Having dropped New Vegas in the past due to lost interest, I decided to try this game out finally since a friend of mine was having a fallout 3 playthrough himself. It was it 8 bucks, so I figured why not. I have to say, I put way more hours into this game than both other Bethesda games I’ve played through (Skyrim and Oblivion) before even finishing the main quest line. The combat was excellent in my opinion, and I (seem to be in the minority of people who) really liked the story. The choices it forces you to make sometimes really had me feeling emotional at times. I also played it with some minor mods installed, just some custom outfits and real world guns for immersion. Nothing to break the story or anything, though there are a few DLC sized mods I’m eyeing up to play in the future. Overall I seriously enjoyed this game, I’ve noticed online it seems to be regarded as one of the least popular mainline games but I think it’s become my favourite Bethesda game I’ve tried so far honestly. Seriously recommend anyone who hasn’t played this yet to at least give it a try. It really pulled me in.
Edit: Since I’m done with F4, got New Vegas running with some nice mods to add gritty aesthetics and real world weapons. Giving it another try 6 years after I initially tried it and so far I’m way more into it!
Edit 2: more specific context
I don’t agree with the people who bash Fallout 4, but it’s true that it does have annoyances not present in the previous title…but every title in the series has that. The dialog system was changed in a very unpopular way – one couldn’t see fully what one’s responses were prior to choosing them from the response menu, and the only effect of most dialog was to alter one’s relationship with one’s current companion. The plot interactions based on the player’s actions were much less complicated than in Fallout: New Vegas. And at very late game, high player levels, the enemies turn into bullet sponges due to how the game scales. Doesn’t feel as satisfying to shoot something. And the “legendary” item and enemy system was transplanted from the Elder Scrolls series, and at least to me, feels a bit weird in a non-swords-and-sorcery context thematically. I personally preferred the American Southwest setting where Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout: New Vegas took place over the eastern US, where Fallout 3, Fallout 4, and Fallout 76 took place. I liked the characters in Fallout: New Vegas more. Fallout 4 felt something like a bunch of mini-stories glommed together, less thematically-consistent than Fallout: New Vegas.
But Fallout 4 also has some things that I really like about it. It had base-building, and – while it still had its share of bugs – was considerably less-buggy than Fallout: New Vegas – which was godawful from a stability standpoint and loaded and saved increasingly-agonizingly-slowly the further one got into a game, and was prone to having the player fall through the map. On a given run, some sort of quest tended to break for me in Fallout: New Vegas. The “skill” system that had been present in the series up until Fallout 4 entirely went away, leaving the stat and perk systems, and I think that that was a good move – the small increases to skills felt grindy, where each increase didn’t produce a meaningful impact. The combat aspect is generally-considered to be better. New Vegas had solid DLC, but I’d rank Fallout 4’s DLC more-highly. Fallout 4 is a little more open in terms of the order in which you play the game – yeah, they’re all technically open-world, but Fallout: New Vegas tries hard to nudge you in at least some general, rough directions. Fallout 4 is closer to just letting someone go and adventure where they want, in whatever order they want. The scale was bigger, had more people running around, felt a little closer to being a “real world” environment. The game was prettier, partly due to just being a newer game – Fallout: New Vegas suffered significantly more from pop-up and limited draw distances, I’d say.
I think that at the time of their release, either Fallout: New Vegas or maybe Fallout were best, just in terms of how they compared to other things at the time.
If I were going to recommend that someone play just one Fallout game in 2024, though, it’d be Fallout 4, as the other games are getting pretty long in the tooth. Also, much more modding work has been done for Fallout 4 (though there are some impressive mods for earlier entries, like Tale of Two Wastelands, which basically imports Fallout 3 into Fallout: New Vegas and makes them one game).
The legendary system isn’t transplanted from Elder Scrolls, is it?
Unless you’re saying legendary weapons = enchanted weapons I have no clue what you mean. If that is what you mean, that’s a weird take but I guess I see it.
Also your take on the world feeling more large scale and alive is extremely interesting because I would’ve said the direct opposite. Fallout 4 feels incredibly dead to me. There’s enemies, sure, but they don’t exist past being targets for me to destroy so that I can loot them and whatever structure they’re functionally just guarding. I can’t really influence most of them past killing them and putting the Minutemen there instead. Fallout 4 feels too much like I was dropped in a sandbox.
Fallout 4 is a good game. I’d go as far as to call it great if you just ignore that there’s a main story. It feels like the devs wanted to make a looter shooter, but they got told they had to make a Fallout game with RPG mechanics. So they absolutely half-assed all the RPG parts.
I typed this on mobile, so there’s definitely typos. Sorry.
looks
I thought that Skyrim had legendaries, but apparently I misremembered. It’s got weapons with attributes – like, you can get a weapon that causes additional fire damage – but those apparently are the same as the weapon enchantment system, not distinct from it.
That’s pretty true of Fallout 3 or New Vegas too, yes? I mean, a deathclaw is a deathclaw.
Yeah, that’s the part that confused me. Skyrim’s enchantment system is just it’s enchantment system. It’s not as… exclusive as Fallout 4’s legendary system. I think that’s what makes it distinct in my mind. I definitely see what you mean.
Fallout 3, sure, but with New Vegas? Not really. There’s plenty of places you can go and then decide whether you’re making friends or enemies. You can interact with them, and then decide if you want them dead or not. There’s definitely some places where- like you said- a deathclaw is a deathclaw, but there’s also plenty of exceptions.
Very interesting response. Thanks for taking the time to write it out. I hope it’s useful to others too. Might just play 4 at this rate (if I ever get time, might need a steam deck)