So a few weeks ago Bethesda announced they would be having an E3 press conference in June, which has to mean Fallout 4 is coming. It has been 4 years since Skyrim came out and therefore we are way overdue a new RPG from this team. The fact that the conference is on the Sunday before E3 and they are making their announcement this early means there are confident in what they will be announcing. Confident enough I think to not only announce Fallout 4 but to also release it this year. There is so much hype around this game it doesn’t need the usual ‘18 month announced to release’ cycle we normally see. I absolutely love Fallout 3 and New Vegas. I would say Fallout 3 is my favourite game of the last generation of consoles. However, there are some improvements that can be made from these two excellent games to make the next one even better.
1. Have the game work from day 1
I feel like nowadays you can say this for most games as they are still broken in some ways when released. Games like Assassin’s Creed and The Crew definitely come to mind. However, Bethesda already has quite a bad track record but I generally forgive them due to the sheer scale of the games. My time playing Fallout 3 and New Vegas were mainly painless when it came to bugs and performance. In Fallout 3, the library which brought your pre-war books would never load after I completed the mission there meaning I couldn’t sell the books. New Vegas had numerous bugs at launch such as the rotating heads among others though as I played it 6 months after release I experienced not as many bugs. Skyrim however was another story as it crashed often on my fat PS3 and one crash resulted in my PS3 having the yellow light of death. When I finally went back to Skyrim 18 months after release on my new Slim it definitely was more stable. However, there was still a huge amount of pop-in sometimes with characters and buildings right in front of my character. Skyrim and the Fallout games were definitely ambitious, but I would love Fallout 4 to be just as ambitious but also run smoothly from day 1. Is that too much to ask?
2. Include a map inside the box
This one is fairly simple. Skyrim came with a map of the area inside the box and I would love this to be replicated for Fallout 4. I’d be happy to also pay extra to get one. Not only are they useful for navigation around the world but I find they make quite an awesome poster after you finish playing it.
3. Don’t ignore mechanics from Fallout New Vegas
Although I think Fallout 3 is a better game, New Vegas introduced many mechanics which I hope are carried through. One of these features is the different faction’s opinion on your actions. Siding with a certain faction would make another faction disapprove of you. Their dislike can grow till they kill you on site and send hit men after you. I also really enjoyed how there weren’t any obvious good vs evil decisions. It was more subtle. In Fallout 3, it was obvious that the brotherhood were good and the enclave were evil. Also, I felt the game was pushing me towards siding with the brotherhood more. In New Vegas, I completely fell for Mr. House’s manipulation without realising. I sided with him but when his robots got the upgrade I quickly realised what I had done. I then ran away and instead help the NCR hoping my actions wouldn’t haunt me more. But the NCR told me to kill him which led to one of the longest and toughest fights I’ve ever played.
4. Better radio system
The radio is one of the best features from the Fallout games. Not only is the music incredible and add to the atmospheric but the announcer also comments on your actions and the consequences of them. It great to see how your decisions are changing the world and how these changes develop over time. However, there were only so many lines programmed in and it didn’t take so long till you’ve heard them all multiple times. 60 hours in and you’d still be hearing about your actions from the first 10 as if they just happened. A more immersive radio would be a great addition in the next game.
5. Better graphics and facial expressions
Fallout 3 and New Vegas didn’t look great in the graphics or animation department. However, the games were so open-ended that it didn’t really matter. I would love for them to look a little more impressive. Lip-syncing was completely off and other animations didn’t look that realistic. I’ve been recently playing Dragon Age: Inquisition and while it definitely isn’t as huge or open-ended it still manages to look incredible. Hopefully, Fallout 4 will be exclusive to the PS4 and Xbox One unlike most games of 2014 and therefore, be able to utilise the full potential of this new generation.
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