Fallout 4’s announcement was a breath of fresh air after years of game trailers with exponentially long delays. It was the first time in the video game industry that we were experiencing multiple year periods between the announcement and release.
When Bethesda put up a countdown clock on their website in June, we had no idea that what we were going to be shown would release in November of the same year.
I think the whole industry changed its outlook on announcement windows from how much hype came from not just the announcement that a new Fallout was coming for the new console gen, but the excitement that we’d actually be able to play it within only a few months.
IMO the RPG elements were not as nice after having played The Witcher 3 just a few months prior, but the feeling of being the wanderer in a wasteland was still very cool and I enjoyed the building additions.
The Pip Boy might have been a bit of a flop, but the application itself was still a cool novelty addition to the game for 2015. I do wish that second screen applications had grown and gotten better, but it appears they needed to be good from the start for wide adoption.
The colour palate was massive improvement over the beige green and browns from the PS3/360 generation, I still have no idea why so many games used to have no colour to them.
There aren’t that many games that have as much of a mod scene like Bethesdas games, if you don’t already have the game and are going to buy it, get it on PC if you can. Also make sure to buy the GOTY Edition with all the DLC, as there are many mods that are dependent on all of the content.
I would also avoid the Creation Club and get accustomed to the NexusMods page, you should download and setup Vortex Mod Manager which handles mods fairly well.
In order for mods to work on the PS4, within Sony’s required limitations, mods themselves on consoles can’t be much more than short in code length. So the Creation Club which was designed for consoles does not host the same quality in library.
Fallout 4 got an 88% on OpenCritic with one reviewer saying this;
Bethesda has created another game you can lose your life in. New experiences just keep coming, and you always have another perk to unlock. ~ Game Informer
The game with all DLC is -75% on Steam at $9.99 for the next week, even cheaper in my region with AUD.
I can’t comment on this, really. I’ve only played the first Witcher, and I thought it was charming, an opinion that many people seem to find incomprehensible. I tried getting into Witcher 2 and the world just would not hold my interest long enough for me to get any momentum. I haven’t played Witcher 3 and despite all the praise it gets, the fact that I’m playing a predefined character continually dampens my interest.
Blistering hot take, but if I don’t have pretty excessive control over my character I don’t consider it to be a ‘true’ RPG. I don’t bandy this around with elitist intent, I just find myself measuring games in the genre by their narrative chops when the bar to entry is seemingly down to game mechanics (see: Mass Effect, Red Dead, Deus Ex - Incredible games in the RPG genre, but I feel like I do not get to define my own Role to Play whatsoever).
There really are two very separate ways that rpgs can work. I’m glad you brought up red dead too, I loved those games, found them very immersive and I found myself role playing a lot. But it’s not a game where you define your own character obviously. Wish there were better terminology to separate the two ideas.
Off topic a bit I guess, but I hope we can all have a great time with starfield. Seems like they’re putting a lot of work into the character backgrounds and traits and such. Trying not to get too hyped in case I get disappointed, but it does sound cool.
I’m looking forward to starfield because there’s nothing that can show me that will make me expect more than a bog-standard Bethesda RPG, in space. I am excited about the nasapunk style and the ship customization looks like it could be fun, but anything beyond that will be a pleasant surprise. There’s supposed to be record-setting amounts of recorded dialogue in that game so I’m hoping that will raise the bar for voiced character interaction.