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Fallout 4 Announced 229

An anonymous reader writes: After teasing gamers with a countdown timer yesterday, Bethesda has now announced Fallout 4 for PCs, the Xbox One, and the PS4. They've also released an official trailer (YouTube video). The game will be set in post-apocalyptic Boston, and the player character will apparently be accompanied on his adventures by a dog. The Guardian has a post cataloging the features they're hoping will be improved from previous games in the series: "The combat system in the last two Fallout games was not universally adored. It often felt you were shooting wildly and blindly, biding time before you could use the the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting (VAT) system, which allows players to focus in on specific parts of enemies with a percentage chance of hitting them. ... Well-written, hand-crafted quests are going to be vitally important. The Radiant Quest system used in Skyrim sounds brilliant on paper: infinite quests, randomly generated and a little different each time. But the reality was a lot of fetch quests in similar looking caves. Bethesda may be tempted to bring that system across to Fallout 4, but there's an argument for abandoning dynamic quests altogether and opting for a smaller range of authored challenges."
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Fallout 4 Announced

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  • by Forgefather ( 3768925 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2015 @12:28PM (#49832215)

    To absolutely fucking no ones surprise a sequel was announced to a popular and profitable franchise.

    • Re:Saw it coming (Score:5, Informative)

      by GeekWithAKnife ( 2717871 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2015 @01:23PM (#49832917)

      Amusing but the truth is there was doubt if this franchise will be killed off due to legal issues.

      The truth is loads of geeks want to know this and there was a bit of an interesting intellectual rights battle between Bethesda and Interplay.

      So really, this is a little bit of a surprise ifyou think that my most beloved game series of all times was almost axed because of some failed MMO you insesitive clod!

      Read more here -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F... [wikipedia.org]
      • by guises ( 2423402 )
        Er, what? There was never any danger of the Fallout franchise being killed, that legal struggle was entirely about Bethesda suing the shit out of Interplay in order to take the rights to the Fallout MMO that Interplay was developing. Without Bethesda's interference the MMO may or may not have been completed, but it had no impact on the rights to the single player games.
        • Re:Saw it coming (Score:5, Informative)

          by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2015 @10:22PM (#49836733)

          That's not quite how it went down. Let's be clear: Interplay is a shadow of its former self, has been that way for a number of years, and any Fallout game they would make would be just as much a "true successor" to the series as one made by anyone else since all of the devs are gone. Just to review...

          1) Interplay created Fallout, and their internal Black Isle team created Fallout 2, under the leadership of Brian Fargo and the creative direction of Jason Anderson.

          2) Anderson left the company during Fallout 2's development, and Fargo was ousted by shareholders in 2001 in a corporate shakeup.

          3) Black Isle Studios was closed in 2003 and the entire staff was laid off. Van Buren (i.e. the original Fallout 3), which they were working on, was cancelled. A lot of them ended up over at inXile Entertainment, which Fargo had founded after he was ousted. Many of the others went on to found Obsidian Entertainment. More on those guys later...

          4) Despite cancelling Van Buren, Interplay did, however, manage to push out the rather craptastic Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel in 2004 (not to be confused with the similarly-named Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel, which is a decent game with which Interplay had no involvement). It's so bad, diverges so far from the rest of the series, and sold so poorly that even Interplay and Bethesda can get on the same page in agreeing that it's not canon.

          5) On the verge of bankruptcy in 2004, Interplay sold the rights to make three Fallout games to Bethesda Softworks (not to be confused with Bethesda Game Studios, which is the developer that makes The Elder Scrolls, Fallout 3, and now, Fallout 4, and which I love).

          6) Still on the verge of bankruptcy, Interplay sold all of the rights to Bethesda Softworks in 2007, but licensed back the rights to a Fallout MMO, conditioned on their getting $30M in funding and meeting certain development goals by April 2009, as well as launching within four years of starting development.

          7) Having failed to reach the necessary funding and with their "Project V13" Fallout Online game in development hell at a newly reopened Black Isle after Jason Anderson left yet again (who they had hired back on to handle creative direction), they tried to pull some eleventh hour crap on the day before their April 2009 deadline by announcing nonsense plans to partner with some Bulgarian company to make the game happen.

          8) Bethesda Softworks sued them in April 2009 and then reached an out-of-court settlement in 2012 to get back the rights to the MMO, as well as the rights to the original games in the series. Project V13 continued development at the new Black Isle, with all Fallout references stripped.

          9) Interplay pulled a "screw you" by making the original games in the series free on Steam, GOG, etc. for a week or two before the rights were set to transfer to Bethesda in 2013.

          10) As for where we're at today...well, remember all of those original Interplay devs who left for Obsidian and inXile? They've gone on to make Fallout: New Vegas (which incorporated a number of ideas from Van Buren) and Wasteland 2 [kickstarter.com] (a sequel to the game that was the spiritual predecessor to the original Fallout), respectively. Meanwhile, Project V13 remains vaporware, even though we're now two years beyond the launch date that their rights were conditioned on reaching.

          TL;DR: Interplay failed at making the Fallout MMO even before Bethesda Softworks got involved (in fact, that's why they got involved), and they've continued to fail ever since, even though their former devs have gone on to great acclaim in making new games related in various ways to the franchise. Also worth mentioning: I'm no fan of Bethesda Softworks, since they've demonstrated that they're a legal troll (e.g. all [wikipedia.org]

  • My wish list: (Score:4, Informative)

    by quietwalker ( 969769 ) <pdughi@gmail.com> on Wednesday June 03, 2015 @01:05PM (#49832657)

    I saw the article linked with things some folks want, and hated most of it. Vehicles? Really?

    Here's what I'd like;
        - Companion characters & character development done by the Bioware teams (I'm gonna ignore the low-average quality from the Dragon Age Inquisition game). Bethesda Softworks does an admirable job with environment and atmosphere, but their NPC's are generally flat, with a few exceptions. Companions most of all. Multiple companions might be nice, Companion quests, idle-time squawking/interparty squawking, scenarios providing different options with different companions.

        - Combat that always feels like a challenge, and not just in a ninja-monkey way where their stats scale to your level. Perhaps limit the character growth and equipment attributes in a D&D 5'th ed sort of way. Adjustable, though (see 'customization' below)

          - They rock at allowing mods, but having a truly made-for-third-parties-without-a-debugger-running sort of script evaluation (profiling), execution, merging and management system would be swell. Knowing a module was going to crash - or even just which mod caused the crash - is a big help.

          - Enough customization to allow different play styles, not just different difficulty levels. For example, the New Vegas optional 'hardcore' mode requiring food, drink and sleep, but perhaps with a checklist of 'collectables' and an easy combat or excessive loot for folks who are more interested in achievements than someone who wants to soak up the atmosphere. This includes any time a dev said "But that won't work on console" - make it an option. None of this dumbing things down just because it has to run on a console.

          - That mod thing up there? I'm putting it here again because I like mods.

          - Oh, and an easy way to add songs to a playlist rotation, not requiring a mod with a new radio station, necessarily.

    • by dj245 ( 732906 )

      I saw the article linked with things some folks want, and hated most of it. Vehicles? Really?

      Done the right way, I think they could do vehicles right. Just look at GTA5- if you play in first person all of the time, the game is a believably realistic crime simulator. They sunk a lot of time and effort into making every aspect of the vehicles realistic, including believable damage models (cosmetic AND physical), realistic handling physics, etc. It is quite a departure from the arcade feel of the previous GTA games and IMO a huge improvement.

      The last Fallout games, on the other hand, could do wi

      • A field of view slider would be nice for that first person mode. Also true for skyrim/fallout (at least I can set it in the console on those two)

      • For how much work they put into making road vehicles realistic, I'm a little disappointed with how flying pales in comparison. I'm sure parts of it were balance issues (like airspeed and weapon ranges) but others just make flying feel cheaply done.
    • Different strokes for different folks. Personally, I don't agree with your list either. I'm not so fixated on vehicles, though I wouldn't mind, especially if they make a massive world to explore, which is one of the things I'd like to see.

      But personally, I'm not too interested in teams and companions. I know that's blasphemy to some RPG fans, but I feel like companions typically just end up being something else to worry about. If you let the AI run them, then the AI is always doing something stupid, an

      • Having replayed skyrim recently, I think the vehicles could be like the horses. Not amazingly fast, no usable combat while in a vehicle, but if you've made it your personal goal to walk everywhere instead of insta-magic-travel then having a slightly faster mobility is handy while retaining immersion.

        For the NPC companions, they're not there to help me fight, but to help me carry the loot! Except for dogmeat, he's there because he's not yet house trained.

        Skyrim had a ton of quests, but I'd rather see fewer

  • I just hope Bethesda takes as much care with the music in Fallout 4.

    https://youtu.be/itc8yl9uLD8 [youtu.be]

    Wish on the moon
    And look for the gold in a rainbow
    And you’ll find a happy time

    You’ll hear a tune
    That lives in the heart of a bluebird
    And you’ll find a happy time

    Though things may look very dark
    Your dream is not in vein
    For when do you find the rainbow?
    Only after rain

    So wish on the moon
    And someday it may be tomorrow
    You will suddenly hear chimes
    And you’ll have your happy, happy time

    So wish o

  • by Anonymous Coward

    None of the modern fallouts recreate and capture the spirit of the two first ones.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      None of the modern fallouts recreate and capture the spirit of the two first ones.

      That was modded insightful? Why? How?

      I have played every single Fallout game. I love the first two games, they were great, but that takes nothing away from the newer ones. Fallout 3 was epic. I believe it might be the only game where I experienced my own birth. True, you couldn't kill children or be a fluffer (you could in earlier games), but what you could do was truly experience the world. Vault 108 is still one of my favorite things in the series (GARY!).

      New Vegas brought back some of that post-apocalypt

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by shihonage ( 731699 )
        It is insightful because it's 100% true. If you look at Fallout 1/2 walkthroughs, you will see the kind of non-linearity, environmental scripting depth and general feeling of freedom that no modern game provides. Fallout 3 especially was a complete corridor compared to this. In programming and design alone, the first two games are still better than ANYTHING out there. There's a CHASM of difference between "walk anywhere you want" and freedom of player agency. In a walking simulator, you'll still have to go
    • They are different for sure, but that doesn't make them bad. I enjoyed Fallout 3 and I loved New Vegas. Are they the same kind of game as 1 and 2? No, not at all, but they are enjoyable all the same. Not everything needs to be the same all the time, you can have different things in the same universe and it can be fun.

      By the same "things can never change" logic, Fallout 1 and 2 were no good because they were different from Wasteland, which was their predecessor (the universe was made because Interplay couldn

      • prepare to be downmodded by connoisseurs of turn based tactical games.

        There is no place for FUN in video games, they must be ever faithful and must not progress past 1997 tech.
  • Fallout 4!? (Score:5, Funny)

    by puddingebola ( 2036796 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2015 @01:44PM (#49833141) Journal
    I'm still trying to get into Base Cochise in Wasteland. Does anyone know where the sewer entrance is in the Church of the Mushroom cloud?
  • by Anonymous Coward

    The Radiant Quest system used in Skyrim sounds brilliant on paper: infinite quests, randomly generated and a little different each time. But the reality was a lot of fetch quests in similar looking caves. Bethesda may be tempted to bring that system across to Fallout 4, but there's an argument for abandoning dynamic quests altogether and opting for a smaller range of authored challenges.

    The Radiant system still shows a lot of promise, they just need to keep what they've got and add even more randomness. If you've played enough Skyrim it should be clear that they copy-pasted a lot of the cave models, and much of the dungeons could be tiled and randomized; not just the loot. The assassin quest line is tons of fun but then the Radiant quests afterwards are all some guy standing around defenseless - it reeks from lack of effort. The war questline has some great battles that could return as ski

    • They've been experimenting with this idea from the start. Daggerfall was one big gigantic pile of randomness. So it ended up as my least favorite game I've ever finished. In Morrowind they removed much of the randomness and started crafting things by hand, shrinking the game world down tremendously, and it's one of my favorite games.

      Actually many of the "radiant" quests in Skyrim are interesting and hand crafted, it's just that often they're not recognized as being radiant quests. Some radiant quests yo

  • Go play Quake 2, SiN, or pretty much any notable classic game. The problem isn't that it's too hard to make a satisfyingly meaty game by hand, the problem is that companies have gotten used to fucking people over by shipping barely functional boxes full of shit and bloom that have less meaningful content than expansion packs used to come with.

  • by jonwil ( 467024 ) on Wednesday June 03, 2015 @07:36PM (#49836007)

    Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas are the best Sci-Fi RPGs I have ever played (and I am still playing through the various pieces of DLC for Fallout New Vegas having recently finished Old World Blues and started on Lonesome Road)

    There aren't too many things that will make me not buy this. If Fallout 4 on PC doesn't have the awesome mod support Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas have I wont be buying it. If they add any extra crap DRM on top of the Steam DRM I wont be buying it. If they make the system requirements too great that my fairly beefy system can't play it I wont be buying it. And if they do anything to intentionally make it harder to reverse engineer the games data formats and stuff I wont be buying it.

    Oh and they should put some effort into making the engine more stable and less prone to crashing (Fallout 3 and New Vegas aren't exactly the most stable games I have ever played)

    Not too sure I like the idea of randomly generated dungeons or quests either, I much prefer the hand-built dungeons/quests of Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas to the randomly generated areas of games like Diablo 2.

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