Fallout fans are obsessed with this retro-styled Doom mod

Fallout: Bakerfield is a fantastic total conversion mod for 1993’s Doom that’s been in the works for a couple of years now. After seeing it in action in an extended gameplay trailer, I’m fully convinced we need a full-on role-playing game styled exactly like this. It’s like a peek at an alternate reality where Interplay kept developing the post-apocalyptic series Fallout and eventually pushed it into first-person. In this fantasy, the series evolves the isometric art style that defined the earliest games. The chunky, pixelated rendition of the wasteland visible here affords the world a gritty texture that’s lost with more run-of-the-mill graphical styles that are focused on realism. I don’t even mind that the minimalist map almost seems useless; it’s cool, and that’s what matters.

Bakerfield also retains the original UI, which loosely recreates the feel of a Pip-Boy. Like the original classic role-playing games (CRPG), the mod gives you information about your actions as you go along, like how much damage you doled out or what your character can actually see. Bakerfield also clearly has a great sense of humor: The ghouls around the player vomit violently, gather around a pin-up poster, and attack with weapons like an iguana-on-a-stick. There doesn’t seem to be a VATs system here, but the mod still seems to take into account the player’s stats to determine the likelihood of landing a shot, as well as where the player fires to calculate damage and critical hits. Enemies are reactive to your actions, too: at one point, the ghoul being shot at drops their weapon after being attacked.

There’s also plenty of gore here, with ghouls bursting into bits worthy of the bloody mess perk. Much of the focus is on the combat, but there’s still plenty of detail to appreciate between the lovingly rendered reload animations and the ominous weather in the background. A multitude of weapons have been programmed into the mod, from energy pistols that vaporize ghouls to power fists that crackle with every punch. There also seem to be new ideas in Bakersfield, like a motion detector that can tell the player the location of enemies.

At one point, the player goes up to what appears to be a member of the Children of Atom in a way that suggests Bakerfield might have actual dialogue or quests of some sort, or will once development is over. Sadly, there’s only a small tease of what appears to be a vault in the trailer released by mod creator Saur X. But damn, I’d play an entire game like this.

An atmospheric trailer for Bakersfield was released last month, and Saur X has been met with nothing but praise. “Never seen a fan project get so close to the OG vibe,” one commenter remarked.

“The attention to detail in this mod is insane,” another wrote. “Even the level of grit and rust on all the terrain, environmental props, and terrain matches perfectly with the art assets of the original Fallout game.”

Saur X does take donations from fans, but evidently does not require them to keep working on their project. As of last month, Bakersfield was reportedly around 60% finished, with aspects like scenery and the environment seeing the most progress thus far. The game has apparently only adopted around 30% of the creatures it will ship with, which might explain why most of the footage has focused on shooting ghouls. But there are other enemies here too, like Super Mutants. I’m stoked to follow the project to the finish line.