title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: In mid May 1966, Tony Hall of "Record Mirror" wrote a preview of the Beatles' new recordings in which he opined that some of them were "the most revolutionary ever made by a pop group". While avoiding mention of the official song titles, he highlighted Lennon's "The Void" for its electronic effects, along with a "McCartney song about lonely people" set to string orchestration, and a "Harrison number on which he plays a long exotic solo on sitar". In Britain, EMI gradually distributed the album's songs to radio stations throughout July – a strategy that MacDonald describes as "building anticipation for what would clearly be a radical new phase in the group's recording career". "Revolver" was released there on 5 August and on 8 August in the United States. "Eleanor Rigby" was issued as a double A-side single with "Yellow Submarine". The pairing of a ballad devoid of any instrumentation played by a Beatle and a novelty song marked a significant departure from the usual content of the band's singles.


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: Schaffner likens the Beatles' 1966 recordings to the moment of transformation in the film "The Wizard of Oz", "where, when Dorothy discovers herself transported from Kansas to Oz, the film dramatically changes from black-and-white to glorious technicolor". The album appeared a year before psychedelic drugs became a phenomenon in youth culture, and it was the source of confusion for the group's more conservative fans. A female writer later complained in "Beatles Monthly" that 1966 represented the end of "The Beatles we used to know before they went stark, raving mad". In this way, "Revolver" marked the start of a change in the Beatles' core audience, as their young, female-dominated fanbase gave way to a following that increasingly comprised more serious-minded, male listeners.


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: The release coincided with a period of public relations challenges for the band, the combination of which led to their decision to retire from touring following the end of their North American tour, on 29 August. In the US, the album's release was a secondary event to the controversy surrounding the recent publication there of Cleave's interview with Lennon, in which he remarked that the Beatles had become "more popular than Jesus". This episode followed the unfavourable reaction to the "Yesterday and Today" butcher sleeve, from the press, radio stations and retail outlets. As a result, at press conferences during the tour, questions were typically focused on religious matters rather than the band's new music. In addition, the group were vocal in their opposition to the Vietnam War, a stand that further redefined their public image in the US. The Beatles did not attempt to perform any of the songs from "Revolver" during the tour.


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: Reporting on "Swinging London" for "The Village Voice", Richard Goldstein said that, as if in response to the antagonism being shown towards the band in the US, "British youth has flipped completely over the new Beatle album, "Revolver"."<ref name="Goldstein/VV"></ref> Author Howard Sounes writes that, amid the fine weather of the 1966 summer and England's recent win in the World Cup, "Revolver" was the nation's "soundtrack album of the season".


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: In the UK, where "Eleanor Rigby" was the favoured side, the single became the best-selling song of 1966, after topping the national chart for four weeks during August and September. On "Record Retailer"s LPs chart (later the UK Albums Chart), "Revolver" entered at number 1 and stayed there for seven weeks during its 34-week run in the top 40. On the national chart compiled by "Melody Maker", the album was number 1 for nine weeks. By October, at least ten of the LP's songs had been covered by other artists and reviewed by "Melody Maker". Among these, Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers' version of "Got to Get You into My Life", which McCartney co-produced, was a top ten hit. McCartney's ballads "Here, There and Everywhere" and "For No One" became highly popular among mainstream recording artists. In the UK, "Revolver" was the second highest-selling album of 1966, behind "The Sound of Music".<ref name="Mawer/1966"></ref> In the "NME" readers' poll for 1966, "Revolver" and "Pet Sounds" were jointly recognised as the magazine's "Album of the Year".


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: In America, Capitol were wary of the religious references in "Eleanor Rigby", given the ongoing controversy, and instead pushed "Yellow Submarine". The latter peaked at number 2 on the "Billboard" Hot 100, making it, in Gould's description, "the first 'designated' Beatles single since 1963" not to top that chart. On the "Billboard" Top LPs chart, "Revolver" hit number 1 on 10 September, a week after the end of "Yesterday and Today"s five-week run at the top. The Beatles were presented with gold discs from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), recognising the album as a "million seller", during their 24 August press conference at the Capitol Tower in Hollywood. "Revolver" was number 1 there for six weeks and remained on the chart until mid February 1968. In March 1967, "Revolver" was nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Voormann's cover design won the Grammy for Best Album Cover, Graphic Arts.


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: Based on retail sales up to early October 1966, "Revolver" was the eighth-highest-selling album of the year in the US. Although commercially successful, it ranked only equal tenth (with "Help!") on the list of the Beatles' biggest-selling albums in the US, as supplied by Allen Klein in 1970. According to figures published in 2009 by former Capitol executive David Kronemyer, further to estimates he gave in "MuseWire" magazine, the album had sold 1,187,869 copies in the US by 31 December 1966 and 1,725,276 copies by the end of the decade.


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: The April 1987 CD release of "Revolver" standardised the track listing to the original UK version. "Revolver" returned to the UK Albums Chart the following month, peaking at number 55, while the 2009 remastered album reached number 9. In 2013, after the British Phonographic Industry altered its sales award protocol, the album was certified Platinum based on UK sales since 1994. In January 2014, the Capitol version of "Revolver" was issued on CD for the first time, both as part of the Beatles' "U.S. Albums" box set and as an individual release. As of that year, "Revolver" had been certified 5× Platinum by the RIAA.


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: In Britain, the reception to "Revolver" was highly favourable. Having found "Rubber Soul" "almost monotonous" at times, "Melody Maker" lauded the new release, saying it was a work that would "change the direction of pop music". The reviewer highlighted its "electronic effects", McCartney's "penchant for the classics" and Harrison's "stunning use of the sitar" as diverse elements that distinguished the LP as a group effort, such that the four band members' "individual personalities are now showing through loud and clear". The writer concluded: "this is a brilliant album which underlines once and for all that the Beatles have definitely broken the bounds of what we used to call pop." Peter Clayton, a jazz critic for "Gramophone" magazine, described it as "an astonishing collection" that defied easy categorisation since much of the LP had no precedent in the context of pop music. Clayton concluded: "if there's anything wrong with the record at all it is that such a diet of newness might give the ordinary pop-picker indigestion."


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: Edward Greenfield of "The Guardian" titled his review "Thinking Pop" and wrote that the three Beatles songwriters "habitually go outside the realm of sloppy love-theme, and find inspiration instead (as serious artists always must) in specific feelings and specific experiences". Highlighting the importance of McCartney's classical aesthetic, he recognised the band's ongoing success as "fair vindication" for popular taste in terms of its alignment with artistic merit. In their joint review for "Record Mirror", Richard Green and Peter Jones found the album "full of musical ingenuity" yet "controversial", and added: "There are parts that will split the pop fraternity neatly down the middle." In her round-up of 1966 for the "Evening Standard", Maureen Cleave named "Revolver" and the single as the year's best records, although she rued that, together with Mick Jagger, the Beatles had become aloof in that, "Unlike anybody else, they seemed to know what they wanted."


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: Due to the controversies surrounding the Beatles during their tour, critical reaction in the US was muted relative to the band's previous releases. According to Rodriguez, in redefining the limits of pop music, "Revolver" emphasised the need for genuine rock criticism, a form of journalism that only became commonplace from 1967. "KRLA Beat" reviewer described "Revolver" as "a musical creation of exceptional excellence" but lamented that, amid the continued acclaim for "Rubber Soul", "it is receiving only a fraction of the attention and respect due", and some Americans were overly focusing on the band's "political views". Writing in the recently launched "Crawdaddy!", Paul Williams gave the US LP a mixed review, in which he admired "Love You To" and "Eleanor Rigby" but derided "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Yellow Submarine". Williams lauded the album's musical range but found it lacked an integral quality, which he acknowledged was outside the group's control.


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: According to Turner, the album's combination of novel sounds and unusual subject matter "challenged all the conventions of pop" and it was the upcoming generation of writers who "got it immediately". In his article for "The Village Voice", Richard Goldstein described "Revolver" as "a revolutionary record" that was "as important to the expansion of pop as was "Rubber Soul"", and one that demanded that the genre's "boundaries... be re-negotiated". He added: "it seems now that we will view this album in retrospect as a key work in the development of rock and roll into an artistic pursuit ..." Another writer identified by Turner, Jules Siegel, likened "Revolver" to works by John Donne, John Milton and William Shakespeare, saying that the band's lyrics would provide the basis for scholarly analysis well into the future.


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: Recalling "Revolver"s release in his book "Revolution in the Head", Ian MacDonald says that the Beatles "initiated a second pop revolution – one which while galvanising their existing rivals and inspiring many new ones, left all of them far behind". In a February 1967 review, "Hit Parader" declared: ""Revolver" represents the pinnacle of pop music. No group has been as consistently creative as the Beatles, though the [Lovin'] Spoonful and Beach Boys are coming closer all the time ... Rather than analyze the music we just suggest that you listen to "Revolver" three or four times a day and marvel ..." Later that year, in "Esquire", Robert Christgau said the album was "twice as good and four times as startling as "Rubber Soul", with sound effects, Oriental drones, jazz bands, transcendentalist lyrics, all kinds of rhythmic and harmonic surprises, and a filter that made John Lennon sound like God singing through a foghorn".


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: In the 2004 edition of "The Rolling Stone Album Guide", Rob Sheffield wrote that "Revolver" found the Beatles "at the peak of their powers, competing with one another because nobody else could touch them"; he described it as "the best album the Beatles ever made, which means the best album by anybody". Writing for "PopMatters" that year, David Medsker said that "Revolver" showed the four band members "peaking at the exact same time", and he deemed it to be "the best of the bunch, the letter that went unanswered" among a series of reciprocally influential musical statements exchanged between the Beatles and the Beach Boys over 1965–67.<ref name="Medsker/PM"></ref> In a 2007 appraisal of the band's albums, Henry Yates of "Classic Rock" magazine paired it with "Sgt. Pepper's" as the two "essential classics" in the Beatles' canon and described it as "Always the rock fraternity's favourite (and the blueprint for Noel Gallagher's career)". Writing in "Paste", Mark Kemp says that the album "completed [the Beatles'] transformation from the mop tops of three years earlier into bold, groundbreaking experimental rockers", while Paul Du Noyer, in a review for "Blender", said that it marked the group's arrival as "psychedelic gurus" and was a work in which the Beatles "revolutionized their own style and rock music itself... with the boldest innovations of the band's career".


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic describes "Revolver" as "the ultimate modern pop album". While noting the diverse musical directions adopted by Lennon, McCartney and Harrison in their respective contributions, he states: "The biggest miracle of "Revolver" may be that the Beatles covered so much new stylistic ground and executed it perfectly on one record, or it may be that all of it holds together perfectly." In his review for "The Daily Telegraph", Neil McCormick says that the album shows the band at their most unified and is a work in which "they introduce whole new vistas of sound yet still contain them within tightly structured and performed songs." He also attributes an acerbic quality to the album that psychedelia lacked once the genre succumbed to "the woolly politics of flower power". Scott Plagenhoef of "Pitchfork" views "Revolver" as a "sonic landmark" that, in its lyrics, "matur[ed] pop from the stuff of teen dreams to a more serious pursuit that actively reflected and shaped the times in which its creators lived". He considers it to be McCartney's "maturation record" as a songwriter in the same way that "Rubber Soul" had been for Lennon.


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: Chris Coplan of "Consequence of Sound" is less impressed with the album, rating it a "B" and "the black sheep of the Beatles' catalog". Although he admires the psychedelic tone, he considers that this experimentalism renders the more standard pop songs, such as "Got to Get You into My Life" and "Here, There and Everywhere", "seemingly out of place" within the collection. Writing for Rough Guides, Chris Ingham describes it as "clearly brilliant" but adds: "There's an edge to the sound and a danger in the air... that makes listening to it an uncomfortable trip. It's easy to admire, even to be awed by, but some listeners find "Revolver" a little harder to love." In retrospect, Christgau says he prefers "Sgt. Pepper", "Rubber Soul" and "Abbey Road" to "Revolver", finding the latter "somewhat cluttered" but nevertheless worthy of a "high A minus".


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: MacDonald deems Lennon's remark about the Beatles' "god-like status" in March 1966 to have been "fairly realistic", given the reaction to "Revolver". He adds: "The album's aural invention was so masterful that it seemed to Western youth that The Beatles – that they had the key to current events and were somehow orchestrating them through their records." MacDonald highlights "the radically subversive" message of "Tomorrow Never Knows" – exhorting listeners to empty their minds of all ego- and material-related thought – as the inauguration of a "till-then élite-preserved concept of mind-expansion into pop, simultaneously drawing attention to consciousness-enhancing drugs and the ancient religious philosophies of the Orient". Author Shawn Levy writes that the album presented an alternative reality that contemporary listeners felt compelled to explore further; he describes it as "the first true drug album, not a pop record with some druggy insinuations, but an honest-to-heaven, steeped-in-the-out-there trip from the here and now into who knew where".


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: According to Simon Philo, "Revolver" announced the arrival of the "underground London" sound, supplanting that of Swinging London. Barry Miles describes the album as an "advertisement for the underground", and recalls that it resounded on the level of experimental jazz among members of the movement, including those who soon founded the UFO Club. He says it established rock 'n' roll as an art form and identifies its "trailblazing" quality as the impetus for Pink Floyd's "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" and for Brian Wilson to complete the Beach Boys' "mini-symphony", "Good Vibrations". Citing composer and producer Virgil Moorefield's book "The Producer as Composer", author Jay Hodgson highlights "Revolver" as a "dramatic turning point" in recording history through its dedication to studio exploration over the "performability" of the songs, as this and subsequent Beatles albums reshaped listeners' preconceptions of a pop recording. In his review for "Pitchfork", Plagenhoef says that the album not only "redefin[ed] what was expected from popular music", but recast the Beatles as "avatars for a transformative cultural movement". MacDonald cites "Revolver" as a musical statement that, further to the "Rubber Soul" track "The Word" and "Rain", helped guide the counterculture towards the 1967 Summer of Love due to the widespread popularity of the Beatles.


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: "Revolver" has been recognised as having inspired new subgenres of music, anticipating electronica, punk rock, baroque rock and world music, among other styles. According to "Rolling Stone", the album "signaled that in popular music, anything – any theme, any musical idea – could now be realized". Through the Beatles' example, psychedelia moved from its underground roots into the mainstream, thereby originating the longer-lasting psychedelic pop style.<ref name="AM/PsychPop"></ref> Russell Reising and Jim LeBlanc credit the songs on "Revolver" with "set[ting] the stage for an important subgenre of psychedelic music, that of the messianic pronouncement". As with "Rubber Soul", Walter Everett views the album's "experimental timbres, rhythms, tonal structures, and poetic texts" as the inspiration for many of the bands that formed the progressive rock genre in the early 1970s. He also considers "Revolver" to be "an innovative example of electronic music" as much as it broke new ground in pop by being "fundamentally unlike any rock album that had preceded it". "Rolling Stone" attributes the development of the Los Angeles and San Francisco music scenes, including subsequent releases by the Beach Boys, Love and the Grateful Dead, to the influence of "Revolver", particularly "She Said She Said".


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: Steve Turner likens the Beatles' creative approach in 1966 to that of modern jazz musicians, and recognises their channelling of Indian and Western classical, Southern soul, and electronic musical styles into their work as unprecedented in popular music. He says that, through the band's efforts to faithfully translate their LSD-inspired vision into music, ""Revolver" opened the doors to psychedelic rock (or acid rock)", while the primitive means by which it was recorded (on four-track equipment) inspired the work that artists such as Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes and the Electric Light Orchestra were able to achieve with advances in studio technology. Turner also highlights the pioneering sampling and tape manipulation employed on "Tomorrow Never Knows" as having "a profound effect on everyone from Jimi Hendrix to Jay-Z".


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: Rodriguez praises Martin and Emerick's contribution to the album, saying that their talents were as essential to its success as the Beatles'. While also highlighting the importance of the production, David Howard writes that "Revolver" was a "genre-transforming album", on which Martin and the Beatles had "obliterated recording studio conventions". Combined with the similarly "visionary" work of American producer Phil Spector, Howard continues, through "Revolver", the recording studio had become "its own instrument; record production had been elevated into art."


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: Whereas "Sgt. Pepper" had long been identified as the Beatles' greatest album, since the 2000s "Revolver" has often surpassed it in lists of the group's best work. Sheffield cites the album's 1987 CD release, with the full complement of Lennon compositions, as marking the start of a process whereby "Revolver" "steadily climbed in public estimation" to become recognised as the Beatles' finest work. Everett also attributes the "problem" regarding the album's standing in the US to the "inferior track listing" available to Americans until the CD release. In Britain, its supremacy over "Sgt. Pepper" was one of the cultural revisions established by the Britpop phenomenon in the 1990s. Writing on the BBC's website in August 2016, Greg Kot identified the "More popular than Christ" controversy and the attention subsequently afforded the release of "Sgt. Pepper" in 1967 as the two factors that had contributed to "Revolver" being relatively overlooked. Kot concluded that the ensuing decades had seen this impression reversed, since "Revolver" "does everything Sgt Pepper did, except it did it first and often better. It just wasn't as well-packaged and marketed."


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: Rodriguez writes that, whereas most contemporary acts shy away from attempting a concept album in the vein of "Sgt. Pepper", the prototype established by "Revolver", whereby an album serves as an "eclectic collection of diverse songs", continues to influence modern popular music. He characterises "Revolver" as "the Beatles' artistic high-water mark" and says that, unlike "Sgt. Pepper", it was the product of a collaborative effort, with "the group as a whole being fully vested in creating Beatle music".


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: "Revolver" has appeared high up in many lists of the best albums ever made, often in the top position. It was voted the third best album of all time in the 1998 "Music of the Millennium" poll conducted by HMV and Channel 4, and in the following year's expanded survey, which polled 600,000 people across the UK. Also in 1998, it was ranked first in Colin Larkin's "All Time Top 1000 Albums", directly ahead of "Sgt. Pepper" and "The Beatles", and it was first again in the 2000 edition of the book. "Q" placed it at number 1 in its list of the "50 Greatest British Albums Ever" in 2000; four years later, the album topped the same magazine's list "The Music That Changed the World". In 2001, it topped VH1's "100 Greatest Albums", compiled from a poll of more than 500 journalists, music executives and artists. In 2003, "Rolling Stone" ranked "Revolver" third on its list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time", a position it retained on the magazine's revised list nine years later.


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: In 2004, "Revolver" appeared at number 2 in "The Observer"s list of "The 100 Greatest British Albums", compiled by a panel of 100 contributors. In 2006, it was chosen by "Time" magazine as one of the 100 best albums and topped a similar list compiled by "Hot Press". That same year, "Guitar World" readers chose it as the tenth best guitar album of all time. In 2010, "Revolver" was named the best pop album by the official newspaper of the Holy See, "L'Osservatore Romano". In 2013, "Entertainment Weekly" placed the album at number 1 in its "All-Time Greatest" albums. As of 2020, Acclaimed Music listed it as the number 3 album in the site's all-time ranking. In September 2020, "Rolling Stone" ranked "Revolver" at number 11 on its new list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: In 1999, "Revolver" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, an award bestowed by the American Recording Academy "to honor recordings of lasting qualitative or historical significance that are at least 25 years old". According to art and culture journalist Robin Stummer, writing in 2016, Voormann's cover is similarly recognised as "one of the finest pop artworks". The album has been the subject of several tribute albums, such as "Revolver Reloaded", a multi-artist CD included with the July 2006 issue of "Mojo". Beatles tribute bands have named themselves after "Revolver", and Reising lists Revolver Records, the heavy metal magazine "Revolver" and Revolver Films as other examples that appear to honour the 1966 album. In his view, "Like few other rock and roll recordings, "Revolver" has assumed the status of cultural icon, approaching in its many avatars, its impact and its endurance the status of some of the definitive works of Anglo–American culture such as Herman Melville's "Moby-Dick" and James Joyce's "Ulysses"."


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: Along with the rest of the Beatles catalogue, the album was first issued on compact disc in 1987. In 2009, Apple and EMI released remastered versions of the Beatles albums on CD. "Revolver" was also included in the box sets released at the time, "The Beatles: Stereo Box Set" and the "The Beatles in Mono Box Set".


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: On 28 October 2022, of "Revolver" was released. It includes a new stereo remix of the album by Giles Martin, with the help of de-mixing technology developed by Peter Jackson's WingNut Films, as well as the original mono mix, session recordings, demos and an EP containing new mixes of "Paperback Writer" and "Rain".


title: Revolver (Beatles album)

text: The following track listing is for the original release in all markets other than North America and was subsequently adopted as the standard version of the album for its international CD release in 1987. The original North American edition used this order except for omitting "I'm Only Sleeping", "And Your Bird Can Sing" and "Doctor Robert". All tracks written by Lennon–McCartney, except for songs with asterisks, which are by George Harrison.


title: Feudalism

text: Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships that were derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.


title: Feudalism

text: Although it is derived from the Latin word "feodum" or "feudum" (fief), which was used during the Medieval period, the term "feudalism" and the system which it describes were not conceived of as a formal political system by the people who lived during the Middle Ages. The classic definition, by François Louis Ganshof (1944), describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations which existed among the warrior nobility and revolved around the three key concepts of lords, vassals, and fiefs.


title: Feudalism

text: A broader definition of feudalism, as described by Marc Bloch (1939), includes not only the obligations of the warrior nobility but the obligations of all three estates of the realm: the nobility, the clergy, and the peasantry, all of whom were bound by a system of manorialism; this is sometimes referred to as a "feudal society". Since the publication of Elizabeth A. R. Brown's "The Tyranny of a Construct" (1974) and Susan Reynolds's "Fiefs and Vassals" (1994), there has been ongoing inconclusive discussion among medieval historians as to whether feudalism is a useful construct for understanding medieval society.


title: Feudalism

text: There is no commonly accepted modern definition of feudalism, at least among scholars. The adjective "feudal" was in use by at least 1405, and the noun "feudalism", now often employed in a political and propagandist context, was coined by 1771, paralleling the French .


title: Feudalism

text: According to a classic definition by François Louis Ganshof (1944), feudalism describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations which existed among the warrior nobility and revolved around the three key concepts of lords, vassals and fiefs, though Ganshof himself noted that his treatment was only related to the "narrow, technical, legal sense of the word".


title: Feudalism

text: A broader definition, as described in Marc Bloch's "Feudal Society" (1939), includes not only the obligations of the warrior nobility but the obligations of all three estates of the realm: the nobility, the clergy, and those who lived off their labour, most directly the peasantry which was bound by a system of manorialism; this order is often referred to as a "feudal society", echoing Bloch's usage.


title: Feudalism

text: Outside its European context, the concept of feudalism is often used by analogy, most often in discussions of feudal Japan under the "shoguns", and sometimes in discussions of the Zagwe dynasty in medieval Ethiopia, which had some feudal characteristics (sometimes called "semifeudal"). Some have taken the feudalism analogy further, seeing feudalism (or traces of it) in places as diverse as China during the Spring and Autumn period (771-476 BCE), ancient Egypt, the Parthian Empire, feudalism in the Indian subcontinent and the Antebellum South and Jim Crow laws in the American South.


title: Feudalism

text: The term "feudalism" has also been applied—often pejoratively—to non-Western societies where institutions and attitudes which are similar to those which existed in medieval Europe are perceived to prevail. Some historians and political theorists believe that the term "feudalism" has been deprived of specific meaning by the many ways it has been used, leading them to reject it as a useful concept for understanding society.


title: Feudalism

text: The applicability of the term feudalism has also been questioned in the context of some Central and Eastern European countries, such as Poland and Lithuania, with scholars observing that the medieval political and economic structure of those countries bears some, but not all, resemblances to the Western European societies commonly described as feudal.


title: Feudalism

text: The root of the term "feudal" originates in the Proto-Indo-European word "*péḱu", meaning "cattle", and possesses cognates in many other Indo-European languages: Sanskrit "pacu", "cattle"; Latin "pecus" (cf. "pecunia") "cattle", "money"; Old High German "fehu, fihu", "cattle", "property", "money"; Old Frisian "fia"; Old Saxon "fehu"; Old English "feoh, fioh, feo, fee". The term "féodal" was first used in 17th-century French legal treatises (1614) and translated into English legal treatises as an adjective, such as "feodal government".


title: Feudalism

text: In the 18th century, Adam Smith, seeking to describe economic systems, effectively coined the forms "feudal government" and "feudal system" in his book "The Wealth of Nations" (1776). The phrase "feudal system" appeared in 1736, in "Baronia Anglica", published nine years after the death of its author Thomas Madox, in 1727. In 1771, in his book "The History of Manchester", John Whitaker first introduced the word "feudalism" and the notion of the feudal pyramid.


title: Feudalism

text: The term "feudal" or "feodal" is derived from the medieval Latin word . The etymology of is complex with multiple theories, some suggesting a Germanic origin (the most widely held view) and others suggesting an Arabic origin. Initially in medieval Latin European documents, a land grant in exchange for service was called a (Latin). Later, the term , or , began to replace in the documents. The first attested instance of this is from 984, although more primitive forms were seen up to one-hundred years earlier. The origin of the and why it replaced has not been well established, but there are multiple theories, described below.


title: Feudalism

text: The most widely held theory was proposed by Johan Hendrik Caspar Kern in 1870, being supported by, amongst others, William Stubbs and Marc Bloch. Kern derived the word from a putative Frankish term "*fehu-ôd", in which "*fehu" means "cattle" and "-ôd" means "goods", implying "a movable object of value". Bloch explains that by the beginning of the 10th century it was common to value land in monetary terms but to pay for it with objects of equivalent value, such as arms, clothing, horses or food. This was known as "feos", a term that took on the general meaning of paying for something in lieu of money. This meaning was then applied to land itself, in which land was used to pay for fealty, such as to a vassal. Thus the old word "feos" meaning movable property changed little by little to "feus" meaning the exact opposite: landed property. It has also been suggested that word comes from the Gothic "faihu", meaning "property", specifically, "cattle".


title: Feudalism

text: Another theory was put forward by Archibald Ross Lewis. Lewis said the origin of 'fief' is not "feudum" (or "feodum"), but rather "foderum", the earliest attested use being in "Vita Hludovici" (840) by Astronomus. In that text is a passage about Louis the Pious that says , which can be translated as "Louis forbade that military provender (which they popularly call "fodder") be furnished."


title: Feudalism

text: Another theory by Alauddin Samarrai suggests an Arabic origin, from "fuyū" (the plural of "fay", which literally means "the returned", and was used especially for 'land that has been conquered from enemies that did not fight'). Samarrai's theory is that early forms of 'fief' include "feo", "feu", "feuz", "feuum" and others, the plurality of forms strongly suggesting origins from a loanword. The first use of these terms is in Languedoc, one of the least Germanic areas of Europe and bordering Al-Andalus (Muslim Spain). Further, the earliest use of "feuum" (as a replacement for "beneficium") can be dated to 899, the same year a Muslim base at Fraxinetum (La Garde-Freinet) in Provence was established. It is possible, Samarrai says, that French scribes, writing in Latin, attempted to transliterate the Arabic word "fuyū" (the plural of "fay"), which was being used by the Muslim invaders and occupiers at the time, resulting in a plurality of forms – "feo, feu, feuz, feuum" and others – from which eventually "feudum" derived. Samarrai, however, also advises to handle this theory with care, as Medieval and Early Modern Muslim scribes often used etymologically "fanciful roots" in order to claim the most outlandish things to be of Arabian or Muslim origin.


title: Feudalism

text: Feudalism, in its various forms, usually emerged as a result of the decentralization of an empire: especially in the Carolingian Empire in 9th century AD, which lacked the bureaucratic infrastructure necessary to support cavalry without allocating land to these mounted troops. Mounted soldiers began to secure a system of hereditary rule over their allocated land and their power over the territory came to encompass the social, political, judicial, and economic spheres.


title: Feudalism

text: These acquired powers significantly diminished unitary power in these empires. However, once the infrastructure to maintain unitary power was re-established—as with the European monarchies—feudalism began to yield to this new power structure and eventually disappeared.


title: Feudalism

text: The classic François Louis Ganshof version of feudalism describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations which existed among the warrior nobility, revolving around the three key concepts of lords, vassals and fiefs. In broad terms a lord was a noble who held land, a vassal was a person who was granted possession of the land by the lord, and the land was known as a fief. In exchange for the use of the fief and protection by the lord, the vassal would provide some sort of service to the lord. There were many varieties of feudal land tenure, consisting of military and non-military service. The obligations and corresponding rights between lord and vassal concerning the fief form the basis of the feudal relationship.


title: Feudalism

text: Before a lord could grant land (a fief) to someone, he had to make that person a vassal. This was done at a formal and symbolic ceremony called a commendation ceremony, which was composed of the two-part act of homage and oath of fealty. During homage, the lord and vassal entered into a contract in which the vassal promised to fight for the lord at his command, whilst the lord agreed to protect the vassal from external forces. "Fealty" comes from the Latin "fidelitas" and denotes the fidelity owed by a vassal to his feudal lord. "Fealty" also refers to an oath that more explicitly reinforces the commitments of the vassal made during homage. Such an oath follows homage.


title: Feudalism

text: Once the commendation ceremony was complete, the lord and vassal were in a feudal relationship with agreed obligations to one another. The vassal's principal obligation to the lord was to "aid", or military service. Using whatever equipment the vassal could obtain by virtue of the revenues from the fief, the vassal was responsible to answer calls to military service on behalf of the lord. This security of military help was the primary reason the lord entered into the feudal relationship. In addition, the vassal could have other obligations to his lord, such as attendance at his court, whether manorial, baronial, both termed court baron, or at the king's court.


title: Feudalism

text: It could also involve the vassal providing "counsel", so that if the lord faced a major decision he would summon all his vassals and hold a council. At the level of the manor this might be a fairly mundane matter of agricultural policy, but also included sentencing by the lord for criminal offences, including capital punishment in some cases. Concerning the king's feudal court, such deliberation could include the question of declaring war. These are examples of feudalism; depending on the period of time and location in Europe, feudal customs and practices varied.


title: Feudalism

text: In its origin, the feudal grant of land had been seen in terms of a personal bond between lord and vassal, but with time and the transformation of fiefs into hereditary holdings, the nature of the system came to be seen as a form of "politics of land" (an expression used by the historian Marc Bloch). The 11th century in France saw what has been called by historians a "feudal revolution" or "mutation" and a "fragmentation of powers" (Bloch) that was unlike the development of feudalism in England or Italy or in Germany in the same period or later: Counties and duchies began to break down into smaller holdings as castellans and lesser "seigneurs" took control of local lands, and (as comital families had done before them) lesser lords usurped/privatized a wide range of prerogatives and rights of the state, including travel dues, market dues, fees for using woodlands, obligations, use the lord's mill and, most importantly, the highly profitable rights of justice, etc. (what Georges Duby called collectively the ""seigneurie banale""). Power in this period became more personal.


title: Feudalism

text: This "fragmentation of powers" was not, however, systematic throughout France, and in certain counties (such as Flanders, Normandy, Anjou, Toulouse), counts were able to maintain control of their lands into the 12th century or later. Thus, in some regions (like Normandy and Flanders), the vassal/feudal system was an effective tool for ducal and comital control, linking vassals to their lords; but in other regions, the system led to significant confusion, all the more so as vassals could and frequently did pledge themselves to two or more lords. In response to this, the idea of a "liege lord" was developed (where the obligations to one lord are regarded as superior) in the 12th century.


title: Feudalism

text: Most of the military aspects of feudalism effectively ended by about 1500. This was partly since the military shifted from armies consisting of the nobility to professional fighters thus reducing the nobility's claim on power, but also because the Black Death reduced the nobility's hold over the lower classes. Vestiges of the feudal system hung on in France until the French Revolution of the 1790s. Even when the original feudal relationships had disappeared, there were many institutional remnants of feudalism left in place. Historian Georges Lefebvre explains how at an early stage of the French Revolution, on just one night of August 4, 1789, France abolished the long-lasting remnants of the feudal order. It announced, "The National Assembly abolishes the feudal system entirely." Lefebvre explains:


title: Feudalism

text: Originally the peasants were supposed to pay for the release of seigneurial dues; these dues affected more than a quarter of the farmland in France and provided most of the income of the large landowners. The majority refused to pay and in 1793 the obligation was cancelled. Thus the peasants got their land free, and also no longer paid the tithe to the church.


title: Feudalism

text: In the Kingdom of France, following the French Revolution, feudalism was abolished with a decree of August 11, 1789 by the Constituent Assembly, a provision that was later extended to various parts of Italian kingdom following the invasion by French troops. In the Kingdom of Naples, Joachim Murat abolished feudalism with the law of August 2, 1806, then implemented with a law of September 1, 1806 and a royal decree of December 3, 1808. In the Kingdom of Sicily the abolishing law was issued by the Sicilian Parliament on August 10, 1812. In Piedmont feudalism ceased by virtue of the edicts of March 7, and July 19, 1797 issued by Charles Emmanuel IV, although in the Kingdom of Sardinia, specifically on the island of Sardinia, feudalism was abolished only with an edict of August 5, 1848.


title: Feudalism

text: In the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, feudalism was abolished with the law of December 5, 1861 n.º 342 were all feudal bonds abolished. The system lingered on in parts of Central and Eastern Europe as late as the 1850s. Slavery in Romania was abolished in 1856. Russia finally abolished serfdom in 1861.


title: Feudalism

text: More recently in Scotland, on November 28, 2004, the Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Act 2000 entered into full force putting an end to what was left of the Scottish feudal system. The last feudal regime, that of the island of Sark, was abolished in December 2008, when the first democratic elections were held for the election of a local parliament and the appointment of a government. The "revolution" is a consequence of the juridical intervention of the European Parliament, which declared the local constitutional system as contrary to human rights, and, following a series of legal battles, imposed parliamentary democracy.


title: Feudalism

text: The phrase "feudal society" as defined by Marc Bloch offers a wider definition than Ganshof's and includes within the feudal structure not only the warrior aristocracy bound by vassalage, but also the peasantry bound by manorialism, and the estates of the Church. Thus the feudal order embraces society from top to bottom, though the "powerful and well-differentiated social group of the urban classes" came to occupy a distinct position to some extent outside the classic feudal hierarchy.


title: Feudalism

text: The idea of "feudalism" was unknown and the system it describes was not conceived of as a formal political system by the people living in the medieval period. This section describes the history of the idea of feudalism, how the concept originated among scholars and thinkers, how it changed over time, and modern debates about its use.


title: Feudalism

text: The concept of a feudal state or period, in the sense of either a regime or a period dominated by lords who possess financial or social power and prestige, became widely held in the middle of the 18th century, as a result of works such as Montesquieu's "De L'Esprit des Lois" (1748; published in English as "The Spirit of Law"), and Henri de Boulainvilliers's "Histoire des anciens Parlements de France" (1737; published in English as "An Historical Account of the Ancient Parliaments of France or States-General of the Kingdom", 1739). In the 18th century, writers of the Enlightenment wrote about feudalism to denigrate the antiquated system of the "Ancien Régime", or French monarchy. This was the Age of Enlightenment, when writers valued reason and the Middle Ages were viewed as the "Dark Ages". Enlightenment authors generally mocked and ridiculed anything from the "Dark Ages" including feudalism, projecting its negative characteristics on the current French monarchy as a means of political gain. For them "feudalism" meant seigneurial privileges and prerogatives. When the French Constituent Assembly abolished the "feudal regime" in August 1789, this is what was meant.


title: Feudalism

text: Adam Smith used the term "feudal system" to describe a social and economic system defined by inherited social ranks, each of which possessed inherent social and economic privileges and obligations. In such a system, wealth derived from agriculture, which was arranged not according to market forces but on the basis of customary labour services owed by serfs to landowning nobles.


title: Feudalism

text: Karl Marx also used the term in the 19th century in his analysis of society's economic and political development, describing feudalism (or more usually feudal society or the feudal mode of production) as the order coming before capitalism. For Marx, what defined feudalism was the power of the ruling class (the aristocracy) in their control of arable land, leading to a class society based upon the exploitation of the peasants who farm these lands, typically under serfdom and principally by means of labour, produce and money rents. Marx thus defined feudalism primarily by its economic characteristics.


title: Feudalism

text: He also took it as a paradigm for understanding the power-relationships between capitalists and wage-labourers in his own time: "in pre-capitalist systems it was obvious that most people did not control their own destiny—under feudalism, for instance, serfs had to work for their lords. Capitalism seems different because people are in theory free to work for themselves or for others as they choose. Yet most workers have as little control over their lives as feudal serfs." Some later Marxist theorists (e.g. Eric Wolf) have applied this label to include non-European societies, grouping feudalism together with imperial China and the Inca Empire, in the pre-Columbian era, as 'tributary' societies .


title: Feudalism

text: In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, J. Horace Round and Frederic William Maitland, both historians of medieval Britain, arrived at different conclusions as to the character of Anglo-Saxon English society before the Norman Conquest in 1066. Round argued that the Normans had brought feudalism with them to England, while Maitland contended that its fundamentals were already in place in Britain before 1066. The debate continues today, but a consensus viewpoint is that England before the Conquest had commendation (which embodied some of the personal elements in feudalism) while William the Conqueror introduced a modified and stricter northern French feudalism to England incorporating (1086) oaths of loyalty to the king by all who held by feudal tenure, even the vassals of his principal vassals (holding by feudal tenure meant that vassals must provide the quota of knights required by the king or a money payment in substitution).


title: Feudalism

text: In the 20th century, two outstanding historians offered still more widely differing perspectives. The French historian Marc Bloch, arguably the most influential 20th-century medieval historian, approached feudalism not so much from a legal and military point of view but from a sociological one, presenting in "Feudal Society" (1939; English 1961) a feudal order not limited solely to the nobility. It is his radical notion that peasants were part of the feudal relationship that sets Bloch apart from his peers: while the vassal performed military service in exchange for the fief, the peasant performed physical labour in return for protection – both are a form of feudal relationship. According to Bloch, other elements of society can be seen in feudal terms; all the aspects of life were centred on "lordship", and so we can speak usefully of a feudal church structure, a feudal courtly (and anti-courtly) literature, and a feudal economy.


title: Feudalism

text: In contradistinction to Bloch, the Belgian historian François Louis Ganshof defined feudalism from a narrow legal and military perspective, arguing that feudal relationships existed only within the medieval nobility itself. Ganshof articulated this concept in "Qu'est-ce que la féodalité?" ("What is feudalism?", 1944; translated in English as "Feudalism"). His classic definition of feudalism is widely accepted today among medieval scholars, though questioned both by those who view the concept in wider terms and by those who find insufficient uniformity in noble exchanges to support such a model.


title: Feudalism

text: Although he was never formally a student in the circle of scholars around Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre that came to be known as the Annales school, Georges Duby was an exponent of the "Annaliste" tradition. In a published version of his 1952 doctoral thesis entitled "La société aux XIe et XIIe siècles dans la région mâconnaise" ("Society in the 11th and 12th centuries in the Mâconnais region"), and working from the extensive documentary sources surviving from the Burgundian monastery of Cluny, as well as the dioceses of Mâcon and Dijon, Duby excavated the complex social and economic relationships among the individuals and institutions of the Mâconnais region and charted a profound shift in the social structures of medieval society around the year 1000. He argued that in early 11th century, governing institutions—particularly comital courts established under the Carolingian monarchy—that had represented public justice and order in Burgundy during the 9th and 10th centuries receded and gave way to a new feudal order wherein independent aristocratic knights wielded power over peasant communities through strong-arm tactics and threats of violence.


title: Feudalism

text: In 1939, the Austrian historian subordinated the feudal state as secondary to his concept of a "Personenverbandsstaat" (personal interdependency state), understanding it in contrast to the territorial state. This form of statehood, identified with the Holy Roman Empire, is described as the most complete form of medieval rule, completing conventional feudal structure of lordship and vassalage with the personal association between the nobility. But the applicability of this concept to cases outside of the Holy Roman Empire has been questioned, as by Susan Reynolds. The concept has also been questioned and superseded in German historiography because of its bias and reductionism towards legitimating the Führerprinzip.


title: Feudalism

text: In 1974, the American historian Elizabeth A. R. Brown rejected the label "feudalism" as an anachronism that imparts a false sense of uniformity to the concept. Having noted the current use of many, often contradictory, definitions of "feudalism", she argued that the word is only a construct with no basis in medieval reality, an invention of modern historians read back "tyrannically" into the historical record. Supporters of Brown have suggested that the term should be expunged from history textbooks and lectures on medieval history entirely. In "Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted" (1994), Susan Reynolds expanded upon Brown's original thesis. Although some contemporaries questioned Reynolds's methodology, other historians have supported it and her argument. Reynolds argues:


title: Feudalism

text: Too many models of feudalism used for comparisons, even by Marxists, are still either constructed on the 16th-century basis or incorporate what, in a Marxist view, must surely be superficial or irrelevant features from it. Even when one restricts oneself to Europe and to feudalism in its narrow sense it is extremely doubtful whether feudo-vassalic institutions formed a coherent bundle of institutions or concepts that were structurally separate from other institutions and concepts of the time.


title: Feudalism

text: The term "feudal" has also been applied to non-Western societies, in which institutions and attitudes similar to those of medieval Europe are perceived to have prevailed (see: examples of feudalism). Japan has been extensively studied in this regard. Karl Friday notes that in the 21st century historians of Japan rarely invoke feudalism; instead of looking at similarities, specialists attempting comparative analysis concentrate on fundamental differences. Ultimately, critics say, the many ways the term "feudalism" has been used have deprived it of specific meaning, leading some historians and political theorists to reject it as a useful concept for understanding society.


title: Feudalism

text: Richard Abels notes that "Western Civilization and World Civilization textbooks now shy away from the term 'feudalism'."


title: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

text: "Sekiro" was released for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One in March 2019, and for Stadia in October 2020. Lead director Hidetaka Miyazaki wanted to create a new intellectual property (IP) that marked a departure from their "Dark Souls" series, looking at games such as "Tenchu" for inspiration. "Sekiro" was praised by critics, who complimented its gameplay and setting, and compared it to "Dark Souls", although opinions on its difficulty were mixed. It won several year-end awards and sold over five million copies by July 2020.


title: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

text: "Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice" is an action-adventure game played from a third-person view. Compared to FromSoftware's "Dark Souls" series, the game features fewer role-playing elements, lacks character creation and the ability to level up a variety of stats, and has no multiplayer elements. It does, however, include gear upgrading, a skill tree, and limited ability customization. Rather than attacking to whittle an enemy's health points, combat in "Sekiro" revolves around using a katana to attack their posture and balance instead, eventually leading to an opening that allows for a single killing blow.


title: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

text: The game also features stealth elements, allowing players to instantly eliminate some enemies if they can get in range undetected. In addition, the player character can use various tools to assist with combat and exploration, such as a grappling hook. If the player character dies, they can be revived on the spot if they have resurrection power, which is restored by defeating enemies, instead of respawning at earlier checkpoints.


title: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

text: Following the Sengoku period, Isshin Ashina seized control of the land of Ashina. During this time, a nameless orphan is adopted by the wandering shinobi known as Owl, who named the boy Wolf and trained him in the ways of the shinobi. Two decades later, Ashina is on the brink of collapse due to the now elderly Isshin falling ill and the Interior Ministry, a group set on unifying Japan, steadily closing in. Desperate to save his clan, Isshin's adoptive grandson Genichiro seeks the immortal Divine Heir Kuro in hopes of using the Dragon Heritage in his blood to create an immortal army. Wolf, now a full-fledged shinobi and Kuro's bodyguard, fights Genichiro but loses both Kuro and his left arm. However, being immortal, Wolf survives and is found by a retired shinobi known as the Sculptor. The Sculptor nurses Wolf back to health and gifts him a prosthetic arm.


title: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

text: To rescue Kuro, Wolf assaults Ashina Castle whilst being forced to confront his past; Three years ago, Kuro's birthplace, the Hirata estate, was raided by bandits led by Wolf's former teacher, Lady Butterfly. While Wolf was able to defeat her, he was stabbed in the back by an unknown assailant but survived after Kuro made him immortal using the Dragon Heritage. In the present, Wolf once again confronts Genichiro and defeats him, forcing him to flee. Kuro asks Wolf to perform the Immortal Severance ritual, which would result in Kuro's death and prevent anyone from fighting over his immortality. Wolf reluctantly agrees and sets out to collect the necessary materials for the ritual. Wolf's quest leads him to cross paths with Isshin, who gives him a new name: Sekiro, the "one-armed wolf".


title: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

text: After collecting all the components for the ritual, Sekiro is confronted by Owl, who is revealed to be the assailant who backstabbed Sekiro at the Hirata estate. Owl reveals he also seeks the Dragon Heritage and orders Sekiro to renounce his loyalty to Kuro. If Sekiro sides with Owl, he is forced to fight Isshin's doctor, Emma, and Isshin himself. After defeating them, Sekiro betrays Owl while Kuro realizes he has been corrupted by bloodlust, resulting in the "Shura" ending. If Kuro is chosen, Sekiro fights and kills Owl. Sekiro then enters the Divine Realm to collect the final material for the ritual. Upon returning to Ashina, Sekiro discovers Isshin has succumbed to his illness and that the castle is under attack by the Interior Ministry. Sekiro eventually finds Kuro under attack by Genichiro, whom he defeats again. Realizing Ashina is lost, Genichiro sacrifices himself in a ritual to revive Isshin in his prime so that he might restore Ashina. Isshin honors his grandson's wish and fights Sekiro.


title: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

text: After defeating Isshin, there are three possible endings. Performing the Immortal Severance ritual results in the eponymous standard ending, where the Dragon Heritage is removed at the cost of Kuro's life. Afterward, like the Sculptor before him, Sekiro retires as a shinobi and spends the remainder of his days carving Buddha Statues. Working with Emma to find an alternative way of severing immortality results in the Purification ending, where Sekiro sacrifices himself instead of Kuro. The final ending, Dragon's Homecoming, is obtained by helping a character known as the Divine Child of the Rejuvenating Waters. Kuro's body dies, but his spirit lives on inside the Divine Child, who goes on a journey with Sekiro to return the Dragon Heritage to its original place.


title: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

text: Development of "Sekiro" began in late 2015 following the completion of "Bloodborne" downloadable content, "The Old Hunters". It was directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki, who had previously worked on the "Dark Souls" series and "Bloodborne". "Sekiro" draws inspiration from the "Tenchu" series of stealth-action games partially developed and published by FromSoftware. The team initially considered developing the game as a sequel to "Tenchu;" however, it quickly outgrew the concept. Miyazaki intended the combat changes to capture the feel of "swords clashing", with fighters trying to create an opening to deliver the fatal strike. He and the team also created the game to be an entirely single-player experience, as they believed multiplayer to have limitations they wanted to avoid. Despite the game taking place during the Sengoku period of real-world Japanese history, no historical people or locations are featured in the game.


title: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

text: The game was revealed via a teaser trailer at The Game Awards 2017 in December, showing the tagline "Shadows Die Twice". The game's full title was revealed to be "Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice" during Microsoft's press conference at E3 2018. The game was published by Activision worldwide, with FromSoftware self-publishing it in Japan and Cube Game publishing in the Asia-Pacific region. "Sekiro" soundtrack was composed by Yuka Kitamura, with some contributions from Noriyuki Asakura. The game was released for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One on 22 March 2019. A collectors edition was also released the same day and included a steelbook case, a figurine of the protagonist, an art book, a physical map of the game's world, a download code for the soundtrack, and in-game coin replicas. A port for Stadia was released in late 2020. On 31 October 2020, a free update was released that added new content to the game, such as new cosmetics for Wolf and a boss rush game mode.


title: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

text: The word "sekirō" (隻狼) is a contraction of "sekiwan no ōkami" (隻腕の狼), which translates as "one-armed wolf." The subtitle "Shadows Die Twice" was initially meant to be used as a slogan for the teaser trailer until Activision requested it be kept for the final name.


title: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

text: According to review aggregator Metacritic, "Sekiro" received "universal acclaim" for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions and "generally favorable" reviews for the Windows version. Many critics praised the game's combat for departing from the typical style of FromSoftware's other similar games. In a review for "Destructoid", Chris Carter described open combat as "akin to a waltz" and praised the variety of ways the combat could be approached, writing that players had more choices than in "Dark Souls" or "Bloodborne". Brandin Tyrell from "IGN" praised the game's focus on "split-second swordsmanship", and although "to any Souls veteran, "Sekiro" timing-based lock-on combat of strikes and slashes is familiar", the game's "sense of safety" caused the combat to feel "refreshing and new". "PC Gamer" journalist Tom Senior called the combat "beautiful" and praised the posture system, writing that "instead of chipping down health bars until the enemy keels over, you overwhelm their posture bar with strikes and perfect parries until an opening appears, and then finish with a deathblow". He stated that the system takes "the catharsis" of beating a great boss and "focuses all that emotion into one split second". In a review for the website "GameSpot", Tamoor Hussain wrote that the game "rewrites the rules of engagement", stating that, while previous FromSoftware games demanded quick decision-making, "Sekiro" "pushes these demands further" than ever before. Reviewers also praised the resurrection mechanic, with Carter calling it "genius", and the stealth options, which gave the player freedom without descending into frustration.


title: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

text: The level design was also praised. Particular emphasis was given to the player's increased verticality due to the addition of the grappling hook and a dedicated jump button. Tyrell wrote that the grappling hook "sends ripples throughout the gameplay", writing that "where all previous Soulsborne characters felt rooted firmly to the ground as they trudged down hallways and slowly climbed ladders, "Sekiro" level design has permission to be much more vertical". Carter wrote that the hook provided "a more vertical and in some cases more challenging level design from an exploration standpoint". Senior wrote that the game used "large but separate zones rather than a huge connected world" but praised the "many secrets hidden just off the critical path, often reached with the excellent grappling hook, which lets you vault between tree branches and rooftops". The levels themselves were also praised, with Hussain writing that "buildings are placed together to encourage exploration and reconnaissance, with roofs almost touching so that you can leap between them and scope out all angles", with the branching paths "creating that satisfying feeling of venturing into the unknown and then emerging into the familiar".


title: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

text: Reaction to the lack of online multiplayer was mixed. Several reviewers noted that this allowed the game to have a full pause button, which was praised. However, Tyrell noted that he "missed the small notes left by others in the world alerting me to imminent threats or hidden secrets, or that vague sense that danger lurks behind me in the form of an invading player" that defined the experience of playing "Soulsborne" games. He also noticed the "lack of PvP battles, which seem[ed] like a waste of the new emphasis on skill-based swordsmanship" and argued that the parrying and blocking mechanics would have suited online play.


title: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

text: Similarly to other FromSoftware games, the game's high difficulty level polarised players and journalists. Several reviewers praised the difficulty, with Senior calling it "brutal" but "spectacular". Hussain wrote that the game "punishes you for missteps" and was "suited for people of a certain temperament and with a very specific, slightly masochistic taste in games" but argued that victory was "intense" and "gratifying". Tyrell wrote that the combat had a "steep curve to mastering it" but argued it was "somewhat easier than its predecessors" while still providing the sense of being "the greatest swordsman that ever lived" after tough victories. However, several journalists found it too challenging, with Don Rowe from "The Spinoff" calling it "infuriating" and writing that he was not having fun after six hours with the game. Several days after the game was released, modders managed to develop mods which would make the game easier by changing the speed of the player's character relative to the game. James Davenport of "PC Gamer" said that the game's final boss was too difficult for him to beat without the help of the software.


title: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

text: On release day, "Sekiro" drew over 108,000 concurrent players on Steam, the highest for a new game launched during JanuaryMarch 2019 and the third highest of any Japanese game in the platform's history, behind only "" and "Dark Souls III". Later in March, it had reached over 125,000 concurrent players on Steam, making it one of the most played games on the platform at the time. In its debut week, "Sekiro" topped the UK and EMEAA (Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia) charts, surpassing "Tom Clancy's The Division 2". In Japan, the game debuted first, with 157,548 retail copies sold in its opening weekend. Within ten days of its release, over twomillion copies were sold worldwide, which rose to over five million by July 2020.


title: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

text: The game won several awards, including Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2019, by editors of "GameSpot", and by fans in the 2019 Steam Awards.


title: Fallout (series)

text: Fallout is a series of post-apocalyptic role-playing video games—and later action role-playing games—created by Interplay Entertainment. The series is set during the 21st, 22nd and 23rd centuries, and its atompunk retrofuturistic setting and art work are influenced by the post-war culture of 1950s United States, with its combination of hope for the promises of technology and the lurking fear of nuclear annihilation. A forerunner of "Fallout" is "Wasteland", a 1988 game developed by Interplay Productions to which the series is regarded as a spiritual successor.


title: Fallout (series)

text: The series' first title, "Fallout", was developed by Black Isle Studios and released in 1997, and its sequel, "Fallout 2," the following year. With the tactical role-playing game "", development was handed to Micro Forté and 14 Degrees East. In 2004, Interplay closed Black Isle Studios, and continued to produce "", an action game with role-playing elements for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, without Black Isle Studios. "Fallout 3", the third entry in the main series, was released in 2008 by Bethesda Softworks, and was followed by "", developed by Obsidian Entertainment. "Fallout 4" was released in 2015, and "Fallout 76" released on November 14, 2018.


title: Fallout (series)

text: Bethesda Softworks owns the rights to the "Fallout" intellectual property. After acquiring it, Bethesda licensed the rights to make a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) version of "Fallout" to Interplay. The MMORPG got as far as beta stage under Interplay, but a lengthy legal dispute between Bethesda Softworks and Interplay halted the development of the game and led to its eventual cancellation, as Bethesda claimed in court that Interplay had not met the terms and conditions of the licensing contract. The case was settled in early 2012.


title: Fallout (series)

text: The ideas of the "Fallout" series began with Interplay Productions' "Wasteland", released in 1988. At that time, Interplay was not a publisher and used Electronic Arts for distribution of the game. According to Interplay's founder, Brian Fargo, they wanted to explore a post-apocalyptic setting and created "Wasteland" for that. Sometime after release, Interplay decided to shift focus and become a publisher while still developing games. Fargo wanted to continue to use the "Wasteland" intellectual property but could not negotiate the rights back from Electronic Arts. Still wanting to do something in a post-apocalyptic setting, Fargo and his team decided to make a new setting and game. They determined what aspects of "Wasteland" were positives and wrote and developed a new game around them. The result was the first "Fallout" games, which released nearly ten years after "Wasteland".


title: Fallout (series)

text: Released in October 1997, "Fallout" takes place in a post-apocalyptic Southern California, beginning in the year 2161. The protagonist, referred to as "the Vault Dweller", is tasked with recovering a water chip in the Wasteland to replace the broken one in their underground shelter home, Vault 13. Afterwards, the Vault Dweller must thwart the plans of a group of mutants, led by a grotesque entity named "the Master". "Fallout" was originally intended to run under the "GURPS" role-playing game system. However, a disagreement with the creator of "GURPS", Steve Jackson, over the game's violent content required Black Isle Studios to develop the new SPECIAL system. "Fallout"s atmosphere and artwork are reminiscent of post-World War II United States during the Cold War era and the fear that the country was headed for nuclear war in the real world.


title: Fallout (series)

text: "Fallout 2" was released in October 1998, with several improvements over the first game, including an improved engine, the ability to set attitudes of non-player characters (NPC) party members and the ability to push people who are blocking doors. Additional features included several changes, including significantly more pop culture jokes and parodies, such as multiple Monty Python and "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"-referencing special random encounters, and self-parodying dialogue that broke the fourth wall to mention game mechanics. "Fallout 2" takes place eighty years after "Fallout", and centers around a descendant of the Vault Dweller, the protagonist of "Fallout". The player assumes the role of "the Chosen One" (Vault Dweller's actual grandchild) as they try to save their village, Arroyo, from famine and droughts. After saving the village, the Chosen One must fight the Enclave, the remnants of the pre-war United States government (as well as the shadow government in charge of the vault project).


title: Fallout (series)

text: "Fallout 3" was developed by Bethesda Game Studios and released on October 28, 2008. The story picks up thirty years after the setting of "Fallout 2" and 200 years after the nuclear war that devastated the game's world. The player-character is a Vault dweller in Vault 101 who is forced to flee when the Overseer tries to arrest them in response to their father leaving the Vault. Once out, the player is dubbed the Lone Wanderer and ventures into the Wasteland in and around Washington, D.C., known as the Capital Wasteland, to find their father. It differs from previous games in the series by utilizing 3D graphics, a free-roam gaming world, and real-time combat, in contrast to previous games' 2D isometric graphics and turn-based combat. It was developed for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 using the Gamebryo engine. It received highly positive reviews, garnering 94/100, 92/100, and 93/100 averages scores on Metacritic for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game, respectively. It won IGN's 2008 Overall Game of the Year Award, Xbox 360 Game of the Year, Best RPG, and Best Use of Sound, as well as E3's Best of the Show and Best Role Playing Game.


title: Fallout (series)

text: "Fallout 4", developed by Bethesda Game Studios, was released on November 10, 2015. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One and takes place in Boston, Massachusetts, of the in-game New England Commonwealth and features voiced protagonists. The Xbox One version has been confirmed to have mods . Bethesda also confirmed mods for PlayStation 4, after lengthy negotiations with Sony. A virtual reality version of the game was released on December 11, 2017, available on SteamVR. "Fallout 4" takes place in the year 2287, ten years after the events of "Fallout 3". "Fallout 4"s story begins on the day the bombs dropped: October 23, 2077. The player's character (voiced by either Brian T. Delaney or Courtenay Taylor), dubbed as the Sole Survivor, takes shelter in Vault 111, emerging 210 years later, after being subjected to suspended animation. The Sole Survivor goes on a search for their son who was taken away in the Vault.


title: Fallout (series)

text: In June 2022, Todd Howard stated in an interview that "Fallout 5" would begin development after the completion of "The Elder Scrolls VI", with an unspecified release window.


title: Fallout (series)

text: "Fallout: New Vegas" was developed by Obsidian Entertainment and released on October 19, 2010. The development team included developers who previously worked on "Fallout" and "Fallout 2". "Fallout: New Vegas" is not a direct sequel to "Fallout 3". Events follow four years after "Fallout 3" and offer a similar experience, but no characters from that game appear. The player assumes the role of a courier in the post-apocalyptic world of the Mojave Wasteland. As the game begins, the Courier is shot in the head and left for dead shortly before being found and brought to a doctor in the nearby town of Goodsprings, marking the start of the game and the Courier's search for their would-be murderer. The city of New Vegas is a post-apocalyptic interpretation of Las Vegas.


title: Fallout (series)

text: "Fallout 76" is the first online multiplayer game in the franchise. It is set in West Virginia, with a majority of monsters and enemies based on regional folklore. When the game was originally released there were no human non-player characters in the game, although with the "Wastelanders" update it received NPCs and character dialogue. It was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on November 14, 2018.


title: Fallout (series)

text: These games were considered non-canon when Bethesda Softworks acquired the license. However, the canonicity status of is complex; despite the original Bethesda statement, multiple Bethesda-era games refer to its events.


title: Fallout (series)

text: "Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel" is the first "Fallout" game not to require the player to fight in a turn-based mode, and the first to allow the player to customize the skills, perks, and combat actions of the rest of the party. "Fallout Tactics" focuses on tactical combat rather than role-playing; the new combat system included different modes, stances, and modifiers, but the player had no dialogue options. Most of the criticisms of the game came from its incompatibility with the story of the original two games, not from its gameplay. "Fallout Tactics" includes a multiplayer mode that allows players to compete against squads of other characters controlled by other players. Unlike the previous two games, which are based in California, "Fallout Tactics" takes place in the Midwestern United States. The game was released in early 2001 to generally favorable reviews.


title: Fallout (series)

text: "Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel" became the first "Fallout" game for consoles when it was released in 2004. It follows an initiate in the Brotherhood of Steel who is given a suicidal quest to find several lost Brotherhood Paladins. "Brotherhood of Steel" is an action role-playing game, representing a significant break from previous incarnations of the "Fallout" series in both gameplay and aesthetics. The game does not feature non-player characters that accompany the player in combat and uses heavy metal music, including Slipknot, Devin Townsend, and Killswitch Engage, which stands in contrast to the music of the earlier "Fallout" games, performed by The Ink Spots and Louis Armstrong. It was the last "Fallout" game developed by Interplay.


title: Fallout (series)

text: "Fallout Shelter" is a simulation game for Microsoft Windows, iOS, Android, Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. The player acts as the Overseer, building and managing their Vault and its dwellers, sending them into the Wasteland on scouting missions and defending the Vault from attacks. Unlike the main entries in the franchise, this game has no ending and mostly revolves around attempting to keep the people who live in the vault, an intricate fallout shelter, alive. The game uses microtransactions, a form of in game purchases, that take the form of nuka-cola quantum, the game's "premium" currency, lunch boxes, an item that would give a random mixture of in-game items, pet carriers, something that would contain a pet, which can boost a single dweller's stats, and "mister handys", a robot who could harvest the games materials or be assigned to outside the vault to harvest bottle caps, the games currency. "Fallout Shelter" was released for iOS on June 14, 2015, Android on August 13, 2015, and for PC on July 15, 2016. On February 7, 2017, Bethesda launched "Fallout Shelter" on Xbox One. On June 10, 2018, Bethesda announced and launched "Fallout Shelter" on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4.


title: Fallout (series)

text: In late 2016, Zen Studios developed a virtual pinball game based on the "Fallout" universe as part of the "Bethesda Pinball" collection, which became available as part of "Zen Pinball 2", "Pinball FX 2" and "Pinball FX 3", as well as a separate free-to-play app for iOS and Android mobile devices. The pinball adaptation is based on "Fallout 4", while containing elements from previous installments as well.


title: Fallout (series)

text: "Fallout Extreme" was in development for several months in 2000 but was canceled before leaving the concept stage. It was intended to be a squad-based, first and third-person tactical shooter to be released on Xbox and built on Unreal Engine.


title: Fallout (series)

text: "Fallout Tactics 2" was proposed as a sequel to "", although it was originally conceived as a sequel to "Wasteland", the video game that inspired the "Fallout" series. It was developed by Micro Forté, but the production was canceled in December 2001 after the poor sales of "Fallout Tactics".


title: Fallout (series)

text: "Van Buren" is the codename for the canceled version of "Fallout 3" developed by Black Isle Studios and published by Interplay Entertainment. It featured an improved engine with real 3D graphics as opposed to sprites, new locations, vehicles, and a modified version of the SPECIAL system. The story disconnected from the Vault Dweller/Chosen One bloodline in "Fallout" and "Fallout 2". Plans for the game included the ability to influence the various factions. The game was canceled in December 2003 when the budget cuts forced Interplay to dismiss the PC development team. Interplay subsequently sold the "Fallout" intellectual property to Bethesda Softworks, who began development on their own version of "Fallout 3" unrelated to "Van Buren". Main parts of the game were incorporated into "Fallout 3" and its add-ons as well as "Fallout: New Vegas".


title: Fallout (series)

text: "Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel 2" is the canceled sequel to "Brotherhood of Steel". The development of the game started before the completion of the original, and its development caused the cancellation of the "Van Buren" project. Like its predecessor, the game would have used the Dark Alliance Engine. It featured fourteen new weapons and ten new enemies. The game would have used a simplified reputation system based on previous entries; depending on whether the player was good or evil, the game would play out differently. Each of the four characters that were playable had a different fighting style, therefore every new play-through would have been a different experience. It had two player co-op action for players to experience the game with their friends. The Dark Alliance Engine would be fleshed out to refine player experience. A new stealth system would have been added to the game. This system would have allowed players to stalk enemies or stealthily assassinate them with a sniper rifle. For characters that could not use the sniper rifle, Interplay added a turret mode allowing those characters to use turrets.


title: Fallout (series)

text: While the main quest of the game would have been linear, how the player reach the conclusion would have been their choice. The main character would have been a Latino girl named Lilith, who was said to have a short temper with short black hair, green eyes and a sexy body. She would have worn a sports bra and jeans. Three other characters would be Maxus, the son of Cyrus, and Jaffe, a Brotherhood R&D worker who was pulled from duty due to Brotherhood/NCR tensions. Scarlet was a character that is completely albino, she was raised by Harold and inspired by the stories of Dweller, the main character of the original "Fallout".


title: Fallout (series)

text: "Fallout Online" (previously known as "Project V13") is a canceled project by Interplay and Masthead Studios to develop a "Fallout"-themed massively multiplayer online game. It entered production in 2008. In 2009, Bethesda filed a lawsuit against Interplay regarding "Project V13," claiming that Interplay has violated their agreement as development has not yet begun on the project. On January 2, 2012, Bethesda and Interplay reached a settlement, the terms of which include the cancellation of "Fallout Online" and transfer of all rights in the franchise to Bethesda. Since then, "Project V13" has been revived as a completely different project called Mayan Apocalypse, unrelated to "Fallout".


title: Fallout (series)

text: SPECIAL is a character creation and statistics system developed specifically for the "Fallout" series. SPECIAL is an acronym, representing the seven attributes used to define "Fallout" characters: Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility and Luck. SPECIAL is heavily based on GURPS, which was originally intended to be the character system used in the game.


title: Fallout (series)

text: The SPECIAL system was used in "Fallout", "Fallout 2", and "". A modified version of the system was used in "", "Fallout 3", "", "Fallout 4" and "Fallout Shelter".


title: Fallout (series)

text: Aside from "Fallout" games, modified versions of SPECIAL were also used in "" (also referred to as "Fallout Fantasy" early in production), a fantasy role-playing video game that involved spirits and magic in addition to the traditional SPECIAL features, as well as the canceled project "Black Isle's Torn".


title: Fallout (series)

text: The Pip-Boy (Personal Information Processor-Boy) is a wrist-computer given to the player early in "Fallout", "Fallout 2", "Fallout 3", "Fallout: New Vegas", "Fallout 4", and "Fallout 76" which serves various roles in quest, inventory, and battle management, as well as presenting player statistics. The model present in "Fallout" and "Fallout 2" is identified as a Pip-Boy 2000, and both games feature the same unit, used first by the Vault Dweller and later inherited by the Chosen One. "Fallout Tactics" contains a modified version of the 2000 model, called Pip-Boy 2000BE, while "Fallout 3" and "Fallout: New Vegas" uses a Pip-Boy 3000. "Fallout: New Vegas" has a golden version of it, called the Pimp-Boy 3 Billion that is given to the player as a reward for completing a quest in a certain way. "Fallout 4" contains a modified version of the 3000, called the Pip-Boy 3000 Mark IV. "Fallout 76" contains a modified version of the Pip-Boy, called the Pip-Boy 2000 Mark VI, which is another version of the Pip-Boy 2000.


title: Fallout (series)

text: The Vault Boy character is Vault-Tec's mascot, and is a recurring element in Vault-Tec products in the game world. This includes the Pip-Boy, where the Vault Boy illustrates all of the character statistics and selectable attributes. From Bethesda's "Fallout 3" onward Vault Boy models all of the clothing and weaponry as well. The character was originally designed by Leonard Boyarsky, based partly on Rich Uncle Pennybags' aesthetic from the "Monopoly" board game.


title: Fallout (series)

text: The series is set in a fictionalized United States in an alternate history scenario that diverges from reality after 1945, following World War II. In this alternative atompunk "golden age", vacuum tubes and atomic physics serve as the foundations of scientific progress, while transistors are not as scientifically important in this world. As such, a bizarre socio-technological status quo emerges, in which advanced robots, nuclear-powered cars, directed-energy weapons, and other futuristic technologies are seen alongside 1950s-era computers and televisions. The United States divides itself into 13 commonwealths and the aesthetics and Cold War paranoia of the 1950s continue to dominate the American lifestyle well into the 21st century.


title: Fallout (series)

text: More than a hundred years before the start of the series, an energy crisis emerged caused by oil depletion, leading to a period called the "Resource Wars" in April 2052 – a series of events which included a war between the European Commonwealth and the Middle Eastern states, the disbanding of the United Nations, the U.S. invasion of Mexico and annexation of Canada, and a Chinese invasion and subsequent military occupation of Alaska coupled with their release of the "New Plague" that devastated the American mainland. As global situations worsened, the American government became increasingly jingoistic and authoritarian, going as far as having dissidents sent off to re-education camps and experimentation. Tensions between the United States and China eventually culminated in the "Great War" on the morning of October 23, 2077, eastern standard time, a two-hour nuclear exchange on an apocalyptic scale, which subsequently created the post-apocalyptic United States, the setting of the "Fallout" world.


title: Fallout (series)

text: Having foreseen this outcome decades earlier, the U.S. government began a nationwide project in 2054 to build fallout shelters known as "Vaults". The Vaults were ostensibly designed by the Vault-Tec Corporation as public shelters, each able to support up to a thousand people. Around 400,000 Vaults would have been needed, but only 122 were commissioned and constructed. Each Vault is self-sufficient, so they could theoretically sustain their inhabitants indefinitely. However, the Vault project was not intended as a viable method of repopulating the United States in these deadly events. Instead, most Vaults were secret, unethical social experiments and were designed to determine the effects of different environmental and psychological conditions on their inhabitants. Experiments were widely varied and included: a Vault filled with clones of an individual; a Vault where its residents were frozen in suspended animation; a Vault where its residents were exposed to psychoactive drugs; a Vault where one resident, decided by popular vote, is sacrificed each year; a Vault with only one man and puppets; a Vault where its inhabitants were segregated into two hostile factions; two Vaults with disproportionate ratios of men and women; a Vault where the inhabitants were exposed to the mutagenic Forced Evolutionary Virus (F.E.V.); and a Vault where the door never fully closed, exposing the inhabitants to the dangerous nuclear fallout. 17 control Vaults were made to function as advertised in contrast with the Vault experiments but were usually shoddy and unreliable due to most of the funding going towards the experimental ones. Subsequently, many Vaults had their experiments derailed due to unexpected events, and several Vaults became occupied by raiders or mutants.


title: Fallout (series)

text: In the years after the Great War, the United States has devolved into a post-apocalyptic environment commonly dubbed "the Wasteland". The Great War and subsequent nuclear Armageddon had severely depopulated the country, leaving large expanses of property decaying from neglect. In addition, virtually all food and water is irradiated and most lifeforms have mutated due to high radiation combined with mutagens of varied origins. Despite the large-scale devastation, some areas were fortunate enough to survive the nuclear apocalypse relatively unscathed, even possessing non-irradiated water, flora, and fauna. However, these areas are exceedingly rare. With a large portion of the country's infrastructure in ruins, basic necessities are scarce. Barter is the common method of exchange, with bottle caps providing a more conventional form of currency. Most cities and towns are empty, having been looted or deserted in favor of smaller, makeshift communities scattered around the Wasteland.


title: Fallout (series)

text: Many humans who could not get into the Vaults survived the atomic blasts, but many of these, affected by the radiation, turned into so-called "ghouls". While their lifespans are greatly extended, their bodies develop widespread necrosis or rot; many lose their hair, their voices take on a raspy tone, and otherwise have permanently deformed physical features. Ghouls often resent normal human beings, either out of jealousy or in response to discrimination. Ghouls typically resent any comparison to zombies, and being called a zombie is viewed as a great insult. If ghouls continue to be exposed to high radiation levels, their brains experience irreversible damage, which can cause them to become "feral" and attack almost anything on sight, having lost their minds.


title: Fallout (series)

text: Various factions of humans would later form in the Wasteland, with three of the most prominent being the Brotherhood of Steel, the New California Republic (NCR), and the Enclave. The Brotherhood came together when a group of soldiers led by U.S. Army Captain Roger Maxson started a mutiny after finding out about the Forced Evolutionary Virus experiments. Declaring themselves independent from the U.S. government, their rebellion never got off the ground due to the Great War beginning. The defectors, safe in the underground confines of the base, survived and came to the surface and reconnected with other survivors, then headed to the Lost Hills bunker to start anew. The NCR was formed by a group of Vault 15 dwellers who would go on to found the town of Shady Sands. Over time under the leadership of their elder Aradesh and his daughter Tandi, Shady Sands became a major economic power in the southwest and united with other major hubs of civilization in the area to found the New California Republic. The Enclave was a secret cabal of wealthy industrialists, members of the military, and influential politicians who operated in the shadows and held a great degree of control over the United States' government. This enigmatic alliance of private interests eventually subverted and developed from the continuity of government protocol to ensure its survival as the real America, laying claim to the North American mainland.


title: Fallout (series)

text: "Fallout" satirizes the 1950s’ and 1960s’ fantasies of the United States' "post-nuclear-war-survival", thus draws from 1950s pulp magazine science fiction and superhero comic books, all rooted in Atomic Age optimism of a nuclear-powered future, though gone terribly awry by the time the events of the game take place. The technology is retro-futuristic, with various Raygun Gothic machines such as laser weaponry and boxy "Forbidden Planet"-style robots. Computers use vacuum tubes instead of transistors (but still existed in a limited capacity), the architecture of ruined buildings feature Art Deco, Streamline Moderne, and Googie designs, direct-energy weapons resemble those used by Flash Gordon, and what few vehicles remain in the world are all 1950s-styled. "Fallout"s other production designs, such as menu interfaces, are similarly designed to resemble advertisements and toys of the Atomic Age. Advertising in the game such as billboards and brochures has a distinct 1950s motif and feel. The lack of retro-stylization was a common reason for criticism in spin-off games, as well as modern features on weapons and other models.


title: Fallout (series)

text: A major influence was "A Boy and His Dog", where the main character Vic and his dog Blood scavenge the desert of the Southwestern United States, stealing for a living and evading bands of marauders, berserk androids, and mutants. It "inspired "Fallout" on many levels, from underground communities of survivors to glowing mutants." Other film influences include the "Mad Max" series, with its depiction of a post-apocalyptic wasteland. In the first game, one of the first available armors is a one-sleeved leather jacket that resembles the jacket worn in "Mad Max 2".


title: Fallout (series)

text: "Fallout: Warfare" is a tabletop wargame based on the "Fallout Tactics" storyline, using a simplified version of the SPECIAL system. The rulebook was written by Christopher Taylor, and was available on the "Fallout Tactics" bonus CD, together with cut-out miniatures. "Fallout: Warfare" features five distinct factions, vehicles, four game types and 33 different units. The rules only require ten-sided dice. The modifications to the SPECIAL system allow every unit a unique set of stats and give special units certain skills they can use, including piloting, doctor, and repair. A section of the "Fallout: Warfare" manual allows campaigns to be conducted using the "Warfare" rules. It has been chosen for many awards and won game of the year.


title: Fallout (series)

text: The tabletop wargame "Fallout: Wasteland Warfare" was announced by Modiphius Entertainment in April 2017. It was released in March 2018.


title: Fallout (series)

text: In 1998, Interplay Entertainment founded the film division Interplay Films to make films based on its properties, and announced that a "Fallout" film was one of their first projects, along adaptations of "Descent" and "Redneck Rampage". In 2000, Interplay confirmed that a film based on the original "Fallout" game was in production with "" screenwriter Brent V. Friedman attached to write a film treatment and with Dark Horse Entertainment attached to produce it. The division was later disbanded without any film produced, but Friedman's treatment was leaked on the Internet in 2011.


title: Fallout (series)

text: In 2009, Bethesda Softworks expressed its interest in producing a "Fallout" film. After four extensions of the trademark without any use, Bethesda filed a "Statement of Use" with the USPTO in January 2012. In the next month, instead of a "Fallout" film, a special feature was made, entitled "Making of "Fallout 3" DVD", which was accepted as a film on March 27 of the same year. This action removed the requirement to continue to re-register that mark indefinitely. In the DVD commentary of "Mutant Chronicles", voice actor Ron Perlman stated that if a "Fallout" film was made, he would like to reprise his role as the Narrator. In 2016, Todd Howard stated that Bethesda had turned down the offers of making a film based on "Fallout", but that he did not rule out the possibility.


title: Fallout (series)

text: A "Fallout" television series based on the franchise was announced in July 2020. The series is created by Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan for Amazon Prime Video. The duo will also be writing and executive producing the series with their production company, Kilter Films, working alongside Bethesda Softworks and Bethesda Game Studios. Alongside Joy and Nolan, Kilter Films' Athena Wickham, Bethesda Softworks' James Altman, and Bethesda Game Studios' Todd Howard will also be executive producing the series. In January 2022, Amazon officially moved forward with the series, with Nolan set to direct the pilot episode and Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner joining as showrunners. Filming is set to occur later in the year. Walton Goggins and Ella Purnell have been cast in lead roles.


title: Fallout (series)

text: The "Fallout" series has been met with mostly positive reception. The highest rated title is "Fallout 3" and the lowest is "Fallout 76" according to review aggregator Metacritic.


title: Fallout (series)

text: Many fans have expressed dismay at the direction the "Fallout" series has taken since its acquisition by Bethesda Softworks. Notorious for their vehement support of the series' first two games, "Fallout" and "Fallout 2", members centered around one of the oldest "Fallout" fansites, "No Mutants Allowed", have cried foul over departures from the original games' stories, gameplay mechanics and setting. Minor criticisms include the prevalence of unspoiled food after 200 years, the survival of wood-framed dwellings after a nuclear blast, and the ubiquity of Super Mutants at early levels in the game. More serious criticisms involve the quality of the game's writing, lack of verisimilitude, the switch to a first-person action game format, and the reactiveness of the surrounding game world to player actions. In response, Jim Sterling of Destructoid has called fan groups like "No Mutants Allowed" "selfish" and "arrogant"; stating that a new audience deserves a chance to play a "Fallout" game; and that if the series had stayed the way it was back in 1997, new titles would never have been made and brought to market. Luke Winkie of "Kotaku" tempers these sentiments, saying that it is a matter of ownership; and that in the case of "Fallout 3", hardcore fans of the original series witnessed their favorite games become transformed into something else and that they are "not wrong" for having grievances.