This disappointed me as a long-time series fan, it is upsetting to see a franchise so full of character and charm, stripped away in a bid to appeal to the most mainstream, Neanderthalic video game consumers. The dialogue is consistently better than the majority of Fallout 3, especially in terms of delivery and timing, but the conversation system itself is a reductive, buggy disaster of epic proportions. However it is a severely disjointed, unevenly paced misfire in the narrative and world-building department.

Fallout 4 has some of the worst side-questing in any Bethesda game, yet conversely is a massive accomplishment in visual world-building. In terms of the scope of the wasteland, it is both incredibly vivid and ambitious in how it constructs its urban areas and disappointingly compact when it comes to fleshing out the rest of the game world. While faction choice plays heavily into the outcome of the game’s ending, player choice has never mattered less in a Fallout game (maybe except in Fallout Tactics). Fallout 4 is a heavily streamlined, action RPG, a piece of software first and a role-playing game second. But Fallout 4 is the first Fallout game where you couldn’t guess it was founded upon classic, tabletop RPG’s if you didn’t already know.

Yet, Fallout 4 is a peculiar collision between the free-form, mood oriented Fallout 3 and the more naturalistic map design of New Vegas, along with its faction focussed plot development. the Obsidian developed Fallout: New Vegas. This series has always had a fascinating ‘back and forth’ attitude between these values, characterized most strongly by Bethesda’s Fallout 3 vs. For fans of the series, the experience of playing Fallout 4 is a foreign one, there is an air of familiarity and nostalgia throughout, but it is heavily muddled through questionable design choices and liberties taken in regards to the ideas, themes and gameplay that are core to the franchise itself. It asks several difficult questions regarding the definition and foundation of the series as a whole.

Fallout 4 is a ‘milestone’ in franchises history, a turning point which the series itself may never be able to successfully splinter off from with future titles, regardless of which developer takes it under its wing.

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