Highlights

  • Centaurs were once meant to make a return in Fallout 4.
  • Bethesda envisioned a new version of the mutated monstrosities for the game that's nothing short of nightmare fuel.
  • Fallout 4 Centaurs ended up being scrapped in favor of mutated hounds.

Fallout 4 could have featured terrifying monsters called Centaurs. Bethesda went as far as to conceptualize the monstrosities, but ended up dropping the idea of their inclusion during the development of Fallout 4.

Centaurs have been part of the iconic RPG franchise since its isometric era, having first debuted in its original 1997 entry. Characterized by an unsettling combination of human and animal features, these fleshy mutated monstrosities are a result of experimentation with Fallout's Forced Evolutionary Virus (FEV). Fallout 4 was the first mainline installment in the series not to feature Centaurs in any shape or form.

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Fallout 4 Could Have Had the Scariest Centaurs Yet

But things could have turned out much differently, as Bethesda originally planned to include Centaurs as Super Mutants' companions, which was also their role in the isometric games. The idea was dropped during development, with the studio cutting Centaurs from Fallout 4 in favor of mutant hounds. This was originally revealed in The Art of Fallout 4, the game's official artbook, which also happens to contain the only known piece of Centaur concept art made in the RPG's pre-production phase.

The image reveals that Bethesda once envisioned an even scarier version of Centaurs, which doesn't crawl on its stomach but moves on four legs. At the same time, its concept was also closer to the monsters from the Black Isle Studios era of Fallout rather than the first two 3D games, most notably because it featured a multi-headed design. The end result looked utterly terrifying, and might have served as the basis for the most horrifying iteration of Centaurs yet.

While it's been over a decade since the studio dropped the idea of including Centaurs in its latest single-player Fallout game, some fans still haven't gotten over that decision. The sole piece of Fallout 4 Centaur concept art hence still sporadically makes the rounds on social media, having most recently re-emerged on the front page of the r/Fallout subreddit. Some fans used that as an opportunity to once again bemoan the exclusion of Centaurs from the RPG, while others noted how the concept art alone was enough to convince them to install TheFriedtuerkey's Institute Centaurs mod, one of the most popular community-made add-ons that brings these FEV monstrosities to Fallout 4.

The chances of Fallout 5 featuring Centaurs might depend on when exactly the next game in the series will take place. Even so, Bethesda has a history of tweaking the lore in service of gameplay and its creative vision, which is how Fallout 76 ended up having proto-Centaurs in the form of Snallygasters.