Fallout 3: If Dogmeat dies, he stays dead

Speaking to videogaming247 at a Fallout 3 demo in London this morning, Bethesda marketing head Peter Hines has confirmed the unthinkable: if you don't look after Dogmeat the dog, don't go crying to mother when he doesn't come back for bath time.

What happens if he dies?

"Dead," said Hines.

Is there another dog?

"Nope. One dog. Be careful."

[OpiZA]

That's abit of a nuisance...

[Blackmoses]

I don't get it!

Who is Dogmeat and what significance does he play in the Fallout Universe? I've never played this game before so...I'm sort of a lost soul.

-Black-

[MK_Red]

Have you seen the movie Road Warrior? It was one of main inspirations for Fallout and in that classic film, Max had a royal dog. It will be kinda like Fable 2's dog though it was original Fallout that did it first.

[Watkins]

It's one of the NPCs you can recruit along your journey. helps you, like all the other people that you can get to tag along.
He appeared in the first fallout, but I think you could get hold of him through some hack or easter egg in the second game as well. I never did though, so I'm not 100% definite on this one.
The story about his apprearance in F3 though, I dont know

[Captain Tuttle]

Cafe of Broken Dreams

[MK_Red]

Good call. There was dog in Klamath that I thougth could follow me be it only roams that town.

Cafe of Broken Dreams... another one of those insane Fallout 2 moments.

[Captain Tuttle]

Give that Klamath dog some drymeat and he coughs up a key for the rat infested strip mall in Trapper Town

[MK_Red]

Yup, for a second when he started following me, I though it's Dogmeat 2! but no, he would remain in that part of Klamath and doesn't even bother to come to the other side to kills some rats. Raaaaaaat GOAAAAAAAAAD!

[SeanScythe]

sounds like a lot of people will end up restarting each time the dog dies. I mean if he dies just don't save and load from the last save point.

[ceedubya9]

I couldn't let him go out like that. It would be highly upsetting. Just like when Sam had to die in "I Am Legend." Frickin awful I tell you!

[Tempist]

That's heavy. Glad much logical thought is being put into the game play of this. It's going to be quite the refreshment.

[Captain Tuttle]

No biggie. He always died when you infiltrated the base with the mutants (not trying to spoil anything). Nothing you could do.

[MK_Red]

What do you mean no biggie? That was one of the saddest moments in the game. But gameplay wise, it's indeed not that important.

[Captain Tuttle]

And I didn't mean to be flippant with Dogmeat. It's just that hard moral choices and consequences are what the Fallout franchise is all about. Having him die for good in Fallout 3 is nothing new. That's what I meant.

[MK_Red]

I know what you mean. It's indeed nothing new. Hopefully Bethesda doesn't just try to mimick look and surface of Fallout will missing it's spirit and soul.

[Captain Tuttle]

They've got big shoes to fill.

[Charlie2688]

Do you realize you could technically save Dogmeant from being killed if you trapped him in the elevator before infiltrating the final mutant base? (I did that! I couldn't just let him die you know! :P)

...but it was a LOT harder to save Tycho, Ian and Katja T.T (suicidal bastards XD)

well..Katja can go to hell for all I care, but you spent ALL of the journey with Tycho, Ian and you do grow attach to both those guys T.T

[MK_Red]

Charlie2688, now you are seriously hardcore in Fallout 1!
I didn't try that but I never put much time into original Fallout.

Fallout 2 is the one that I played for years. Can't wait for F3 even though it will be completely different.

[kewlkat007]

Hey Aeris died in FFVII and I was able to live with it...lol One of the worst timing deaths in gaming history.

I guess you'll have to play extra careful and think about what your doing. See the devs are forcing you to play wise. Not many games do that, since you have unlimited lives/continues/save points

[Statix]

This game just sounds more utterly awesome the more I read about it. One kick ass gameplay concept I read about in the EGM preview was that the player character carries a radio, with which you can use to listen to some classic 50's tunes and a radio DJ. But what's unique about this radio is that it can also pick up stray transmissions, such as emergency distress beacons that are still transmitting distress signals, despite the fact that the people calling for help may or may not be dead (or undead) already. So when you're wandering the huge, awe-inspiring post-apocalyptic landscape, come across a random abandoned, shambled building, and suddenly hear a staticky desperate-sounding voice come into your radio, the feeling of eery tension, not knowing if the person you're going to meet is going to be friendly or not-so-friendly, is just gonna be plain fantastic.

[Jinxstar]

This makes me very excited. Truthfully I have been disappointed a lot lately with games as far as death goes... Let me explain. Most games are way too forgiving. Look at viking. I am almost through with it and its ok for the most part but the only thing that happens when you die is you start off back at your city and use a teleport stone to take you right back to where you just were... I find that if I am way off course I just jump off a cliff and I respawn back in town. Restock and hit the stone somewhere i want to be... Kinda weak huh? Look at so many games and you will see how forgiving they are. I really like actual hard games like Ninja Gaiden that aren't as forgiving or old school games like Sonic and Mario where once your continues are done guess what? Your done... Thats it. Start over and do better... Even GTA has a penalty at least for losing money/weapons/ whatever. Some form of punishment is welcome rather then just trial and error imho...

[MK_Red]

I see what you mean but the thing is that during recent years, people have kinda gone save & load crazy and keep saving every 2 or 3 minutes and games like BioShock removed death to encourage people to stop saving again and again and again.

Hopefully Fallout 3 is not like Oblivion and there are areas that a low level character is dead on arrival and even a high level character has to be really tough to survive them.

[kewlkat007]

you were given 3-5 Lives and 3 Continues. That was it.

Of course the Konami coded changed things...for Lifeforce and Contra...etc

[KyonoRocks]

Hah MK I used to have half my Xbox HDD filled with Bioshock saves. They're an absolute pain to delete too.

Even though it will mean I'll never complete it, I hope there's an achievement where you keep Dogmeat alive for the whole game.. BUT to make it a hard one the game would save Dogmeat's death so you can't load the game and have him alive still. I was thinking auto-save the second he dies but that could screw over people in tight spots :P So yeah there must be a way to save the death of Dogmeat but send you back to the previous checkpoint or whatever

[MK_Red]

Wow, that's a lot of saves!

But agreed, they should add an achievement or something for keeping Dogmeat alive though a player may tell the animal to stay in a safe city and it may live til end of the game.

[MK_Red]

Everyone please check the lower part of this page which is about Fallout 2's story:
http://www.gamesradar.com/f...

Hopefully Bethesda makes the story with such freedom and realism.

[mintaro]

im starting to see how Bethesda can make 200 different endings

[Genuine]

That brings this to mind...

[alcaponedya]

sam the dog

[Skerj]

I'm actually glad they did this, time for some persistent death in games. Kojima almost had it in MGS that if you died it was game over and your save erased itself too, that would have been interesting.

[soccerstar]

downloadable dog armor for only 400 microsoft points