FALLOUT 4: A Great Game, but Not a Great Fallout Game.
(Originally posted Aug 21, 2017)
(This is going to be a long one, so get comfy!)
In the wake of an amazing year for RPGs, Fallout 4 has arrived. During the jarringly short time between its official announcement and release, an overwhelming amount of hype has built up around the potential heir to Skyrim. We’ll see if the game can live up to the expectation!
When you start a new game, you’ll find that the it begins very strong. In a genuine twist for a game promising adventures in a deadly wasteland, your first steps in Fallout 4 put you into a relatively peaceful pre-apocalyptic America. Just moments before the bombs fall, that is. It’s reminiscent of Fallout 3’s intro where you experience the safety of life in a sealed vault before being thrust into the wastelands of DC. Avid fans of the Fallout universe may wish they had more time to explore this previously unseen, nuclear powered world. But, the game moves on regardless. Down into a vault you go to survive the apocalypse. Another exciting moment for lore junkies! A chance to feel like one of those first vault dweller,s whose descendants make up a majority of Fallout’s protagonists. But again, the story breezes right along. Giving the player no time to breathe and experience this completely new environment within the lore. A lot of build up goes into each of these locations, but for an open world game there doesn’t seem to be as much payoff as you’d expect. You may find this to be a recurring problem if you are expecting in depth opportunities for roleplay.
Through a bit of Fallout’s signature nuclear-magic-science, you’ll find yourself in the wasteland. It is immense. You’ll likely be exploring it for hundreds of hours. Once DLC and mods are in the mix, it’ll probably take several play throughs before finding everything. The main story feels important, epic, and overall is really solid. It poses moral questions to a level not seen previously in the franchise. Character development moves away from the karma system, which assigned a point value to your morality, instead simply allowing you to make choices based on what you think is right. This ambiguity as to what is the right choice prompts the player to consider some rather complex moral questions. These can be explored through multiple play-throughs and has seen fans taking to Reddit and other message boards for heated discussions on which factions are in the right and which aren’t. Overall, I’d call that a success in itself. There is a level of storytelling and set pieces that are more polished and generally better than Bethesda’s previous open world games, and fans of the studio’s signature approach to the genre will be pleased by the progressed they’ve made.
As far as gameplay goes, the combat is tight and fun. It plays more like a shooter with RPG elements than it's predecessors, which felt like a RPGs with the option to play as a real time shooter. The VATS system, a bit of call back to the franchises turn based roots, has changed very little aside from seeing far less use. Combat is faster with enemies giving you very little room. This means the game relies much more on the gun play or rather than where you distribute skill points. For those who are more into the RPG aspect of the game, you may be disappointed to find that the game has taken a pretty big step away from the D&D inspired character sheets, which were filled with percentages and skill restrictions; instead opting for a very inclusive skill system which removes the idea of skills have benefits and penalties, and instead having skills that simply make you generally stronger. Your initial choices for stats and skills mean very little by the end of the game, as you’ll find halfway through that you have more skill points than you can really meaningfully spend. This removes a lot of the importance of choice when picking skills. Your character can be good at everything. For those who see Fallout as an RPG first, this is a major failing of the game. Though, for those who simply want an open world shooter, you may be very pleased.
The newest game-play addition to the franchise and largest deviation from anything we’ve seen in most RPGs of this size is the Settlement System. This brings a survival aspect to the game, allowing players to scavenge for supplies in order to build villages for NPCs to live and work in. They can farm, purify water, and repel NPC raids. While that last feature is rather lackluster, with these raids being glitchy and hardly having any impact, the system is pretty fun. If this new game-play is picked up by modders, the settlement system could be the lifeblood that keeps Fallout 4 relevant for years to come, and also define what future Bethesda RPGs will look like.
All that being said, in gaining some of this fancy new tech and with more attention paid to game play, a bit of the actual world building and general spirit of the game seems to have been lost. Which is strange, since it feels like they tried hard to make the game feel alive and engrossing; and at first it is. Locations like Diamond City and the Institute are at their core instantly intriguing. One is a metropolis whose culture and philosophy has been shaped by the ruins of an ancient baseball stadium that acts as the foundation of their walled city. The other being the descendants of America’s smartest minds who have created mass paranoia by controlling the world from the shadows with bladerunner-like androids. Amazing concepts that are perfect for Fallout, and if you are content to simply follow the main story without expecting too much below the surface you’ll be perfectly happy.
However, for those who played the previous games may be disappointed if they are expecting their curiosity to be satiated. The moment you start prying deeper into these locations and people, you’ll find there is really nothing there that you can affect. The side quests feel inconsequential and factions mean almost nothing until the very end. It's rather annoying after awhile as the game reveals how linear it is. Whatever magic that propelled the quests in Fallout 3 and New Vegas seems to have dried up, and the feeling of expansiveness and unending opportunity that Skyrim achieved just isn’t there. Even the really strong settlement system has little impact on the game world as a whole. NPCs don’t seem to care that you’re building safe towns and creating trade in the wasteland. Nor does the settlement systems purpose in the lore of rebuilding your own private militia ever amount to anything meaningful. Furthermore, it's burdened by a really annoying set of repeatable quests, which trick you the first few times into seeming important until you realize you have to make the same exact choices over and over should you chose to explore the settlement system fully.
Overall, the game is worth picking up if you enjoy Fallout or open world games. The sandbox is better than ever and with more to do than in previous Fallout or Elder Scrolls. Despite my grievances with the story, I am optimistic. They seem to have learned from the feedback of previous games. Player’s want things to do in the sandboxes we are given which means more in game tools and utilities. More game mechanics for modders to expand and explore. Bethesda took a pretty big chance on focusing so heavily on the Settlement System and I think it paid off. I don’t think they can get away with a sub-par questing experience again though, expectations are still high for Fallout and Elder Scrolls. We’ve seen how good of a sandbox they can create, now we need to see if they can create a story worth putting in that sandbox.
