Fallout 4 released its Far Harbor DLC back in May, but one of its quests, titled Brain Dead is drawing accusations of plagiarism from gamers on the internet. The accusations in question stem from a Fallout: New Vegas mod called Autumn Leaves. Autumn Leaves, for those of you who don't know, is a DLC-sized quest mod about a murder investigation set in a vault that tasks the player with speaking to every robotic resident all wrapped within a whodunit narrative.
The mod's creator, Guillaume Veer wrote a post on ModDB about the similarities between the two.
"First off, both quests begins with a discussion through an interphone with the caretaker of the Vault, a headwaiter robot with a rather distinguished persona. The big mandatory Vault Door opens, leaving the player up for the exploration of said vault.
The main quest itself, which consists in investigating the murder by checking the crime scene, and speaking to every robot in the VaultThe mysterious death of the prime financier of the Vault, who – in both cases – worked alongside Vault-Tec to build the special place.The importance of voice modulators in the plot, to distinguish the robots between themselves.The sexytime moment.And of course, the mandatory “Let’s discuss paintings with a robot.”Then, there’s the Neural Interface Matrix in BD versus the Neuro Comp Matrix in AL, the presence (and relevance to the plot) of a robotic expert in the Vault, the feel of the central atrium, the quasi-exclusive robotic cast confronted to a murder, the misleading piece of evidence (Keith/Rolland), among others."
Here's one of the several images that Veer posted showing off the similarities.
Fortunately, Veer himself did not appear to be all that upset about it, with much of angry accusatory tones coming from other gamers around the internet. In fact, he hoped that Bethesda had simply been inspired by his work. He said:
"Now, now, truth be said, I honestly thought Bethesda’s staff played Autumn Leaves, had a blast with it (I hope) took some things out of it and made their own thing for Far Harbor. And I seriously think this is perfectly okay. After all, Autumn Leaves’ inspirations are countless (Asimov’s, Cluedo, Planescape : Torment, Arcanum, older Fallouts, etc.) and being influenced is a natural part of the writing process."
What do you think? Did Bethesda actually steal from Veer? Or were they simply inspired? Where do you draw the line between inspiration and plagiarism? After all, there's no such thing as a creative work that isn't derived from some sort of inspiration, whether it's a game, a book, a movie or even just a painting.
It's also worth noting that Bethesda has denied the accusations as Bethesda VP of marketing Pete Hines stated, "We love our mod community and would never disrespect them. I checked, and any similarities between the two are a complete coincidence."
