What started as a top-down, turn-based RPG is now more akin to a first-person shooter today. And as it's evolved from a rusty handheld device to a chunky watch, the gadget’s transformation is also emblematic of the series’ divergence. This version is vastly different from the streamlined, wrist-mounted devices by Bethesda instead, it’s a clunky assemblage of rusted metal, vacuum tubes, and wire meshes meant to be held by hand and prodded at like a tablet.ĭespite numerous facelifts, the Pip-Boy remains one of the most iconic tools in video game history, thanks to the series’ popularity and the tool’s ubiquity.
As the original entry of this post-apocalyptic series, it was Interplay’s Fallout that introduced the prototypical Pip-Boy to the world-the device that’s now so synonymous with the Fallout name itself. Before Bethesda Softworks’ visually immaculate Fallout universe, there were the grainy snapshots of Interplay Entertainment's portrayal of a landscape desecrated by the ashes of a nuclear fallout.
