They could even go to China, with an american-as-applepie soldier who as part of an invading force ended up with his company in deep-freeze before getting unthawed 200 or so years later.
Fallout China, aka, the New Warring States Period.
- Neo-imperial dynasty, aka, caesar's legion based on imperial china rather than rome.
- Mao's red guard personality cult turned into an actual religion like a more genocidal version of the Kings. Take every single nasty trait of every single communist regime and mash them together, plus a literal cult. Lots of trigger-happy commissars and gulag slave camps in mordorish industral wastelands.
- The Khanate transhumanist wuxia mongol horde. Before the war, china had their own supersoldier program to rival america's deathclaws and FEV. In some ways they were more successful, their bioengineered supermen kept their minds and fertility, were unaffected by the radiation, able to survive the most poisoned environments, consume anything organic, fight the radiation-spawned monsters and barbarian hordes, etc. Then the bombs fell, the merely human scientists died or were reduced to feral ghoulhood by the radiation and their prototypes were abandoned in a wasteland lethal to anything but themselves and the other monsters. The culture they built was some completely unworkable mess of Proud Warrior Race Guy-isms, deliberately since it was set up by the first generation of them who wanted to make a society in which strength, something they had in abundance would be the most valuable attribute. Their founder may have dressed this up in a propaganda narrative about how a world without science and engineering would mean a world where conflict was limited to 'safe' low-tech forms which only kill individual combatants instead of entire civilizations, but the actual intention was to make a society where their traits were the most valued, and prioritize smothering any developing rival civilizations in their cradle, since if they ever started technologically advancing, they'd inevitably curbstomp with superior weapons technology. Take some thematic inspiration from this December 1953 Mechanix Ilustrated magazine article "How Nuclear Radiation Can Change Our Race" by Otto Binder. The bioengineered supermen have approximately the same relation to wuxia heroes as bretonnians possess in regards to chivalric romance, specifically regarding their treatment of peasants. The Great Khan, their leader, is also the first of their species ever created, they just grow stronger with age.
- Pirate Kingdoms of Taiwan/Yankee Ironborn. Prior to the Great War, the Taiwanese and their American allies/advisors/puppeteers collaborated to build up Taiwan's military prowess as a defense against Chinese invasion/staging ground for invading China. During the War, this turned Taiwan into a nuclear battleground, leaving it largely unable to sustain its population off radioactively contaminated farmland, yet highly stocked with military equipment. The results were predictable. By the current period, Taiwan should be treated with the series' characteristic black comedy, officially of course, their fleet is for fishing and trading and anyone who decides to go a-viking against the mainland is just an outlier, unofficially, they've still got the jolly roger as their flag. There's probably a generational divide between the two views.
- Tibet. Free of the Chinese occupation after the collapse of the CCP/Mao Dynasty and essentially reverted to their fifties theocratic politics. Also sokushinbutsu ghouls.
No way Microsoft will make a Fallout China.
Here's an idea:
Game takes place on China's southeastern coast between Hong Kong and Taiwan. The three primary factions are a group of ghoulified immortal Shaolin monks (think Boxers) who rule China and want to restore traditional values and kick out the Neo Colonial Europeans that have invaded China for its resources; these Neo-Colonials have advanced technology, and have managed to gain a foothold on the continent because of their needed more advanced food production technology.
Meanwhile, Taiwan is an isolationist dictatorship that has spent decades in bunkers, and hopes to reestablish a foothold on Taiwan.
All factions stare at the wealth of Hong Kong, where, due to a fluke, most of manufacturing district still stands. A restored Hong Kong has the potential to have a manfuacturing capacity equal to the rest of Asia.
You play an bad-ass American soldier sent to Hong Kong as part of a diplomatic mission to Hong Kong from the NCR. The idea was that the NCR would try to help calm the region and act as a neutral third party far enough removed to be impartial.
However, when you arrive, the rest of the diplomatic party is assassinated by a bomb, leaving you as the Sole Survivor. (You could even subtly imply that the lead diplomat was a version of the Courier was a Speech 100 guy who managed to solve Fallout New Vegas peacefully).
You end up being torn between all three factions, having to choose who to support, and trying to figure out who was responsible for the assassination plot.
For recognizable things, you've got Hong Kong, Taiwan.... You could even have irradiated hyper-aggressive pandas! There's Shaolin monks, neo-colonial soldiers (lets bring back Redcoats! Why not?), you could have an Opium War... There's plenty to reference.
You could even have a Vietnam DLC.
Protagonist is a taiwanese/yankee pirate. The game starts with your discovery of some moldering untranslatable documents in an ancient prewar military complex with tutorials consisting of shooting some security robots and feral ghouls, then when you return to the free port of Taipei to sell you loot, every faction completely pulls out the stops and attacks simultaneously,
they know the value of said documents even if
you don't. Cue attempting to escape a full-scale invasion of the island and figuring out just what you've got and how to personally benefit from it and/or trade it to one faction for protection from all the others and prosperity for life.
The documents are The Mandate Of The Heavens, control codes for a prewar PRC military killsat. Whoever possesses both them, and a suitable transmitter which is a bit beyond your capacity to construct entirely on your own, has the power to win the New Warring States Period and unify China under their rule.
Independent Ending (optimistic): You memorized and destroyed the Mandate, stole one faction's radio broadcasting station and nuked everyone who disagreed with your appointing yourself Emperor from orbit.
Independent Ending (pessimistic): Your sole powerbase is a superweapon and fear. Everyone wants to assassinate you and steal it, they'll be a succession war when you die and only the fear that you've done something crazy like setting up a deadman switch where if you don't enter a specific control code every week, the superweapon self-destructs or starts firing automatically or something keeps you alive.
Neo-Imperial Ending (optimistic): The Warring States are at peace under a mostly-benevolent tyrant, the rebuilding of civilization can begin and as the one who made it happen, you've got said tyrant's personal gratitude and the position it grants you.
Neo-Imperial Ending (pessimistic): The tyrant doesn't trust you. Why would they? You were attacking their countrymen until recently and only made a deal for protection. Never trust a traitor, especially not one who knows your only weakness/the controls for the superweapon which is the basis of your authority.
Maoist Ending (optimistic): "All hail Secretary-General you!"
Maoist Ending (pessimistic): "All hail Secretary-General whoever won the power struggle and had you killed and unpersoned!"
Khanate Ending (optimistic): The Khanate destroys the satellite to prevent the reunification of China into a single state and the end of the anarchy under which their physical process is so valued.
Khanate Ending (pessimistic): The Khanate sets out to absolutely guarantee that nobody will ever rise against them, setting off volcanoes with ortillery strikes until they cause a mass extinction. They can thrive in an environment where baseline humans cannot and now they've got a weapon to transform the whole world into such a wasteland.
Taiwanese Yankee Ending (optimistic): Basically a repeat of the xiongnu, chouchi and mongol conquests, China gets taken over by foreigners who set themselves up as the new ruling dynasty.
Taiwanese Yankee Ending (pessimistic): All that fun involved in being pirates? Gone. Enjoy the paperwork that comes from running a colossal empire. And it'll inevitably play out just like every single other time China got taken over by foreigners, your distant descendants will be first assimilated then overthrown by the next invaders.