LogFAQs > #973663159

the_final_bahamut posted...

Fallout 4. Really, why would anyone try to learn lessons from one of the most acclaimed games of all time? Let's learn nothing and double down on FO3.

To be honest though, Bethesda did learn some lessons from Fallout 3, and while they didn't really learn much from NV in the strictest sense, they at least did their best to imitate it. 4's Main Quest structure is almost a carbon copy of NV: Act 1, hunt down the mysterious gunman who wronged you; Act 2, get courted by the 'good' factions while planning to infiltrate the 'bad' faction and subsequently get courted by them too; Act 3, solidify your faction choice and take on the remaining factions. They even copied the freebie 4th faction you can fall back on if you screw things up with the big 3. Companions in 4 also much more closely resemble NV than 3, and while they're still a step down overall from Boone, Cass, Veronica and co, 4's companions remain one of the game's brighter points.

It was also clear (at least to me) that they responded to certain criticisms concerning Fallout 3's worldbuilding. FO3's purifier plot has little to no relevance to the actual game world; meanwhile in 4 you can't travel a hundred feet in any direction without finding someone obsessing over Synths. The 'DC got hit harder' justification for Fallout 3 looking like the apocalypse happened yesterday fell apart hard under scrutiny, so they wisely had Boston's big nuke land well outside city center; this not only let them leave most of the city still standing without having to make excuses, it let you explore a chunk of the map that far more plausibly represented how a direct nuclear strike would ravage the landscape.

...however, these finer points tend to get lost under the general dumbing-down of the RPG elements and dialogue, and I can't really blame people for not noticing or particularly caring about the more subtle improvements 4 made over 3.