Fallout 4 and Roleplaying Editorials

We have rounded up a few more editorials dedicated to Fallout 4, and this time I tried to highlight the way some critics and enthusiasts have talked about Fallout 4’s handle of freedom of expression, character generation, quest design and progression systems, all things that generally fall under the (admittedly ambiguous) header of “roleplaying”.

Chris Franklin of Errant Signal talks about the shift from a character-focused to a player-focused perspective in Fallout 4, and how that left him with very ambivalent feelings on the game:

YouTuber “ZiggyD Gaming” talks about the way Fallout 4 ignores the series classic evil options during the main quest:

And finally, PC Gamer’s Andy Kelly writes about why he considers Fallout 4 to be a good game but a poor RPG:

The term ‘˜RPG’ is pretty loose. We could argue for days about what is and what isn’t. But for me, an important part of any good RPG is being able to create and shape a character that’s unique to you. My Fallout 4 vault dweller, however, is vaguely the same as everyone else’s he just wears a different hat. I mean, it’s a really nice hat. An ushanka I found in a bin. But it’s not enough. There’s no feeling of ownership.

The restrictions of the new dialogue wheel and the addition of a voiced protagonist have stripped away any chance to give your character a distinct personality. They’re either a good guy, or a sarcastic good guy. The single voice on offer is so obviously tailored to fit a generic-looking white guy like the one they used in the E3 demo that it sounds weird coming out of anyone else. These limitations feel out of place in a game that offers so much freedom elsewhere. I feel more attached to the rickety old shack I built in Sanctuary than the boring, unfunny dude I’m playing as.

And these frustrating restrictions extend beyond your appearance. Previous Fallout games let you set traits, perks, skills, and tag skills on top of your base SPECIAL stats: Fallout 4 has perks, SPECIAL, and nothing else. This new system might be more streamlined and elegant and I like some things about it but it’s yet another example of Bethesda reducing the ways in which you can fine-tune your character.