Fallout 76 had a botched opening with bugs upon bugs, an empty world, and all. Players then started going wild building all kinds of crazy things, among them the building of one player’s rendition of Van Gogh’s Night Paintings and his self-portrait in the game. What the hell is this timeline?
The insane endeavor is the work of @JamesTwoSheep, who probably thought that making normal camps and settlements would simply be too boring of a pastime. So, they went full art historian and recreating one of the most popular paintings ever with Fallout 76‘s building tools. Most majestic commitment!
Gamers went absolutely bonkers when this hit Twitter. One person said: “This is actually incredible,” and honestly, they’re right! Another one chimed in: “No wayyyyyy this is stunning!” practically saying just aloud what everybody thought. The detail is insane-how do you even start to translate Van Gogh’s brush strokes using Fallout environment pieces?
There seems to be a lot of backstory as well. Apparently, it wasn’t just some half-baked random idea. Another guy wrote on Twitter about how months ago somebody on Reddit challenged them to recreate Starry Night in Fallout 76. Then it would appear that they took that challenge really seriously and ran with it… Like, really ran with it. They didn’t just do the painting; they did Van Gogh’s self-portrait, too. Overachiever much?
The very diverse range of editors’ reactions were birthed below, just as gaming Twitter tradition would have it. Some called this “peak creativity” and further proclaimed that “gamers are creative thinkers,” obviously, duh! Following that were the haters bashing, “literally definition of no life,” and one who said, “When feeling lazy and guilty while lying in bed, remember this complete waste of time.” Way harsh, guys!
The funniest comment by far was by someone who said, “Bethesda accidentally created the world’s most expensive art platform.” I mean, kinda true. You know, buy the game, DLC, subscriptions, and you pay with the incredible number of hours spent creating masterpieces instead of actually playing the game for which it is intended.
Another person joked, “And to think, I used to be able to crash the servers just by drinking too much water,” which is a hilarious throwback to early days of Fallout 76 when the game was basically held together by duct tape and dreams. Now look at it, people are actually creating art in the wasteland.
Thinking about how much time this must have taken is pretty wild. Like one person straight up said, “I don’t care what anybody says… this man spent more time on this than Van Gogh did on the original 😔 and honestly? They might actually be right. Van Gogh painted Starry Night in like, one day during his stay at the asylum. Meanwhile, this Fallout player probably spent weeks just placing individual pieces and getting the colors just right.
Gaming communities never cease to amaze me with their creativity. Here is a game that was memed to death at launch, and yet players use it as their private digital art studio. Someone commented, “Fallout turning into post-apocalyptic art school,” which may actually be the most apt description for what’s happening here.
But well…we have seen players engaging in the craziest creative endeavors through game build modes before. Remember when people started to create fully functioning computers inside Minecraft? Or that time somebody painstakingly recreated entire cities inside Cities: Skylines? But having classic art redone in a post-apocalyptic setting carries a bit of extra weight. It’s kind of like… beauty rising up from destruction or something along those lines.
This project’s kind of dedication is insane! Imagine working with limited building pieces, perhaps under budget constraints, and having to try and recreate specific visual styles using blocks and prefab structures. Surely there was no paintbrush tool in the game-this was pure architectural creativity!
And that they did BOTH Starry Night AND Van Gogh’s self-portrait? Talkin’ about showing off. Like okay we get it, you’re talented. Save some creativity for the rest of us.
Another cool thing is how the whole gaming community rallies around stuff like this. In spite of all the nasties, most people were really impressed and pumped about what this player has pulled off. And those moments are what really remind you how awesome gaming communities can be when they unite in appreciation of someone’s creative vision.
So yeah, PlayStation and Xbox players alike can’t say a word against the weird cool player creativity that sprouted out of it. From weird custom camps to entire paintings for expression, these players go live and breathe the cutting-edge creativity of the wasteland. And those are the damn cool ones.
Who-even-knows-watching right now-maybe-it-will-be-the-Mona-Lisa-put-together-just-from-rad-barrels-and-deathclaw-corpses? Nothing, at this point, is going to surprise me anymore.
