hordes rather than a unified faction.
Far Harbor’s Erickson Was A Missed Opportunity
Super Mutants Would Have Made A Great Fallout 4 Faction
The best example of how interesting it would have been to have Super Mutants as characters rather than simple enemies is Erickson, a merchant who can be found on the Island in the Far Harbor DLC. After arriving on the Island, Erickson's group set up in the Vim! Pop Factory, where things started to change for him. Terminals in the factory tell Erickson's story as he slowly becomes calmer and more capable of rational thinking. Eventually, Erickson left his Super Mutant group, making his camp at a crash site northwest of Acadia, where he cares for, trains, and sells dogs.
Erickson will state in his terminal entries that he is unsure if it is the Vim soda or the strange fog that has changed him.
However, this intriguing plot thread goes nowhere, and much to my frustration, there isn’t even the option to investigate it or speak to Erickson about it. But it did get me thinking about how Super Mutants could have been used in Fallout 4, as well as character artist Jonah Lobe's vision for them. Lobe worked on both Fallout 3 and 4, designing various characters such as deathclaws and Super Mutants, and in a post on Reddit, Lobe spoke about how he'd tried to inspire the designers to give them more substantial roles to demonstrate their emotional versatility.
I would have loved to have seen Super Mutants as another faction the Sole Survivor could encounter and perhaps even ally with. Their creation at the hands of the Institute is the perfect setup for a group struggling with their memories or aggression, making them much more potent enemies or support if sided with. Giving them a headquarters or settlement in the Glowing Sea, perhaps at odds with the Children of Atom there, would have provided a fascinating look at how they live and could have come with quests to keep the Sole Survivor exploring the iconic Fallout 4 area.
There could even have been the opportunity to bring back Fawkes, in a similar way to Marcus in Fallout 2 and New Vegas. This would have allowed the East Coast Super Mutants of Fallout 4 to have their story explored, as the Sole Survivor completed quests for them, and delved deeper into the lore of these new variants. However, all I can do is hope that future installments will return to the more complex and interesting Super Mutants, instead of reducing them once more to orcs or ogres.
Source: JonahLobe/Reddit
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