The Fallout franchise has a long and sometimes rocky history, not that most fans remember or know about it. Everyone remembers or has at least heard of the legends of Fallout 1 & 2, but not everyone has actually played them but everyone in the “hardcore gamer space” has probably at least heard of them. Then we had Fallout tactics: brotherhood of steel, which moved away from the RPG and made it more of an xcom fallout hybrid, it was reviewed fairly well and was liked by the fans, then we got Fallout: brotherhood of steel, the twin stick console shooter. It was at this point that most fans of the series thought we would never get Fallout 3, as the project tilted Van Buren by black isle was cancelled. Following money problems with both black isle and interplay and the IP had a number of cancelations and almost was never going to get another game, until Bethesda came in.
Bethesda purchased the Fallout IP from interplay and began work on Fallout 3, their version of Fallout 3, based on the oblivion engine. This was a worry for many fans of the original games because they were making it first person and Bethesda wasn’t known to have the best writing, but fallout had a history of great writing, then the game came out, and won multiple game of the year awards.
Fallout 3 was a success but it did have its fair share of issues, there was no open exploration past the main story at release, fixed by broken steel dlc, the gun play was lacking, Bethesda’s trade mark bugs were as always present but most importantly it had the spirt of fallout, so a lot of people were ok with it, not everyone, some still wanted the isometric game from the 90’s in the post apocalypse, they would have to wait till wasteland 2. But people were happy, and we were saying, ok you can make Fallout, so what’s next.
2010 brought about Fallout new Vegas, this time developed by obsidian rather than Bethesda, it still had Bethesda’s trade mark buggy engine, but was also called by a lot of people Fallout 3.5 when they first saw it, and they aren’t wrong for thinking that, most of new Vegas changes were under the hood rather than on display.
Combat was improved, you could aim down sights, the bullet crafting from Fallout 3’s the pitt dlc was now part of the base game, the level cap at launch was 30 rather than 20, the karma system was removed in exchange for a more complex reputation system with different factions, and a story that fitted the new Vegas theme. For many this was the best fallout, even without the graphics upgrade that many wanted it had what everyone loved about fallout, interesting stories, characters, locations, factions, ideologies and improved combat. This made us realise that while Bethesda may have not made the best start for the series new direction, obsidian proved this game could work and had legs, as long as the game didn’t crash.
The Fallout 4 was announced, the hype was real, a next gen Fallout game, I was swept up in the hype like most of the industry, new graphics, crafting building, new story, new location, voice acting for the main character. Then we got the game, and there is other game for me that was more disappointing for me than Fallout 4, it was reviewed well, I got my copy and started playing and everything started to become clear, about what this new Fallout was. This was and open world shooter with RPG elements, rather than an RPG that had first person shooter combat. The dialog system removed any skill checks for anything other than charisma, which was now based on completely on chance, shooting was improved, once again, vats was as visceral as ever, the skill system was gutted and replaced with a perk system, many skills such as repair, and weapon degradation were removed, building was added along with the horrible help this settlement simulator, weapon and armour crafting was awesome, the world was huge if not the most buggy game in a while, the animations while better than Fallout 3 didn’t reflect the new console generation. The story was a mixed bad, for me personally, the first act is the strongest and it goes downhill from there, act 3 feels like the new Vegas system without the reputation system and feels completely disconnected from what the main character set out to do in the beginning of the game, which was also removed. Actually here is a list of everything that was removed
1. Dialogue skill checks, for science, medicine etc
2. Evil choices in the base game
3. Karma system removed
4. Reputation system removed
5. Weapon degradation removed
6. Ammo crafting removed
7. Repair system removed
8. The need for power armour training
9. Hard-core mode (patched in months later)
10. Low intelligence dialogue
11. Many quests with multiple outcomes like previous games
12. In some cases characters are missing eyes, faces and dialogue
Fallout 4, didn’t feel like and RPG, I along with many other were extremely disappointed, so I am very cautious about fallout 76, not only are there rumours saying that is a dayz/ rust clone, which if it true then I think I’m done, this is not the RPG series that I fell for with fallout 1,2,3 and new Vegas. Fallout 4 was a good game but not a good Fallout RPG, for me, this is my opinion, for me the best scenario now is a new Vegas scenario, same engine, new and improved mechanics, great story and enhanced role playing from fallout 4 so it comes close to the way the older fallout games were. If that’s the case, great I’m in, but I am worried that is not the case, that Bethesda are following old trends, that died years ago, with a beloved franchise just to use the IP value to draw people in. No, I’m not going to fall for it, not again, you convinced me, fallout 4 was an RPG shame on you, you will not fool me twice. It seems now that the fears that people were having with fallout 3 when Bethesda were making it are now coming back and I get it now, I understand. I just hope that they used the last three years from when fallout 4 came out to make and actual fallout RPG and not what the rumours are suggesting as an online survival game.
Bethesda, you have made two of my favourite games with fallout 3 and Skyrim, both good games, but not great RPGs. If you don’t show us that you listened to the complaints of fallout 4 and instead are just following a cold dead money trail, your just not going to lose me, but many, many others who like me got burned, and we are the hard-core adopters who buy on day one, who write articles like this one, or make videos and spread good or bad word of mouth, because like it or not, we are the ones that you are trying to get on side, so please, don’t disappoint us again.