The Fallout games take place in a timeline where the USA's post-World War 2 economic boom and the aesthetic sensibilities survived long into the 21st Century. This leads to a retrofuturist look infused with a sense of optimism that intentionally clashes with the series' bleak, violent post-apocalyptic world. Some of the games infuse other aspects of Americana based on their setting - New Vegas played with the western genre and Fallout 4 flirted with mob movie tropes, for example.
The Fallout lore extends beyond America, but the question of whether a Fallout game could be set outside of the US has hung over the franchise's head since its creation. Many fans feel that Fallout's satirical sci-fi world is simply too tied up in its 1950s Americana feel for a game beyond the USA to be viable while still feeling like a part of the series. Here's a breakdown of some arguments, and what it might suggest for the future of the franchise.
Breaking Down Fallout's Premise
The Fallout games take place on a fictionalized version of Earth, but for many it's hard to see a Fallout game working outside of America. From the franchise's early CRPGs, Fallout's satirical eye has been trained on the United States. The fundamental contrast that Fallout's satire relies on is between the romanticized image of the American 1950s that permeates its in-universe culture and the destruction and horror wrought by that society.
It's a contrast no better summed up than by the series' mascot. Vault-Tec's Vault Boy is a smiling Monopoly Man-esque character who seems harmless enough, but represents a company that performed bizarre and unethical experiments on the inhabitants of the vaults it built to shelter people from nuclear war. It's also a contradiction found in nuclear energy itself, a force with the capability to build or completely destroy a civilization. When considering a Fallout game set outside the US, one of the biggest challenges could be applying Fallout's particular brand of America-focused satire.
Other Countries In The Fallout Universe
Despite the series' usual satirical focus on the United States, there have been attempts to apply the formula elsewhere. Mods like Fallout: London aim to explore other parts of the world. Despite countries like China having a hugely important role to play in the lore, however, they have never been visited in the main series. Part of the problem with exploring a location like China in the Fallout universe is that the series' portrayal of other countries takes a perspective that reflects the politics of the Red Scare era.
While it's clear the games' depictions of China and communism more broadly are tongue-in-cheek, the Fallout world does embody an American perspective in order to parody it, at least to some degree. The Cold War may have escalated to nuclear annihilation in the Fallout universe, but it's also clear that life in the Fallout universe before the war was closer to an idyllic postcard version of the 1950s than the real 1950s was for many. Fallout 4's intro narration says that before the war, the Fallout universe's Americans "enjoyed luxuries once thought the realm of science fiction."
In order to properly satirize a nostalgic perspective on the American 1950s, Fallout asks what the world would be like if that idyllic time really had existed and continued to exist long after its sell-by date. Its answer is nuclear destruction. In exploring that premise, places like China aren't just the victim of Red Scare - in the Fallout world it really is the "Red Menace" of American propaganda, to a degree.
Europe is barely depicted at all in the Fallout universe, only represented by a handful of unexplained accents scattered throughout the games. That also makes sense when considering Fallout's premise. Europe is the Old World, a world made irrelevant by America's rise to global dominance after World War 2, at least from the perspective of many Americans in the '50s. The absence of Europe from the games even in a purely worldbuilding capacity isn't a failure on the part of Fallout's storytellers. The Fallout world's reflection of a 1950s American perspective leads to a general lack of interest in the rest of the world beyond China and Russia as potential threats.
The Future Of Fallout
Fallout could take players outside of the USA. The problem is that even though Fallout has its own versions of different countries around the world, a new Fallout game set outside of America would lack one of the series' main components, and its ability to satirize an American perspective on the world.
This does lead to some potential problems for Fallout in the long-run. There are only so many major American cities the games can explore, and eventually the series may end up struggling to find locations that interest the studio. The solution is unlikely to be taking the franchise abroad, however. Games like Obsidian's The Outer Worlds have shown how Fallout's brand of satire can be applied to new settings, but the Fallout series itself is deeply tied to an American perspective to the extent that it can barely conceptualize places beyond the United States.
A Fallout game set outside the US would have to satirize that new country's Cold War perspective, and the result would likely either be reductive or simply not feel like a Fallout game at all. Fallout's best bet to branch out likely comes in the form of new genre tropes, not new countries. Just as New Vegas played with western tropes, there are plenty of other Americana subgenres which could be integrated into future installments. For example, a Fallout game set in New Orleans or Hawaii could draw on those locations' unique identities within the American psyche when crafting their worlds and characters. Exploring the American psyche is key to Fallout's satire, and a component the series is unlikely to leave behind.