One of the most anticipated games of 2015, Fallout 4 released on November 10th 2015. Here are to my conclusions as to the quality of the game.

Introduction to the Fallout Universe

For people that are new to the Fallout series,here is an introduction to the Fallout universe.

Fallout takes place in an alternate universe in which the 1950’s and the Cold War never really ended. In 2077, the major world powers ran out of resources, and eventually destroyed each others. On October 23, everything collapsed. This event was named the Great War, and only lasted two hours. To rebuild humanity, safe houses, called Vaults, were created. Each Vault can generate enough resources to keep 1000 humans alive. The habitants of these bunkers are called Vault Dwellers.

Fallout 4 is the first Fallout game that gives a glimpse about how life was in that universe before the Great War, with the game starting prior to that event.

Role Playing Element

Fallout 4 is one of the few AAA titles that actually stimulates your intellect. With the game being a role-playing game, you are forced to make decisions. They may seem obvious at first, but will soon make you second guess. You quickly learn that no decision is right or wrong, that you just need to cope with the consequences. This is a constant reality throughout the entire game, with choices only becoming harder and harder as you progress along the main storyline. This is exactly what is expected from this type of game.

Although the role playing aspect is decent, it is sometimes limited. As an example, your character cannot join the Raiders or the Gunners. You are limited to joining the major factions of  post apocalyptic Boston. I will not list them here to prevent ruining the game’s main storyline. This inability to join some of the game’s factions is a step back compared to Fallout: New Vegas.

Settlements

Fallout 4 includes a building system called «settlements». This system allows the player to build towns in areas designed with this in mind. These areas range from suburban cities to a 18th century British fort. These settlements can become home to settlers, which need food, water, beds and defensive weapons such as turrets to continue living in them. If too many of these prerequisites are missing, they will simply abandon what used to be their home.

Whilst you can make very impressive things with your settlements (some players have built airships and massive hotels, with up to 40 levels), the process of actually building these works of art can be quite frustrating. This frustration is caused by items snapping with other objects, making it difficult to put a wooden floor exactly where you want, for example.

Even if building settlements can be frustrating at times, it can also be quite an enjoyable experience and adds to the replayability of the game. Also, settlements go well with the focus of the Fallout series, which is rebuilding human civilization.

Mod Support on Consoles

Modding has played a massive part in keeping Bethesda’s previous title alive, Skyrim. Video games that offer multiplayer game modes, such as Bethesda’s title, usually suffer from their community dying out quickly. User created mods extend the lifespan of the game by adding content that keeps the game up to date. That content can be ridiculous, such as the Fallout 4 mod that makes the Mini Nuke ammo type looks like a baby or it can be user created quests and weapons.

With Fallout 4, Bethesda has decided to incorporate fan favorite mods and make them available on the Xbox One and Playstation 4 consoles. Bethesda hopes that they can make mods only require downloading to make it a very straight forward operation.

This addition will massively benefit Fallout 4 because it adds a ton of replayability to the already massive game.

Bugs

Like every other game, Fallout 4 isn’t without its fair share of bugs, and some of them can be quite game breaking. As an example,you can recruit a vendor called Smiling Larry that can sell you a unique chainsaw called the Reckoning. Most of the time, if you try to recruit him, he will teleport into an testing cell instead of where you assigned him to go. If Larry gets teleported into the chamber, there is no way to get him out of there.

In summary, Fallout 4 is an amazing single player game that provides the player with countless hours of gameplay. You will enjoy the experience this game offers, as long as you’re careful enough not to trigger some of the bugs, which can be hard due to the temptation of finding new and unique weapons, that cannot be obtained anywhere else. The role playing aspect of Fallout 4 is well done, even if the mechanics aren’t as good as the ones present in Fallout: New Vegas. Also, the settlements system is a welcome addition, although it wasn’t a necessary one.