Post-Play: 5 Ways to make Fallout 4 a better role-playing title

Where is the Fallout franchise going these days? Many long-term fans cried foul when Fallout 4 was released in 2015; in some ways, this is down to overzealous hype but others (myself included) feel the series is moving too far away from what made it work. I wrote a similar post on the mobile title Fallout Shelter two years back, which is rather indicative of the direction Bethesda has taken the series. When looking back, it’s Fallout: New Vegas that 4 should be taking its inspiration from, adding to and improving on its brilliant role-playing facets. Instead Fallout 4 is streamlined to a fault and makes baffling several steps backwards when it should have aimed to move forward. While there are some aspects it did get right, namely the shooting, power armour, glowing sea and a few select locations, the game itself was quite the let-down. The reusing of several sound clips from Skyrim and the ill-advised choice of having companions steal player XP are only the tip of the iceberg. Recently I finished the game and was incredibly disappointed to find a lacklustre ending which involved a shameless repeat of Fallout 3’s climax, a lousy cap-off to the worst story of the entire series. Taking some cues from other titles, here are five ways that Fallout 4 could have been made deeper, planting it firmly in the role-playing genre the franchise is known for.

1. A more detailed story that properly develops characters and settings alongside interconnected DLC

Both the beginning and ending of Fallout 4 have their faults, but it’s the opening that stands as the larger waste of potential; Ron Pearlman's absence as a narrator is already underwhelming but the way the game fails to capitalise on its opening cutscene is even more so. Less than five minutes in, you're rushed to Vault 111 without any time for development; it's definitely a move to appeal to a more casual audience who just wants to get into the action. Fallout 4 deserves better. Don’t have the story start as the bombs fall, instead begin it sometime before the Great War; allow the player to freely explore the neighbourhood and surrounding areas of Boston alongside NPCs which you can really get to know before the inevitable bombardment occurs. Take us to the power stations that are slowly running out of resources and introduce a gradual fear and paranoia rising towards the advent of war. Why not go a step further and have the prologue set during the closing days of the war with China, setting it in Anchorage to tie it in with Fallout 3's DLC? It would go a long way towards immersing the player in the world, creating a real sentimentality as it is lost to the nuclear holocaust.

2. Better faction interplay as well as a neutral option for those who don’t wish to ally with any faction

Fallout 4 has four separate factions; Minutemen, Railroad, Brotherhood and Institute but they play off each other very badly over the course of the game; put simply, it’s a poor man’s version of New Vegas without any of the consequences. Sure, you can turn a settlement over to the Brotherhood but the Minutemen will have absolutely no reaction to it at all; they should have gotten more and more disgruntled with you if you continued to take settlements away from them. Add to that the lack of links between quests and you have a very inconsequential web of quests. Even the game's ending completely disregards faction choices with the Minutemen receiving no closure at all if you chose to side with the Brotherhood and much of the endgame involves walking into a faction hideout and killing everything in sight. Previous titles offered a chance to come to a diplomatic solution, creating truces and even changing the thinking of some characters which felt incredibly rewarding.

In addition, to better balance out the level of choice, a neutral option should also be made available, one where the character focuses solely on his or her son (or daughter if that could be added in). With a better story that fully fleshes out the player’s wife and son, there’s a real attachment to be found with simply rescuing your child and keeping them safe from the horrors of the wasteland. On top of that, what kind of parent would you want to be? Open? Protective? Ruthless? In this way, the changes would impact the child’s line of thinking, creating a real consequence for the player’s actions; as things heat up between the factions, the task of protection would become more difficult, forcing you to make more tricky decisions to ensure your safety.

3. More interesting settlements with unique NPCs and functions

Settlements in Fallout 4 are a good idea for further customisation, but their execution is incredibly one note, resorting to bland NPCs going about the same business and statistics at every turn. Why not have the settlement system provide further benefits with a consistently high happiness level? Perhaps some could create supplies of ammunition and aid items at a reduced price while others delivered a steady stream of mercenaries ready to fight alongside you? Having a strong network and trade routes between settlements will increase these benefits further, while neglecting them will cause them to leave your service. On top of that, have settlements grow dynamically with buildings springing up from NPCs, not just the player as time goes on. Over time it would become a system with some similarities to Metal Gear Solid 5's Mother Base, possibly even feeding into the neutral pathway mentioned above. If all the settlements are in service to the Sole Survivor, the player will be in spitting distance of taking the entire Commonwealth wasteland for themselves.

4. More imaginative perks as opposed to iterative ones

The removal of skills was another ill-advised move to make Fallout 4 as streamlined as possible and this also shows through the perks which are purely iterative, merely increasing the damage of your attacks and the effectiveness of certain abilities rather than giving the player new tools to play around with. Specialism in specific playstyles is one of the key factors in replaying a Fallout title and this varies between players. Give them perks that really allow them to embrace a particular role; for the player who favours power armour, give them the ability to craft fusion cores from raw materials and the ability to place two separate upgrades in the same armour slot. Or for the player who prefers stealth, add the option to create noise distractions, detect traps with the Pip-Boy or hack turrets and robots remotely. For those who play with plenty of speech and charisma options, offer them the ability to create an entire squad of followers, creating battle tactics for each individual member. Making perks specific to playstyles would drastically improve the replayability of Fallout 4 as a whole; even Skyrim had some worthwhile abilities as skills were levelled up.

5. A better conversation system which keeps the list view while also allowing for plenty of choice between good natured and mean-spirited options

By far the biggest flaw of Fallout 4 shows through its conversation system; a bid to make interaction more seamless and immersive instead made it more irksome. Conversations bug out frequently and are often interrupted by the in-game action; on top of that, the options the player is given are extremely limited with persuasive options entirely controlled by charisma going towards asking for more caps after a quest. You're not allowed to be evil in Fallout 4, unless you count the tacked-on raider quests in the Nuka-World DLC; on this occasion, bringing back the list system would be a welcome change as it offered a wide range of choices in previous games. Instead of karma, the new conversation would go hand-in-hand with the aforementioned reputation system. This will encourage the player to watch their words depending on the situation and will offer even more input on the proceedings overall. Modders have fixed the buggy conversations, bringing them back to a list view but the lack of choice remains an issue.

As of this post, I’ve uninstalled Fallout 4 from Steam after just under 60 hours of play; after the bad ending and complete insignificance of all player choice, I just can’t see myself playing through it again. Instead I’m more than content with going back to Skyrim with its DLC and the countless mods alongside a world far more expansive and enjoyable to play through. My hope now is that Obsidian Entertainment gets to make another Fallout game with a new engine alongside Bethesda's updated combat system. Perhaps they can get the series back on the right track.

(Images used for the purposes of review and criticism under fair use)