Vault-Tec presents: The Pip-boy 3000!

The Fallout series has always made use of a narrative device for the interface, known as a ‘Pip-Boy.’ Fallout 3’s ‘Pip-Boy 3000’ interface allows players to: view local map details, view world map details, change equipment, manage inventory, play audio messages, read game narrative, view health points, monitor and treat limb injuries, monitor radiation poisoning, view karmic alignment, see play statistics, track quest objectives, and many, many more.

Evidently, the interface has a vast number of features, allowing players to determine and monitor a number of play attributes. While this interface provides a robust amount of functionality, it can be criticised for its lack of accessibility. The Pip-Boy has three major categories, ‘Stats’, ‘Item’, and ‘Data,’ all of which have sub-categories that offer a variety of information. With such robust functionality, it becomes a challenge for new users to use the interface. For a player to check their radiation count, they must first access the ‘Stats’ major category; from there, they must select the ‘Status,’ category before finally accessing ‘RAD’. For a new user, this may seem relatively daunting, as multiple navigation choices need to be made before arriving at the regularly used interface destination.

Despite efforts to link the interface with the game’s narrative, through the avatar’s ‘Pip-Boy’, its underlying mechanics encourage a break in player immersion. When a player accesses the interface, the world around the player pauses – this allows the player to treat wounds, change equipment, read a quest log, or access any of the Pip-Boy’s many features, all the while standing on an active land mine in the game world. Fallout 3 could have better refined the way in which the Pip-boy interface is accessed, how it affects player immersion, and still retained its extensive functionality.