Release date – 10th November 2015
Platform – PC, PS4, Xbox One
Unless you’ve been hiding in a Yao Guai Cave for the past 18 years, you will at some point in your wasteland travels, have come across the Fallout brand, so I’m not going to waste any time and get straight to it. Grab a Nuka-Cola and let’s do this!
For those of you familiar with both Fallout and the developers Bethesda, you will know them as the team behind The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Fallout 4 looks to be like Skyrim but with nukes and I for one cannot wait.
Those cheeky radroaches at Bethesda kept production on Fallout 4 relatively quiet before announcing the title at the beginning of June 2015 and since then we’ve known more about the good fight than Three-Dog himself.
Official trailer, 3rd June – BAM!
E3 Press conference, 14th June – OOF!
QuakeCon demo – 24th July – AGGHH!
Todd Howard, Guildmaster of Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, TES IV: Oblivion and TES V: Skyrim has set the bar extremely high. Think standing on top of a ladder at The Throat of the World trying to hit Alduin with a Super Sledge. THAT high. From what we have seen for far though, it looks as though Fallout 4 could be one of the biggest games of 2015.
Visuals
Let’s start with visuals. The graphics look stunning with the developers using a highly modified version of Bethesda’s own Creation Engine, the engine used for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Character creation is back and better than ever. Gone are the frustratingly limiting sliders to edit your characters face and as seen in the E3 demo, you can now simply click and drag to mould your player.
Voice
For the first time in the series, your character has a voice; Brian T Delaney for male characters, Courtenay Taylor for female characters. The Elder Scrolls and Fallout have been falling a little behind in the realm of character interaction. The guys at Bioware and Telltale Games gave us an intuitive way to select your dialogue options and it is nice to see Bethesda have caught up and hopefully will use this to tell a much richer story than ever have before.
Your Name
In another series first, you will have a name that other NPC’s will use when addressing you in the game. This is a big deal and hopefully will start a trend with other big RPG names. Naming your character has never really meant much more than a label on your save file or a really, really bad pun so if this feature really works the story telling will feel very personal and help gamers connect with the narrative.
Bethesda has recorded over 1,000 of the most popular names to be used by numerous NPC characters as well as your companion! A great returning feature; there are 12 companions to discover in the game but only a few have been revealed so far; the familiar canine favourite Dogmeat; your robot servant Codsworth; a female human named Piper; and a male human named Preston Garvey. Details are scarce at the moment but it has been confirmed that human companions can be romanced and you will form relationships with the as the game progresses.
Combat
Combat remains very much the same in Fallout 4 and that is no bad thing. Players can switch between first and third person views and have a whole host of weapons to choose from. The Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System (V.A.T.S) returns to the game; a mechanic that slows time down to allow players to target specific body parts for relative effects on your enemies. It was only ever good for targeting a Raider’s head to make it explode like a watermelon in a microwave but apparently V.A.T.S will have strategic value in combat. Apparently.
Crafting
Crafting makes a return to the game with a much deeper modification system for both weapons and armour. Junk items that were previously used only in a few recipes/schematics can now be used as a whole host of ingredients making crafting actually enjoyable. Armour is no longer a single item slot and players can equip individual items on their chest, arms legs and head. You can now also build and customise your very own suit of Power Armour, a popular series component which when equipped changes the game HUD. Plus – jetpacks!
Base Building
The thing I’m most excited about is the base building feature shown off at E3. We saw homebuilding in Skyrim DLC Hearthfire and it was a great feature but this looks to be a whole different ballgame. You can salvage junk, parts, or even a whole building and then build your own settlement to house you, your companions and other NPC’s and Merchants. Think Minecraft but on Buffout. It looks absolutely endless! Combine this with romanceable companions and I give it until Christmas before we see Fifty Shades of Wasteland. You think I’m kidding?
Overall
Overall, the hype for Fallout 4 is already massive. The footage we have seen is promising us the sequel we have been begging for. With exciting new features, expanded elements of already great game mechanics, a new, much more immersive story telling process and next-gen visuals to boot, you should be considering that pre-order already.
What’s that? A companion app with the same software used to code the in-game Pip-Boy? That’s pretty cool. A collector’s edition with a real-life Pip-Boy frame to house your smart phone?
SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!