Recently our editor in chief Richard Bailey wrote an awesome article 13 Games that will be revealed in 2013. But after his article went live rumours started circulating that Fallout 4 would be revealed by Bethesda this year. I for one am extremely excited at the possibility of a new Fallout game developed by Bethesda. Fallout: New Vegas was cool but we all know that Fallout is rightfully Bethesda territory, and nobody can nail the post-apocalyptic intensity like them.
Fallout 3 was one of my favourite games this generation, and it did a lot of things right. So I don’t have a typical list of 5 things I want from Fallout 4, but I do have 3. Let us know if you agree with this wishlist below.
Improved A.I
Fallout 3 is a phenomenal experience, but NPC and enemy A.I is definitely something that needs to be improved on. Some missions feel very intense when you’re trying to sneak by enemies, and I love that feeling of fear that you might be discovered.
However when enemies do discover you they engage you full on without even worrying about taking fire. It’s as if every single enemy believes they’ll kill you before you can kill them, because they just stand there attacking you without bothering to find cover. Granted this causes intense difficulty when fighting groups of enemies together, but either way enemies need to stop acting like they have only two states of consciousness.
I would also like to see NPC’s interact with the world on a deeper level. Bethesda titles are known for having stiff character animations, so hopefully they can work on the way NPC’s move and interact with the environment around them.
Make loot more important to survival
You know what game reminds me of Fallout?… Borderlands.
You know what Borderlands does really well?… Loot!
Part of the fun in these types of games is collecting items, and seeing as Fallout sort of feels like a survival game at times it would be great if Bethesda put more significance on loot. I haven’t played Fallout 3 for a while, but I seem to remember finding the same kind of stuff over and over. Food, meds and ammo were the most important loot, and they did a great job making them scarce at certain parts of the game. But besides those three things I would like to find lots of other items that can be used for something else in the world. Or rare items that can be sold or used to make powerful modifcations based on your skill.
I don’t think Fallout needs a color-coded loot system like other games, but I would definitely like to see more variety of items that can be used for different purposes. I wouldn’t be opposed to a better bartering system either.
Deeper character development
Due to the ambitious scale of Bethesda games, it usually means that they have to sacrifice a lot of things that make up for great storytelling. There’s never been a phenomenal amount of character development in The Elder Scrolls or Fallout games, but wouldn’t it be great if there was?
Wouldn’t it be awesome if they could mix the ambitious open-ended exploration with Mass Effect style storytelling? To be fair it’s very hard to keep the balance between the two, I can’t remember the last time I played a huge open-ended game that also had touching character development and deep story-arcs. But if anybody can find the balance, Bethesda can!
Things we don’t want from Fallout 4!
In addition to the list above, me and colleague Edward Velazquez thought it would be cool to also include a small list of things we don’t want from Fallout 4. We won’t go into as much detail here but definitely let us know if you agree with the following.
Factions, and decision making centered around them
Obsidian introduced factions in Fallout: New Vegas, and while we love developers adding new things, we also like them to work. I seem to remember a faction related mission breaking the entire storyline if you don’t play it in a certain order. It wasn’t just the game breaking faction glitch that we didn’t like though. Overall we feel like factions just kind of took away from the whole experience. I mean maybe there’s nothing wrong with having factions be a part of the world, as long as we’re not forced to make faction based choices that end up being more tedious than captivating.
Bugs
Nothing more needs to be said here. If you’ve played an Elder Scrolls or Fallout game then you know where we’re coming from.
Hand holding
I remember struggling in Fallout 3. We’ve all felt that feeling of hopelessness in games, where you just can’t survive the mission no matter what you do. Its that point where you get frustrated and can’t be bothered to carry on. Except, with Fallout 3 I actually wanted to play even more. I would do a part over and over with one small chunk of health and zero stimpacks (health boosts) until I finally made it to the other side. Then I would take a deep breathe and bask in my glory, telling myself that “I am the shit!”
In Fallout: New Vegas I hardly ever had this feeling. Not only was the difficulty very casual, but the game also seemed to hold your hand more than Fallout 3 did. So all I ask is that Bethesda inflict complete agony on me in Fallout 4 without trying to steer me to safety. I’m a masochist, seriously!
What do you want from Fallout 4?
