Digital Foundry:
Much has been said of Fallout 4's graphics prior to its launch. Perhaps the most widely-leveled criticism is that it doesn't look like a 'next-gen' title in every aspect, but part of a line of games born from last-gen development. No doubt, Bethesda is in its element with the sheer scale of its world building - and certain leaps are made on a visual level. But questions were raised ahead of release; is this a true technical successor to Fallout 3? And has the Creation Engine evolved enough to a point where this could only be achieved on current-gen hardware?
Waiting a decade for new instalments in franchises as massive as Fallout and Elder Scrolls feels like a waste.
Microsoft have Obsidian but I feel it's Bethesda who just don't want to play ball as they've always said they want to do it themselves.
Once MS bought Zenimax in 2020 they should have put the Outer Worlds 2 on the back burner, allow Bethesda to finish off its own Space RPG with Starfield (despite totally different tone why have two in your first party portfolio with two developers who's gameplay is a tad similar) and got Obsidian for one of their projects to make a spiritual successor to New Vegas.
When the Elder Scrolls VI is finished Bethesda can then onto the main numbered Fallout 5 themselves.
The Outer Worlds 2 started development in 2019 so putting it on the back burner wouldn't have been the end of the world, they'd have always come back to it once Fallout was done and it would have been nicely spaced out from Starfields release once they had most likely stopped supporting it and all the expansions were released.
If they did this back in 2020 when they bought Zenimax and the game had a good, steady 4 - 5 years development, you might have seen it release in 2025.
We are literally going to be waiting until 2030 at the very earliest for Fallout 5 and all they seem bothered about is pushing Fallout 76.
Its not just only Todd not playing ball.
Obsidian have made a name for themselves in delivering stellar RPGs, but most famous once have always been sequels/spin-offs to borrowed IPs like KOTOR 2, Neverwinter Nights 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Stick of Truth etc.
Obsidian wants to invest more in their own original IPs like Outer Worlds or Pillars of Eternity with Avowed.
Similar to what Bluepoint & inXile wants to do or Kojima is doing (i.e not involving anymore in Konami's IPs).
So yea, even if New Vegas has the most votes from 3D Fallout fans, Obsidian just wants to do their own thing, like any aspiring dev studio and MS is likely currently respecting that.
But a future Fallout game from Obsidian will surely happen. Founder Feargus Urquhart has already stated an year ago that they're eager to make a new Fallout game with Bethesda, New Vegas 2 or otherwise. Urquhart was the director of the very first 1995's Fallout game after all.
And don't forget Brian Fargo and his studio inXile, as Brian Fargo was the director of Fallout's 1988 predecessor: Wasteland
Obsidian should take over the FO IP. They're do far better with it than Bethesda who hasn't made a great game for almost 15 years
I disagree. Part of these games is the support for the mod community. If they move to releasing a "next game" every 2 or 3 years, the modding support plummets and the franchises turn into just another run of the mill RPG.
Make the games good enough to withstand the test of time, to keep people coming back to them and expanding on them with mod support.
I dont think anyone is saying they need to come out every 2 years (not to mention almost no game is released that quickly anymore)
By the time Fallout 5 comes out, it will be more than 15 years since Fallout 4 came out (same with ES6 coming out 15 years after Skyrim). Even if you want to use F76 as the metric for the most recent release, that one came out in 2018. It will be a miracle if F5 comes out before 2030
The point is that for a studio that doesnt seem to operate with multiple teams doing several projects at once, that their projects normally take 4-5 years as a minimum, and that now they even added Starfield to the rotation, it becomes a 15+ years waiting period between releases for each series, which doesnt make sense. Imagine that Nintendo only released a mainline Mario or Zelda game every 15 years…
They either need to start developing more than 1 project at a time, let someone else take a crack at one of the IPs or significantly reduce their development times
Why should someone else take a crack at one of the IPs? Look at what happened to Final Fantasy as a recent example - there is pretty clear FF fatigue setting in because they are now pumping out titles in the franchise every few years. Pumping out more games faster doesn't always make a series better.
There are plenty of options to make new games, not just create more titles in the same universe at a faster pace.
Yeah I’m going to say it, who cares about the modding community when making a game? Half the time developers only tolerate modders because they fix there game for them.
Yeah, let's all advocate for smaller gaps between series' releases, then we'll probably get headlines about how the series have dropped in quality and they could have benefited from more time in the oven. Let them cook.
"how the series have dropped in quality and they could have benefited from more time in the oven" So every Bethesda game then? Got it.
Listen, I would agree if this was about From Software or something, but Bethesda?
🤣
C'mon now. What timeline are you from?
Think about it, they're already bug filled messes on their current schedule, can you imagine how much worse it would be if they rushed things?
Bethesda [or Microsoft] would have to reallocate internal and external studios towards fallout and elder scrolls titles. Bethesda has the issue of developing 2 big IPs that are large RPGs on rotation. If you want more Fallout and Elder Scrolls, development will have to be outsourced.
The RPG has seen an explosion in popularity thanks to Amazon's TV show, but it was Bethesda's most controversial Fallout for a long time.
I loved it. And I platinum'd it. I guess it's like most "divisive" games. If you don't like it, so what? Let those that do, enjoy it.
The article is trying to create fud where there was none. It has an 87 meta (on PS4). There is nothing divisive about it. It was well received. Period. I don't remember any arguments except for some performance issues when it first came out. Thats it.
I really enjoyed Fallout 4.
I loved the halfway goal of what you are building towards. I had a good sense of what it was and then when you finally are almost there the music builds up - beautiful!
@Eonjay Forget the meta scores there are plenty of people who loved Fallout 3 but thought Fallout 4 was a bit of anticlimax and I do get it. Pete Hines the retired head of Bethesda's PR was even asked about it, and his answer was that it was because it simply didn't have the novelty of being brand new that Fallout 3 had.
No venture beyond that so many of the hardcore gatekeep the franchise hard as 4 was far more popular and simplified many of the rpg elements refined shooting to the point where vats was optional the game was far more accessible and sold the most out of every franchise entry to date.
It's my personal favourite I get why people love 3 or NV but I do hate seeing people crap on 4 and the people who like it.
It was a good shooter especially coming from FO3/NV game wise improvements wise but it was a below average RPG and that’s where many felt ROG elements should have been deeper
- Fallout 4's story, characters, dialogue, and quests. They even managed to make the Vaults boring.
- Fallout 76 is Fallout 4 online. Same crap.
- Starfield doubled down on the crappiness of all these aspects despite being a new IP.
People bought and liked all of these games, which sends the message that we want more of this. I don't know about you, but I don't like being treated as a child and my intelligence insulted by developers.
Fallout 4 wasn’t so much divisive as not very good. But there aren’t many first person RPGs so what else are fans of the genre supposed to play?
I think it was the lack of morality gameplay and lack of path to completion options compared to what fallout 3 and New Vegas offered. I think the issue mostly arose because of the voiced protagonist and how many lines of dialogue that needed to be recorded. Didn’t leave for many options beyond “good” “sarcastic douche” and the odd question or two for nearly every interaction. Personally I thought the game was fantastic as an adventure and exploration game, I liked the park system and base building, but the rpg aspects were fairly gutted. It made shooting much more tolerable too but it still wasn’t anything fantastic. The faction choices were ok and I felt like they all provided a more grey moral choice dilemma compared to older games which felt more good/evil but it wasn’t presented as such as prominently as I would’ve liked. You had to do some more internal and critical thinking of your own to come to decide why you’d support one faction over another unless you were in it just for some in game benefit or another.
I didn't like any of the factions, so when it got to the point that I had to choose, I chose to stop playing
I finished the game but you are correct. I was thinking I don’t really know which one to pick as I don’t really care for any of them. I was near the Institute so I just went with that quest line. A lame way to choose who will win but I didn’t really prefer one over the others
I don't think FNV was good/evil. You have evil with Caesar's Legion, then everything else is different shades of grey imo and quite relative to your own political views! 😅
1 Bad writing, the main quest is terrible. The sense of urgency of the story is at odds with the open world nature of the game
2 Boring, bland factions
3 too much personality for the main character. The game decides that you're married, that you love your son, your voice... a rpg like fallout should have a blank slate mc
4 dead open world. Fallout 3 and nv have a bunch of small cities and locations on their maps that give you interesting quests and dialogue. In Fallout 4 it feels like 80 per cent of the map is focused on combat and environmental storytelling, it feels more like a post apocalyptic action game rather than a dialogue heavy rpg
Fallout 4 is a very fun open world fps with really cool environmental storytelling but a very poor rpg
For those looking to jump into the post-apocalyptic RPG for the first time, here's everything you need to know about it and its upcoming next-gen update.
Got it installed on my PS5 ready for this. Not sure I'll play it very much though because I didn't like the settlements feature, it just never seemed to gel with me.
Looking forward to giving it a shot though
Hopefully it won't be after the update. Mind you it'll probably introduce some new bugs 🤣
I was lucky and had minimal bugs at launch in 2015. I got the platinum trophy a month after launch.
This was my question, article states it’s a native version so will need to re-download when it releases.
Hoping it’s not a Bethesda buggy mess as the game has been out forever, but not holding my breath. Also unsure if saves will transfer, unlikely as again it’s a new version of the game
"Not sure I'll play it very much though because I didn't like the settlements feature, it just never seemed to gel with me."
Doing the settlement related crap isn't mandatory, feel free to ignore it.
tod: Can you load the start menu?
q&a: yes
Todd: does it load in allow you to move?
Q&a: yes
Tod: Great its gone gold ship it that is the quality we here strive for.
It was always playable for me on my PS4 Pro. I don't recall any issues aside from the usual 'Bethesda Bugs'. Nothing even close to game breaking.
@just_looken
No I mean even back then, I can't recall any significant issues. Funny thing with the save file size is there were serious problems with Skyrim on PS3 because of the save file, until it was patched. Seems that Bethesda just don't learn.
Far Harbor was barely playable on Pro for me, it was a slide show in the fog. I’ve been waiting for this patch for what seems like forever!
Tried to play it again on PS4 last week to finish Far Harbour, the game kept crashing on launch. Hopefully this new patch let's me start the game lol
If Far Harbor is butter smooth and this baby has a smooth release overall I’ll take back everything terrible I ever said about Bethesda. This is the best game they put out in the last ten years. Still betting on a Day one patch incoming though and probably more to come. They should allow pre load bc their servers are gonna get boinked.
Yeah far harbour on the PS4 was playable for me but wow did that fog cause significant slowdown killed off any desire to explore and instead I would go point to point as fast as possible.
Here’s the one Pro Tip you need—play as Evil, it’s impossible to keep track of who you are supposed to be for and against with all the Factions—I say F them all and play Evil so it’s no stress! Lol
I never finished the game because I got to the point where the game really wanted me to pick a side, I didn't want to side with anyone so I just stopped playing. It's pretty rare for me not to finish a game, but it just got boring.
Graphics-wise: NOT!
dont care jeff
Next Gen or Not? ...
This entire Gen isn't "Next Gen", only Next Gen in terms of a slight improvement over the current PS3/360.
Let's keep it real /
There's only so much you can do with consoles that have the gaming power of a mid-ranged gaming laptop.
1.6 / 1.75 GHZ CPU's can only do so much.
The minimum speed of most PC CPU's is 3.4 GHZ
It matters
Next-gen?
I thought the game released on current gen consoles and pc (only). No last-gen, no next-gen, no...#%?*ing idea what DF are even trying to achieve.