How Accurately Does Fallout 4 Portray 50s Culture and Nuclear War?

YouTube channel “History Respawned”, a channel in which historians discuss videogames that are strongly tied to particular historical periods, dedicated its latest video to Fallout 4 and its depiction of 50s culture and thermonuclear war.

During the course of the 36:44-long video, guest historian Jonathan Hunt – a lecturer of modern global history at the University of Southampton – explains how Bethesda’s depiction of a post-nuclear world matches the beliefs about nuclear war effects in the 50s but might not accurately depict the world two centuries after the bombs were dropped, how the title presents an idealized and sanitized version of 50s culture, and more.

For the most part the video is very interesting, but I’m not sure I agree with Hunt’s take on how the title presents 50s culture. While superficially the game’s retro-future appears idyllic, the stories in the various game terminals reveal a society that was rife with social tensions, arguably much more so than the USA of the 50s. It’s an aspect of the series that has been present since the very first title, and I’d argue it shows that the developers at Interplay first and now Bethesda have always been aware of the fact that the 50s weren’t the idyllic past we often like to imagine.