This is really hard though!

Because how the hell does one make a “🤍” sound

I can recommend “Encased”. It’s a CRPG that’s heavily inspired by Fallout gameplay wise, but it’s modernized a lot (in a good way). It has its own unique story and setting which are amazing to explore

Encased is a CRPG, heavily inspired by the classic Fallout games, bringing it’s mechanics into the modern age. It’s story is based on the classic book “Roadside Picknick” (known for being the inspiration of the Stalker series) and is very well written. It has a story narrator, similar to the Divinity: Original Sin games and a very in depth character creation. At the start you choose a department of a research company to work in, which will change the way you interact with many characters, adding some replay value. Anything more I could say would be a spoiler, but the entire beginning (first half to one hour) is an absolute banger.

It’s my favorite indie game of the last few years and at the time of writing this, it is currently 90% of on steam, an absolute bargain

(Warning: NSFW) The source (includes a ranking at the end)

The ghoul drug thingy is actually a really good lore addition. It recontextualizes a lot of the games in an interesting way. If ghouls have to take these drugs and make enough money to afford them, the implications on morality of previous ghoul characters is fascinating.

And about the vault tech meeting: this plot point is actually older than new vegas. They took that from the scrapped fallout movie that they wanted to make in the Interplay/Black Isle era. I thought it was absolutely awesome that they researched fallout enough to even know about this obscure thing