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New Fallout 4 Videos Offer Deep Dive Into Creation of the RPG

Just one more month to go.

107 Comments

With just over a month to go before the release of Fallout 4, Bethesda has now published a pair of videos that dive deep into the development process behind the highly anticipated role-playing game. These new videos, taped at E3 but only just released this week, feature insight from game director Todd Howard, lead designer Emil Pagliarulo, artist Istvan Pely, and other Bethesda Game Studios developers.

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The first video (above) includes discussions around the topics of game length (reportedly 400+ hours), the look of the world, why Boston was chosen as the game's location, and a lot, lot more.

Part 2, meanwhile, focuses on Bethesda's decision to give a voice to the game's protagonists, who are performed by Brian T. Delaney and Courtenay Taylor. Bethesda designers talk about why fully voiced characters will let you connect emotionally with the characters like no other Fallout game before.

"The emotional depth that we got by having the voiced protagonists was way more intense than I expected," Pagliarulo says.

Delaney and Taylor, who recorded more than 13,000 lines for the game, also talk about keeping their involvement with the project secret for years. Check out the video below.

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The Fallout 4 release date is set for November 10 across PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. Recently, we learned that the game's DLC will not be exclusive to any platform. In addition, the $30 DLC pass--which includes unannounced expansions--is also now up for preorder on Xbox One.

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Bakula

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The most disgruntling for me—and I know almost no one will side with me on this—is when he says "We're a first-person game." That tells me that, while they've announced that you can switch between views, it doesn't sound like they put much care or development into third. GTA, for instance, doesn't call themselves a first-person game after bringing the gameplay style to the game. It's just annoying if they're throwing that potentially interested group of players by the wayside.

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Johny_47

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This is the first fallout game I'm actually interested in. I notice very easily though that Todd Howard doesn't seem hapy in fallout interviews unlike when he's in interviews about proper Elder Scrolls games.

Didn't have a clue that Bethesda was that small of a company too, I thought they were huge, like Rockstar huge. 100 people is quite small, I think IO-Interactive are about that.

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manoogian

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I think voicing the player is almost always a bad idea in video games

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manoogian

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I really hope the base building fleshes out, MGSV let me down with that

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Cynical_Howard

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Side Quest to earn Preston Garvey as your follower.

"After you defeat the Deathclaw, a scripted event occurs where the dying Deathclaw makes one last (unavoidable) desperate attack on the player, heavily damaging the Power Armor and rendering it useless"

"After the Power Armor is nearly destroyed by the Deathclaw, the player will then collect the pieces of the armor and rebuild it, thus starting the Power Armor crafting tutorial. Since the armor was in shambles and you're putting it back together, this would justify why the starting Power Armor is very weak and would need to be further upgraded throughout the game"

(The armor they showed in the E3 showcase video was the newest model, the T-60. Of course they would want to show off the the brand new Fallout 4 Power Armor in the big reveal trailer. As you said, it is more likely the armor we get first will be something crappy, like the T-45 from Fallout 3)

At the end of side quest, Preston Garvey know the fact that his group has been decimated and close to being completely wiped out. Preston decides that he no longer is fit to lead, but offers his services as a companion in thanks for saving the surviving members of the minutemen

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ughz

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I love being forced even with adblock on to watch these Uncharted videos.

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TheBusterMan

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When will you ever fix your shonky video player,Gamespot?

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Verenti

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Courtney Taylor literally says nothing at all, emotes a bit.

I love (read:hate) the comparison between Warren Spector's and Bethes "We going to cut out features, because we think you're too dumb to handle them" da's approaches to voiced protagonists.

JC Denton was a character who spoke in a monotone because they didn't know how players would feel about decisions.

Fallout 4 is voiced because players aren't responsible enough to feel the right way about their story moments. Bethesda's motto should be "Give me the controller; you're doing it wrong." And they have the gall to say that no-one else shows the same respect for the audience. This is true, I suppose, no-one else shows this level of contempt for their audience.

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ughz

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@Verenti: And so, that's Bethesda's fault that players are idiots?

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Redmess

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The voice actress didn't even get to say anything? Wow... weak, guys.

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Stebsis

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Really can't wait. I remember hyping the crap out of F3 when it was coming out, it was also one of my first games for X360 which I got just couple months before it came out so that helped in making me go nuts about it.

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ChuckS117

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Edited By ChuckS117

I envy those guys so much. Bethesda sounds like a pretty great place to work at.

Also, I still can't believe the game is just one month away. I love that they announced it when it was 5 months away.

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Cynical_Howard

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Edited By Cynical_Howard

Side Quest to earn Preston Garvey as your follower.

"After you defeat the Deathclaw, a scripted event occurs where the dying Deathclaw makes one last (unavoidable) desperate attack on the player, heavily damaging the Power Armor and rendering it useless"

"After the Power Armor is nearly destroyed by the Deathclaw, the player will then collect the pieces of the armor and rebuild it, thus starting the Power Armor crafting tutorial. Since the armor was in shambles and you're putting it back together, this would justify why the starting Power Armor is very weak and would need to be further upgraded throughout the game"

(The armor they showed in the E3 showcase video was the newest model, the T-60. Of course they would want to show off the the brand new Fallout 4 Power Armor in the big reveal trailer. As you said, it is more likely the armor we get first will be something crappy, like the T-45 from Fallout 3)

At the end of side quest, Preston Garvey know the fact that his group has been decimated and close to being completely wiped out. Preston decides that he no longer is fit to lead, but offers his services as a companion in thanks for saving the surviving members of the minutemen

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Carman151515

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I'm not sure I want the voice acting, it's cool and I respect the developers for going the extra miles for many players, but I always do the voice of my charector in my head, makes me feel like my character is really mine. I hope the voice acting can be toggled on/off but if it can't be I'll still buy the game.

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VukonjaBBB

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@carman151515: there are alot of people that like a voiced protagnonist, like me. If you don't, I'm sure there will be a mod very quickly where u can disable it, so both types of people are satisfied ;)

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ughz

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Edited By ughz

@carman151515: The reality is an open world 3D game of this magnitude in 2015 without voice acting is an absolute joke.

Voice acting is not a negative, it is a positive, when it comes to RPGs. People need to stop pretending this is D and D and you 100% control everything. This is an RPG with pre-defined quests, and characters, and story. So almost every single thing is able to be voice acted for NPCs - as it should be. I understand maybe not having a voice for the protagonist, but that's so archaic it's silly.

Not to mention you fundamentally fail to understand how the game works if you are still trying to transpose your own personality onto a character that is not one you completely customized every aspect of. He's a specific person with a specific backstory, on a specific quest - all of which have been written. So once again, like all open world RPGs, you're playing a "linear" story. In an open world.

That's essentially the equivalent of getting upset that you don't control the dialog of a novel, or movie, or comic book. Not to draw comparisons or say Mass Effect is amazing but not having a voice acted protagonist would be like not having a voice actor for Shepard, or not having a voice actor for Geralt, or not having a voice actor for Adam Jensen, or Tidus or basically anyone else you can think of in an RPG.

It's already taxing enough needing to read 1000000 lines of dialogue but at least if you can have both, you can choose one and utterly ignore the voice actor anyway, or at least not read.

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Ferric24

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@carman151515: Agree, I will be super pissed if the next elder scrolls game has voice acting. I get that Bethsaida has to streamline things for the casuals but that is going to far.

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Cynical_Howard

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@Ferric24: If this turns out to be good, they will eventually add voiced protagonist to TESVI.

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xsonicchaos

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@carman151515: You're just weird that way. Toggle voice acting...

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Cynical_Howard

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Can't wait to find Emil's house in the ruins of downtown Boston

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Elem3nt

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Cant wait, bethesda games have never let me down.

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turretx7

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Edited By turretx7

These videos are from e3?

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TwinStripeUK

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@turretx7: Yep - there was a ton of stuff they did in addition to the main presentation and it's been released a bit at a time since then.

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Keeonwow

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A few people appear to be against the idea of using voice actors for the main characters, and that they wouldn't fit in to Fallout 4. I think it would.

Really it's just translating the voice in my head (of the characters dialogue) into the game its self, and it sounds a lot better. I know that's an eccentric way of putting it, but that's how it feels at the moment.

Also, I think it negates the awkward silence of a response players would usually give back to an NPC. It'll add that little extra layer of emotion under the storytelling. I'm confident that this is a step forward for the franchise, and for other massive role playing games of the future.

Not to deliberately compare two games together, but The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt did this incredibly well, with a talented voice cast. I'm almost certain Bethesda will pull this off in similar vain, with their obsessive attention to details in both audio, and visual ways.

I'm truly looking forward to this game! :)

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Redmess

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@Keeonwow: I think the voice/text mix is pretty archaic at this point anyway. It was from a time where the amount of spoken lines was limited because of memory. Why not move on?

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Megamoss1984

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@Keeonwow: To be honest I can see myself just reading the subtitles and skipping the player character dialogue after a few hours. The novelty will wear off quickly.

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bussinrounds

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@Megamoss1984: "skipping the player character dialogue"

Good idea doing this in Bethesda/Emil Pagliarulo written RPGs regardless of VA or not.

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tunaface

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@Keeonwow: I couldn't agree more with this, but if I were a developer, I think I might make an option to disable the main characters dialogue for the simple fact that some people prefer it that way. It doesn't seem like it would be a difficult option to add to games.

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Keeonwow

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Edited By Keeonwow

@tunaface: Exactly, anything like that could be possible!

Even if the developers decide not to include that as an option initially, if there's a really high demand then they might patch it in anyway, or someone could mod it in (for those of you PC gamers).

But talking specifically about the game we'll receive upon release, I think it might be a little harder to swallow for those more hardcore role-players out there, especially if they imagined the main protagonist/ antagonist to sound differently from what they had in mind.

This is just my sole opinion, but I think that the canon story-line would benefit from it the most, because it seems to have a set characterization for the main actor. Like Skyrim for example, you were THE Dragonborn and nothing else. Most of the dialogue came across as humble, sometimes noble, and generally quite morally ambiguous to the world it's set in, where choice is merely an illusion to a grander, more epic storyline, and game world. None of the actions were really good or bad. I feel it'll be a similar way for Fallout 4 if they decide to go with the similar linear story structure. It'll just give the game that extra umpf it deserves.

But when it comes to the non-canon content, then that's where I'm a little un-certain. I'm afraid that the voice will be so inconsistent, and sporadic in nature, that it might just become it's own parody. As in they sound incredibly menacing, and evil for one non-canon quest line, and then calm, reassuring, friendly in the next (based on the nature of the quest objectives).

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clockworkengine

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@tunaface: Well if you think about it, doesn't it seem like a fundamental change in presentation for the series? If that's the case, the main character will have his own personality and dialogue, right? Therefore, the main character's voice and choices will at times be the driving element of the story, presumably. Something tells me that disabling the voice acting for the protagonist would be detrimental to the player experience.

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xolivierx

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I thought the game was to be released in October but I just saw November. Am I smoking crack?

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twisted_outlaw

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@xolivierx: yes

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TwinStripeUK

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@twisted_outlaw: Which will, admittedly, make that 400+ hours go a lot quicker... and if you start smoking it now, you'll probably end up waking up in November once it wears off...

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MICHAELKNIGHT2K

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These videos were shot from e3 lol

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TwinStripeUK

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@MICHAELKNIGHT2K: 'These new videos, taped at E3 but only just released this week,..'

Do you also feel the need to provide exposition for the funny bits in movies?

'Look - he fell off his chair - it's funny!!!!'

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Edited By ghostplops

Haha cool Todd plays Terraria, I love that game :p I can't wait to see what the mod community comes up with for the whole "make your own settlement" thing, I get the feeling it's gonna be like the sims and I'll be downloading tons of dumb furniture mods for weeks lmao.

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crushbrain

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This game looks great.

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Metalnoid

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Can the rest of the games of 2015 survive the atomic annihilation?

Every day this game looks better and better

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Edited By Evil_Saluki

Having a voice does make them feel like they are born into that gaming world. I prefer it, I know it's a hell of a lot of more work for the developers and I greatly appreciate the efforts.

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