Note: spoilers for Fallout Season 2!
Fallout Season 2 is here at last, and we’re going to New Vegas, baby! We’ll get to see Novac! The Lucky 38! Maybe even places like Hoover Dam, Nellis Air Force Base, Jacobstown… who knows? Like all Fallout fans, I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled all season long for familiar sights and iconic landmarks.
But right off the bat in Fallout Season 2, Episode 1, we get to see a location I remember fondly from one of the Fallout games—and surprisingly, it has absolutely nothing to do with New Vegas at all.
Thinking about it, this location is probably the place I’ve spent the most time out of all of the Fallout games I’ve played. When it showed up in the episode, I immediately got a buffout-sized dose of nostalgia. As the kids say, it hit me right in the feels. (Apologies if the kids no longer say this.)
In Episode 1, Lucy and the Ghoul are following Hank’s bloody footprints through the desert from California to Nevada, and they discover he made a stop at a location players of Fallout 4 are sure to recognize: the Starlight Drive-In Theatre.
Naturally, this can’t be the same Starlight Drive-In from Fallout 4—that would be all the way across the country in the Commonwealth. But there’s no reason the Starlight couldn’t be a franchise in the Fallout universe, with theaters all across the US, and this one looks a lot like the one from Fallout 4, from the big, crumbling screen to the rusting cars with the skeletons of movie fans still inside them.
(Image credit: Prime TV)
(Image credit: Bethesda)
Seeing it in the show made me realize this spot is actually pretty special to me. The Starlight is the settlement in Fallout 4 I definitely spent the most time at, and I think it’s the best settlement in the game. It’s not the most creative place to build: it’s just a huge, flat buildable zone due it essentially being just a parking lot, but I’m an unimaginative builder so I dig uncomplicated spaces. It’s also easy to get to very early in the game, and it’s a simple mission to claim it: just kill some mole rats and it’s yours.
I had other settlements in Fallout 4, obviously (Preston is an effective nag), but from placing my first beacon to building a base to setting up vendors and housing for my citizens, the Drive-In became my real home in Fallout 4. It’s where I slept to pass the time and get the “Well Rested” buff. It’s where I did most of my crafting and tinkering. It’s where I kept my various sets of power armor. It’s where I’d send my companions to cool their heels when I wanted to swap them out for someone else.
(Image credit: Prime TV)
(Image credit: Bethesda)
And it’s the place I’d most vigorously defend when raiders invaded. I just couldn’t bear the thought of any of my grubby little settlers getting killed. I’ve got almost 200 hours in Fallout 4, and I can’t imagine how many of those hours were spent at that Drive-In, but it must be a lot.
Just seeing the Starlight again in the Fallout show instantly took me back to all the time I spent there in Fallout 4. Not having grand adventures or saving the Commonwealth, just living and working and hanging out with my people. I’m not surprised the new season of Fallout is making me want to play the games again, but I am surprised it’s not New Vegas I’ve got a hankering for. More than anything, it’s making me want to play Fallout 4 again instead.
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