The original Fallout Shelter for the mobile platform set a pretty high standard not only for the series, but also for all other F2P building management games - it was fun, well paced, and despite being free, it did not have a paywall that prevented or slowed down the progress of players. It was a game experience that was fun and the IAP content were present as rewards for those who decided to support the game with real money - instead of making free players feel like they are missing out. But while the game was good, it also created a bit of a closed loop: in terms of content, Fallout Shelter already delivered what players expected of it and more. For the game to have a sequel, they would have to go beyond the shelter.
Town Management
It may seem like a ridiculous idea to take the “Shelter” out of Fallout Shelter 2, but it is not without precedent: in Fallout 4, players already get the first hand experience of managing their own self-made base. It can be as small and simple as a small single-person home where you store all your stuff (like in previous Fallout games), or it can be a huge thriving compound populated by several other wastelanders and companions that are supporting you. It can have its own water supply, farms for food, and various facilities for crafting items - you can even have provisions for merchant caravans to set up shop. Anyone who has played any of those city management games for mobile devices will easily see where this is going.
While the original Fallout Shelter would have players focusing entirely on the aspect of managing the lives of people in a single shelter, Fallout Shelter 2 would be about bigger things.
So yes, it will be all about assigning dwellers to various tasks - such as cultivating plants or scrapping items for raw materials, as well as setting up defenses for the inevitable raids from outside dangers. Fallout Shelter had its share of raider attacks and rad roach infestations, there is even the greater danger of deathclaws attacking, so it would not be out of place for the sequel to have its own share of dangerous hazards.
The Bigger World
So yes, the world of Fallout is populated by raider bandits, gangs of super mutants, wandering monsters and other dangerous things. And you will certainly want to set up good defenses - like walls and automated sentry guns, as well as providing weapons and munitions to your dwellers.
But not all interactions need to be at the end of a weapon. There are also groups of survivors just trying to make a peaceful living. Merchants have a guild and roam around looking for trade, the Brotherhood of Steel try to provide a sense of order and safety, smaller groups of human survivors create small towns that have their own trade and commerce - Fallout 4 allows you to interact with these various groups. While FS2 will certainly keep you confined in the space of your own town, there is nothing stopping you from sending your own dwellers to establish trade and supply routes.
Expanding Your Space
One of the most intriguingly fun parts of Fallout 4 is the fact that you can take stuff, break it down to its raw components (like an old post-war sofa will break down into pieces of wood and cloth) then use those raw materials to build new stuff (like you can use wood and cloth to build a new bed, or a cleaner looking sofa - in case you regretted gutting the sofa). It made for an interesting mechanic (though somewhat distracting and time consuming for an open world game), but it will be something that makes even better sense when you apply it to a town management game.
Sure, this means that your resources will expand to just three or four basic materials and you will now have a huge laundry list of things to manage, but that's actually fun when you are playing on the mobile device. What made this process a little tiresome for the actual game was that Fallout 4 was still a third person title - you literally have to walk, run, and jump around town just to build and put stuff in the right place. With Fallout Shelter 2, you can to do all that with a tap, swipe, and maybe a pinch to zoom in, a little bit of dragging, and then another tap. It is just how it is: the touch screen interface is more intuitive when it comes to controls for management games.
Good IAP Control
The original Fallout Shelter game had a great system for paid content: you can get Mr. Handy, but it is just a helper unit that automated basic processes, so playing without him is not in any way less advantageous in a significant manner (we recommend getting him though). And the lunchboxes can be earned without having to pay for anything. Despite that, Fallout Shelter has been a pretty successful game in terms of IAP's - proving that the mobile gaming community really does make purchases and when the game is not forcing them to do so.
It would be natural to expect that the folks at Bethesda would maintain the same approach to FS2 - whatever 'premium' content may be, obtaining them is a simple matter of playing the game.
Don't Let Players Create an Avatar
While it may be a huge demand of the players/fans of the game series, allowing players to create their own character in a Fallout Shelter game would be a mistake. The ability to customize your character in Fallout has always been attributed to the RPGs and open world games - where you can manually direct all actions and decisions of the character. In Shelter, it is all about you managing a base of operations. Managing a base is different than managing a base that a virtual 'you' lives in - players focus on the character more than the base itself. So yes, as fun as it would be to have your own vault dweller or wasteland survivor, that is an experience best reserved for the non-mobile versions of Fallout.
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