Last week gaming company Bethesda Softworks announced the long awaited release of ‘Fallout 4,’ the next entry into the long running franchise first started in 1997. While the series has changed legal hands several times over the past eighteen years, the actual content of the games remains untouched and continuous. Most fans know the game from it’s 2008 installment titled ‘Fallout 3,’ the first to be released for current generation consoles and the first to achieve widespread recognition in the community. ‘Fallout 3’ was followed by ‘Fallout: New Vegas’ in 2010, which also saw massive success, but since there has been little to no information regarding a continuation of the series. Until last week that is, when a plethora of rumors were confirmed in a trailer release.
The Fallout series details an alternate historical timeline where the United States and the People’s Republic of China engage in a brutal nuclear exchange that kills billions and leaves much of the world barren. Fortunately, a corporation known as ‘Vault Tec’ builds hundreds of hardened shelters that allow many Americans to survive the destruction, and they remain inside their individual vaults for hundreds of years until the doors open onto an unfamiliar wasteland, filled with various factions and mutated creatures. Each game typically starts with the survivor you play as exiting a vault in one locale or another; ‘Fallout 3’ placed you in Washington DC and the surrounding area, ‘New Vegas’ in the Nevada desert and the rebuilt Las Vegas casinos. ‘Fallout 4’ will take place in the sprawling ruins of downtown Boston, and it’s surrounding countryside. However, unlike previous games new engines are allowing Bethesda to make a truly massive universe that will contain hundreds of unique locations and characters.
Along with the larger map size, the game comes with other refreshing changes to the Fallout status-quo. Instead of the limited customization in previous games, players will be able to build their own shelters and bases throughout the wasteland, and increase defenses and so forth to allow traders and other survivors ease of travel. On top of that the new installment is allowing a massive amount of individuality in player appearance, with 2 years of recording work done to insure hours of unique dialogue, which leads to the next big change in Fallout: the player character now talks. In previous games they would remain silent, allowing the gamer to imagine and/or construct their own narrative within the confines of the game, but Fallout 4 appears to be switching to the standard character interaction pioneered by ‘Mass Effect’ and ‘The Witcher.’ The game will also include a crafting system similar to the trademark ‘Minecraft’ construction that many gamers know and love so well.
So, while very little of the new game has been seen, hundreds of thousands of fans have pre-ordered the game and are practically frothing at the mouths to buy it. It seems to retain most classic elements of the series, while introducing new but tasteful game-play elements to keep fans engaged. Even better, it includes a dog. Yes, even in the supposed nuclear apocalypse, you get a dog to accompany you on your adventure, and that might be the most exciting thing in the dozens of new features.
To find out more about the new game you can watch the trailer here:
And you can watch the E3 presentation here:
