If you’re someone who’s new to the Fallout series – or, new enough that you didn’t play anything before Fallout 3 – you’re not going to understand this unusual dig at Bethesda and the Fallout series from Squanch Games and High On Life. If you have played the older isometric RPGs from Interplay Productions, you’ll know exactly what this is about. High On Life has an achievement for players killing Slumsley – an apparent child in-game – called “Fallout Doesn’t Let You Do This”. Although it seems that Slumsley is actually a little older in reality, this is a clear dig at Bethesda’s decision to remove killable children from the Fallout Series.
As explained in this Kotaku article from 2015, the Fallout fandom was quite up in arms when it came to killing children and its removal in Fallout 3. Some players felt like this feature’s removal was an insult to hardcore fans of the series while others felt like it was Bethesda making a political statement.
We can’t say we know for sure why the decision was made to remove killable children, but we don’t think it matters all that much. After all, they’re not the ones trying to kill you in Fallout’s post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Still, it seems as though someone at Squanch Games had some beef with this decision – or felt like it was time to remind the world that Bethesda took the ability to kill children away from you, the gamer – and opted to make a dig at the Fallout game series with an achievement in High On Life.
If you want to see what the pop-up looks like, you can below:
We’re not here to tell you if Slumsley deserves to live or die, but we can’t imagine killing him – or sparing his life – makes much difference in High On Life. The only thing is, you’ll have to compromise any morals you have if you want to 100% this game.
This achievement is available from around half-an-hour in, but you can find out more about the complete High On Life length and how long this game takes to beat here. We also have everything you need to know about all the High On Life weapons and guns – if you’re wondering what you’ll be able to use to kill Slumsley with.