Since the advent of the “Fallout” series in 1997, small bottle caps have been circulated in the vast wasteland world as legal tender. However, many people have such a question: in the chaotic world where the law of the jungle is rampant, why do people recognize this kind of aluminum skin that has no value?
This kind of questioning can also be supported in the related settings of many film and game works. For example, hands, cigarettes in prisons, food cans in zombie movies, and mechanical parts in “Mad Max” can be used as currency because these are important materials used to meet basic needs.
Especially after the release of the “Metro” (Metro) series, many players believe that the game’s setting of “bullets” as currency is very reasonable – its use value is recognized by all survivors, and it is easy to carry and save. To put it vernacularly, in the event of danger, which one of the bullet or the bottle cap is “convincing” to the gangster, anyone can easily make a judgment.
What is really valuable in “Subway” is the military bullets left over before the outbreak of the nuclear war. On weekdays, people are only willing to play home-made ammunition.
So, why did Hei Dao ingeniously choose bottle caps as the currency of the wasteland world?
Let’s listen to the official statement first.
In a 1998 interview with the Fallout news site NMA, series creator Scott Campbell revealed that they had indeed thought of making bullets a currency in the first place. However, once the consequences of “a shuttle of bullets are fired, a month’s salary is gone”, players will unconsciously suppress their behavior, which seriously violates the exploration and development demands of RPG.
Just imagine, going out to loot the stronghold, but after robbing it, you find that you are bankrupt. You must not be able to play this kind of RPG game…
So Campbell began to imagine a token that not only conforms to the theme of the end of the world, but also embodies the spirit of bad taste. During a cleaning out of the office wastebasket, he discovered that the only shiny thing he could find in the trash heap was a Coke bottle cap. Hence the story of bottle caps as currency.
Post time: Jul-25-2023