Fallout 3 Steam Description Fuels Wild Conspiracy Theory

An official description of Fallout 3 on Steam has caused one fan to question whether the events of the game are actually happening within its world or if they're all part of a simulation within a simulation. While the events of Fallout 3 contain some pretty mind-bending content, this theory makes those events seem even more meta.

Released in 2008, Fallout 3 was Bethesda Softworks' first outing in the Fallout franchise after acquiring it from its original production team at Interplay Productions. Shifting Fallout away from the NCR and heading east to Washington, D.C., part of the game's main storyline involves a run-in with a new character, Dr. Stanislaus Braun, who oversees a vault in which all the residents are unwittingly trapped in a simulation of a peaceful black-and-white pre-war neighborhood called Tranquility Lane. Much like Dr. Braun's experiment, this new fan theory based on the Steam description centers around none of the events of the game actually happening to the characters.

As pointed out on Reddit by user Senior_Reflection949, the Steam description makes the game sound like a Vault-Tec product that would be used by residents of the fictitious company's radiation-proof underground vaults to see what life would be like in the outside world. «Vault-Tec engineers have worked around the clock on an interactive reproduction of Wasteland life for you to enjoy from the comfort of your own vault,» it states. «Included is an expansive world, unique combat, shockingly realistic visuals, tons of player choice, and an incredible cast of dynamic characters.» Based on that information, the player has developed a theory that vault dwellers would presumably use the software as an educational simulation of the Capital Wasteland from Fallout without actually experiencing it for themselves.

While a lot of people seem to find the fan theory amusing, most seem to see it as problematic. Specifically, some have questioned why Vault-Tec would produce a piece of software that