The US state of West Virginia has somehow managed to become a place of longing and probably John Denver is mainly to blame. For this reason, software developer Bethesda also used a cover version of his song “Take Me Home, Country Roads”, in which someone longs for his beloved West Virginia, in the trailer of the online role-playing game “Fallout 76”, which was released in 2018. In the game, which takes place entirely in a stylized West Virginia, the USA has to be rebuilt after a nuclear war.
Nick Bowman, a scientist at West Virginia University, has now found that Fallout 76 players felt similar to the state after about 20 hours of play as people who live, were born, or grew up there. That raises a lot of questions. For some Americans, the state is, to put it cautiously, somewhat backward. The locations of earlier “Fallout” games have been Boston, Washington DC and Las Vegas, among others, all as exaggerated caricatures of their real role model. “Fallout” West Virginia is now teeming with zombie-like hillbillys and all sorts of monsters like giant ticks. So whoever is exposed to it feels like a real resident of West Virginia? It is unclear whether the player’s feelings towards the region are positive or negative. Because “Fallout 76” was not particularly well received by fans and critics. And some also complained that the Internet in West Virginia was too slow for the game anyway.
The Republican governor of the state, named Jim Justice, already announced when the game was released: “The time has finally come and the rest of the world will notice what a gem West Virginia is.” To date, however, there has been no tourist flow. Despite their feelings for the regions, most players seem to prefer the digital version of the state. John Denver still seems to be responsible for the image of the real role model. By the way, Bowman, the author of the study, no longer lives in West Virginia, but started a new job this week. In Taiwan.
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