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
Fallout 4 kind of in a weird place where it’s simultaneously a bad Fallout game and arguably the best Bethesda game. How much you like it really just depends on which of those things you’re more into. I’ve personally never really gotten the appeal of Bethesda games. I usually end up spending 90% of my time going through my inventory analyzing the price to weight ratio of all the worthless junk I’ve accumulated, and the worlds have always just felt really shallow to me personally, but clearly I’m in the minority. I am sort of curious why more people seem to have agreed with me on Fallout 4 than on Skyrim though. I guess maybe it’s just that the people who talk about it the most are more likely to be Fallout fans than Bethesda fans.
Fallout 4 kind of in a weird place where it’s simultaneously a bad Fallout game and arguably the best Bethesda game.
Thank you
That’s how I’ve described fallout 4 since it first came out. Nice to see someone else had the same thought. It’s a great game and I’ve put a ton of time into it and I play through it every 2 years at most.
But it’s really not a great fallout game. The game overall is excellent but it feels the least fallout-y, to me at least.
Play Morrowind and your opinion might change on them having to be shallow. It’s hard to get into, but it is the 3D one that takes its world very seriously.
For example, there’s a faction that uses magic and levitation is a thing in Morrowind. Their buildings are built vertically with shafts connecting floors you almost have to levitate through. Skyrim did these in the DLC that includes some of Morrowind, but they just made them floaty elivators, not a skill your character can use.
It is hard to get into though. The key thing to know is its actually an RPG. Your character stats matter more than your player skills. If you aren’t trained in using a sword, you aren’t going to be able to use one effectively. The game won’t stop you from trying, but you’ll miss a lot. Also things like using up your stamina sprinting (what feels like normal speed) and being tired makes your character tired and they can’t hit things. They’ll also be worse with bartering/talking with people because basically they’re standing there drenched in sweat and panting, which doesn’t look nice and people don’t really like dealing with it.
Bethesda has strayed far from this path though and I doubt we’ll ever see it come back.
What’s the best fallout game? I played 3 many years ago around the time out and I enjoyed it. Thinking of playing another one now
1 and 2 if you like oldschool isometric RPGs and New Vegas if you want them in 3D. 3 and 4 if Bethesda games are your favorite
New Vegas is easily the best Fallout.
4 is a beautiful game. But they’ve dumbed down the entire R aspect of the RPG. Dialog in 4 is a joke.
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.
The legendary system isn’t transplanted from Elder Scrolls, is it?
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.
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.
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.
a deathclaw is a deathclaw.
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)
It just depends what you go into it looking for. If you want a deep RPG you won’t get it, and I found the story enjoyable, but just all right, but not horrible or anything. I do also really enjoy the gameplay.
The shooting won’t change the world, but it is enjoyable, and I really like the scavenging and modification of weapons and armor, and as a motivation for exploration it’s great.
That part about weapons and armour rang true for me as well. I spent a lot of time just wandering the commonwealth looking for junk to upgrade with and levelling my gunsmith up as a result. I think this is the most I’ve really explored in a game. Personally I didn’t really go in looking for anything so I was pleasantly surprised. But I definitely can see how say, someone going in for full role playing immersion from a game wouldn’t feel quite the same.
I think that’s a lot of what happened back when it released. The most recent Fallout game before then was Fallout New Vegas, and when it comes to a narratively deep RPG that’s almost an unfair fight compared to anything Bethesda has put out, so of course Fallout 4 fell very short of that mark.
But it does have successes in other areas. For the first time in, shit, any Bethesda game ever I found the animations and feedback of moment to moment combat actually enjoyable, the junk gathering and upgrading is an extremely addictive loop, and the game does look genuinely pretty and immersive, though the character animations still let it down.
I liked it to the tune of multiple hundreds of hours, myself.
For the first time in, shit, any Bethesda game ever I found the animations and feedback of moment to moment combat actually enjoyable
I believe that the character movement animation engine in Fallout 4 is capped at something like 30 or maybe 60 fps, can’t tween. When I’m running on my 165 Hz monitor, Fallout 4 animation definitely feels slightly jerky. Starfield doesn’t have this issue, so somewhere along the line, they upgraded the engine.
Funnily enough, the game is basically stuck at 60 FPS for me, even though I have a 144hz monitor. Everything I look up says the game engine wasn’t configured to go past that and anything higher requires mods and such for it to be supported. I’m a relatively modest gamer who plays a lot of Switch, so as long as it’s consistent I don’t mind, I just keep it at 60.
Glad to know Starfield can go higher, but my computer isn’t amazing so newer games just don’t stay consistent above 60, I just cap Starfield at 60 as well.
Which modern Fallout game would you suggest for someone who loved the first 2 and generally prefers classic (and modern classic style) RPGs and deep stories?
If by modern you mean Fallout 3 and beyond, then absolutely New Vegas and its DLCs. You will not get anything of a deep story from any of the other offerings except maybe Fallout 4’s Far Harbor, but that comes too little too late if you might not tolerate Fallout 4’s flaws to get there.
New Vegas doesn’t play very well in terms of combat, hello Gamebryo engine, but it has a complex story with many possible directions and endings, and many factions that are much more than black and white. Your character’s own dialogue is also far better written compared to Bethesda’s offerings and has a lot more agency in the world. I think you will find enough to enjoy there as long as you can get past the hump of some middling (even for its time) shooting.
A lot of that can be owed to the staff similarities between the original Fallouts and New Vegas, Obsidian’s strong point, particularly Josh Sawyer as director.
loved the first 2
Like, the isometric games? Not the 3D ones?
I’d consider Wasteland 2 and 3 as being similar to Fallout and Fallout 2. Fallout was inspired by Wasteland.
The Wasteland series has a very similar setting. Not exactly the same, less-heavy nuclear and vault theme.
But l’d seriously consider trying the 3D Fallout games too. I think that the series did a pretty good job of making the jump to 3D.
Correct, and I’m familiar with the Wasteland games and they’re great. I was asking about the 3D games specifically. I remember starting Fallout 3 back on my 360 years ago and just not caring for it. I’ve always wondered if I should give another one a go.
I’ve been replaying and somewhat enjoying Fallout 4 recently too and all I can say is Bethesda made a very good (and janky) video game back in 2003 and managed to reskin it into 5 different games over the past 20 years fairly well—only blatantly showed its age with Starfield because they removed all the (now out of date) modernizations introduced in Fallout 4. I will not buy The Elder Scrolls VI if that ever comes to market.
Just throwing it out there if you haven’t played it, The Outer Worlds hits all the fallout notes in a tighter package (also made by obsidian who made New Vegas)
Noted! I have been meaning to cross outer worlds off my list for a while.
As someone currently playing through the Outer Worlds (I even made a post about it not long ago on this community), I’d highly recommend it. I’m having a lot of fun with it
Settlement management can get tedious and be a large time sink. Sim settlements 2 is actually not bad. You can off the most annoying ones on “mayors” to control. Show up later and add things if needed.
It revived the game for me. Changed settings so it would grow without my tedious input, so thankful for that. Show up to settlements over time to find evolving cities that are actually worth visiting and make the game feel alive, like you didn’t build every shack in the wasteland personally with the toaster you hauled from a national guard building.
I need to get unlazy and figure out how to do that. I enjoyed Conquest because it auto built settlements for you to conquer, but that’s been dead for a while.
I love FO4! One of my friends kept telling me to get it and play it. So when it was on sale I bought it in a heartbeat.
My only gripes are the inventory management and the depressing landscape, so nothing a couple of mods couldn’t fix to make life easier and not depress the hell out of me.
Snow mods in the summer. Desert mods in the winter.
just some custom outfits and real world guns for immersion
Kind of funny when you know Fallout is a satiric version of USA society
I lost interest in this game half way through. I really don’t like how the enemies level up with you. I was about 2/3rds through the main quest line when the bad guys became such bullet sponges that it wasn’t fun anymore. Like, multiple nukes to the face and they still keep coming.
I far prefer games where the enemies scale by location, not the player.
This is my running complaint with most Bethesda RPGs. Just about everything scales by player level, which can put you in situations where enemies are downright impossible to kill if you’re too spec’d into non-combats.
Oblivion: why level up when I can stay level one and steamroll everything?
New Vegas: Just another Bethesda contracted game and I’ll just head straight north and OH GOD CAZADOR—
Haha yeah NV lets you know shit is real awfully fast.
There are mods that alter the enemy scaling, but it’s gonna change the game balance.
It wouldn’t really be an open world game if areas were artificially blocked due to leveled enemies. And other areas would simply be steamrolled once you out level them.
In my opinion, open world doesn’t mean being able to complete any objective in an arbitrary order.
Progressive growth is one of the most rewarding things in an RPG for me. That means that I have to rethink my path forward until I gain the strength to overcome an obstacle. And that also means that some of my once difficult foes can be a showcase for my experience.
Areas aren’t blocked, they’re turned into goals for me to overcome. Yes, I should have a choice in how I explore the world, but having limits gives you something to break through.
It was actually the first fallout game I played, and I’ve replayed it a couple times since then, I really like it.
That’s a great came to play for the first time, especially with qol mods.
Any QoL mods you’d recommend?
I play F4 with Vivid Fallout for better textures, Load Accelerator and the Unofficial patch mod.
What are must have QoL mods that that don’t alter the vanilla experience too much?
I played f3 and 4 next to each other, so it can’t remember exactly which was which, but removing the tint over everything outside was huge, visibility immediately increased, the sky was blue, everything was more aesthetically appealing.
I really liked adding the weather mods in so it rained or snowed, and then textures. I didn’t change too much, but with an improved look and distance, everything felt more fun and immersive.
It sounds like that vivid mod you have did pretty much all of that
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I definitely plan to get the season pass in the future if I can catch it on sale as well! I definitely wouldn’t say I’m done with the game as a whole, but for the time being I am just waiting to pick up the DLC.
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Do a Child of Atom playthrough, if you haven’t already.
Rush to Far Harbor and acquire the Robes of Atom’s Devoted and end the DLC by destroying FH for the perk. Wear the robes, get irradiated until almost dead (above 900 rads) and congratulations, you now deal double damage, are immune to radiation and ignore the effects of rads on your HP bar.
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Nuka World is a ton of fun and
Thematically, I prefer Far Harbor. And Nuka World’s big selling point was letting you play as a raider, which didn’t appeal much to me. But I’m pretty sure that Nuka World has more stuff.
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Yeah…I guess I shouldn’t be so negative. I mean, I had fun with it, and I certainly think that it’s a worthwhile purchase, along with the other Fallout 4 DLC. Just that I didn’t want to play through a fair bit of the content, whereas in the base game, I was fine playing any of the “faction” routes.
And, I dunno. If someone does want to play as a raider and enslave settlements, they can do that. I don’t have a moral objection to someone else doing that, and I know that many people do feel like they don’t get to play “evil” routes enough in games. Just wasn’t something that I wanted to do.
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Did you like the settlement building or no?
I got so hooked into the settlement building. Downloaded a handful of settlement mods and spent 3 whole days repairing and outfitting the Castle. Then something happened to my mods folder and I had to redownload them all and didn’t make note of the order I had them in before. Loaded in the game and everything was broken/invisible. Huge letdown and I took a 7 month break. Now I’m getting back to it and finishing the main story before doing the DLCs
At first I dabbled quite a bit with it, decorating up the castle. But as time went on I honestly stopped paying attention to it.
PLEASE PLEASE try the survival mode. It changes the game so much. It reminds me of hardcore games of the past, I have to actively plan for the game and can’t just gung ho rush things.
I’ve noticed online it seems to be regarded as one of the least popular mainline games
Where have you been looking in order to find that? It’s regarded as the best fallout by almost everyone as far as I’m aware.
Or are you confusing Fallout New Vegas with Fallout 4? They are two different games
What? I’ve never seen people say that, FNV is widely regarded as the best 3D Fallout game.
Yes. He is playing New Vegas. He got confused and called it 4 because it’s the game after 3.
I’m pretty sure they’re playing Fallout 4, considering they explicitly said they tried FNV before…
Read his edit.
Yes, their edit states they are now trying FNV again. Their post, containing the part you quoted, was neither part of the edit nor referencing FNV. Please, just read it again.
Yes. Well aware, he gave up to lost interest.
He’s not referencing anything apart from title and edit, he talks about the mods and writes his edit like a tldr referencing the mod again.
But sure. If you say so
Their whole post is talking about Fallout 4. What is more likely:
- they are talking about Fallout 4
- they are confusing Fallout 4 with Fallout New Vegas, a game they played previously and just said they’d try again after having played Fallout 4, having freshly installed and modded it, still not noticing that they already played through the game just before, while also confusing the online coverage for a totally different game
Please, just think for a moment.
Played fallout 4, now I’m back to trying new Vegas again
I see, i misunderstood then. Sorry
