Fallout fan maps out four cities for a future game – Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, or Salt Lake City
A Fallout fan known as Dreaming_of_Rlyeh has shared four New Vegas-style fan maps for potential locations in a future entry in the series – Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Salt Lake City. Naturally, a couple thousand fans had plenty of opinions about where the franchise should head next.
Seattle emerged as the clear community favorite. Fans cite an impressive list of selling points: Boeing and the aerospace industry, the Space Needle, an underground city, a well-developed port, tunnel systems, gloomy rainy weather that feels tailor-made for a post-apocalypse, cryptid myths, steep hills, and a rich Indigenous cultural history. The proximity to the Canadian border also opens up room to explore the lore around the annexation of Canada – a thread that's barely been touched in the series.
One of the more detailed comments laid out a potential Seattle map stretching from the Bremerton naval base to the Olympic Mountains in the west, the industrial city of Tacoma to the south, and Mount Rainier to the east.
The map's author suggested placing the Enclave at the Hanford nuclear site, with a thriving tribal faction based on the Colville Confederacy in the northeast. The NCR could send scouts up through Oregon, while the Brotherhood of Steel would naturally be drawn to the region's aerospace technology.
San Francisco drew strong support as well. The city already appeared in Fallout 2, controlled by the Shi faction – descendants of a Chinese submarine crew whose technological expertise rivaled even the Brotherhood of Steel.
Fans proposed covering the full Bay Area, with the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz as a faction stronghold, and the bay itself serving as a natural dividing barrier. One commenter described a perfect opening moment: cresting the hills and spotting the Golden Gate in the distance, only to realize on approach just how badly it's been destroyed.
Some in the community feel San Francisco is too developed to fit the classic Fallout formula, though. By the time of New Vegas, the Shi-controlled city would essentially be a functioning civilization rather than a wasteland.
Salt Lake City attracted interest due to existing series lore – New Canaan and Joshua Graham from the Honest Hearts DLC for Fallout: New Vegas are directly tied to the region. Local fans described strong potential: Mormon vaults and bunkers, Hill Air Force Base, the Great Salt Lake with Antelope Island, the Wasatch Mountains, and the mysterious Dugway military base, which some call "the real Area 51."
Portland, for many, feels more like a natural companion to Seattle than a standalone setting. Fans from Oregon pitched a raider gang styled after the iconic Voodoo Doughnut and a Fallout-universe take on Starbucks tuned for the West Coast.
A number of votes also went to cities that haven't gotten fan maps yet:
Detroit, with its casinos, museums, and legacy as America's automotive capital
New Orleans, with swamps, Cajun culture, and giant irradiated alligators
Chicago, with snow and mob-style factions
Florida, where "the only difference from reality is fewer traffic jams"
Hawaii, with its unique culture and wildlife
Texas, with oil derricks
The map's creator noted they used the same scale as Fallout: New Vegas, though the Seattle map required slightly expanded borders to fit Mount Rainier.
Bethesda hasn't announced where Fallout 5 will take place. With the studio currently focused on TES 6, any real news about the next numbered Fallout entry is still a long way off.
