Fallout 4 - Opinion: Bigger Not Always Better

Aubrielle

Aubrielle

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A Polygon op-ed argues that Fallout 4 is a good example of why bigger isn't always better.

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...If added open-world space comes at the expense of full artistic potential, each new location banged out without the extra little flourishes that makes it special, it may not be worth it.

As a genre, open-world titles, from Destiny all the way back to Grand Theft Auto, have long suffered from technological restraint, resulting in some overuse of techniques like procedural generation, empty buildings and modular level design. Each of these development strategies and tools have their place, and employing them is an art form, but you can feel when they've been stretched a bit thin.

In an exploration-based game like Fallout, the loss is felt the most. I want every area I approach in the Fallout universe to be a Pandora's Box of danger and mystery, each with its own story to tell. That key series element has already been tampered by heavy enemy re-spawns, repeating side quests and the constant grind of collecting scrap and parts, which arguably contributes more to the generic feel of many areas than the art kit. The solitude of methodic exploration that first drew me to the series is gone, and the feel of Fallout 3 and New Vegas lost. It's a casualty of efficiency.

If Fallout 4 were just a bit smaller, but in return offered the mystique and addictive allure of Fallout: New Vegas with each and every location, this would be easier to handle. Size is important of course, I'm mostly arguing for a slight course correction in the other direction to even things out.

Can taking a step forward technically be a step backward artistically? Sometimes, yes. While simplified development tools facilitate more efficient open-world games design, a sandbox game is only as strong as its environments. In the case of Bethesda and open-world games, I wish they'd be a little worse at their job.
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More information.
 
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When I saw the title I wondered where could such thing come from.
Polygon, again. No surprise there.

FO4, if we'll talk about map size, is not really bigger. It added vertical content, that's why it feels bigger.
Destiny and GTA5 are great mentions, Destiny being overhyped turd probably noone plays any more, GTA5 being huge yet lacked nonrepetitive sidecontent, but the article title on Polygon should name those two games, not FO4. And it again wouldn't mean that bigget is not better but that developers wasted the potential of the ingame world.
In FO4, nothing was wasted.

Skyrim? FO3?
Sorry but IMO FO4 (release version) is better.
 
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I agree, Fallout 4 fell into some of the same criticisms as Dragon Age 2-- reusing and rehashing levels that... really weren't all that interesting to begin with.

Perhaps Bethesda should ask CDProjekt Red how they were able to make The Witcher 3 into the massive, detailed & artistic world that it was?

Fallout 4 just seemed lazy to me, in many respects.
 
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Stems from a flaw in basic design. Sandbox games are all well and good but not if your world relies on gimmicks for 95% of the worldspace, with no logical flow from location to location, or quest to quest.

That's cute - a teddy bear holding a tea party… oh, look, a teddy bear on a rocket. Oh, another dead pair of skeletons on a bed. Anyone above the age of 10 will tire of such random, copy/paste design in the first ten hours of the game. And what you're left with is a boring world devoid of any meaningful impact.
 
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ChaosTheory said:
Perhaps Bethesda should ask CDProjekt Red how they were able to make The Witcher 3 into the massive, detailed & artistic world that it was?
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There is a difference - FO4 is sandbox with randomly generated quests you may or may not like. Thanks to mods you can disable them if you don't like the "radiant" stuff. However, being designed like that, it allows players to get their postapoc fix for thousands of hours. Meaningless? Sure. Repetitive? Absolutely. Fun? To many it obviously is. Besides, it's your game. It's not MMO, you dictate what happens next, you're in control, if not by the vanilla game, then by mods.

TW3 is not sandbox. It follows heavy script that branches in different directions where your, sometimes even a small choice, has an impact on the world. Now imagine if you got werevolves in an area extinct and then you get a contract to kill one more ww, it'd be rediculous. That's why TW3 has no classic sandbox content. There are still elements to satisfy grind loving audience (underwater barrels, everspawning wolves and drowners) but it's not sandbox.

Bethesda can of course give a shot into Bioware/CDprojekt/Pluto13 nonsandbox openworld RPG within some new game, but I don't think they should. Because they're practically the only developer out there that makes AAA openworld sandbox RPGs. Rockstar and Ubi have their AAA openworld sandbox games, but are incapable of making those RPG.
 
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God this makes me pine for the unexplored desert of Fallout the First. Still hasn't been another game like it.
 
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Haven't played FO4 yet, but from what I've seen, typical Bethesda open world RPG. I never had a complaint with the world design of their games, going as far back as Morrowind. Yes, the art assets were reused a lot in he dungeons, but they never really felt the same, since you were never sure what you would encounter in each dungeon.

Same with Oblivion. I played it a few years back, 300+ hours in one run, explored many dungeons and felt they were all completely unique. Art assets? No. Content, layout, surprises? Yep.

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It's not typical. Compared to typical, this one is almost bugfree (it's not really, but when you see just one glitch per hour instead a glitch per minute, the difference is drastic).
 
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It was way too easy of a game for me, once you got a few levels and a decent melee weapon, there was nothing that could stop you. The only thing that gave me pause was some nasty bloke hiding in the mud in one of the towns, even he only took a few minutes to kill. These games should be challenging, not facerolls.
 
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Was going to check out FO4 but I really hate what I'm hearing about the game. I don't pay attention to the thumbs up/thumbs down opinions of critics and the people who bought the game but look for detailed descriptions of the game's mechanics instead to determine whether it seems interesting or not. At least one guy whose comments I read installed 100 mods and still FO4 was a stinker. Maybe some brilliant modder or team will be up to the challenged and create an ambitious, complete overhaul for the game and it will be worth playing someday. FO3 with the best overhaul mods was quite enjoyable.
 
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The only way to make FO4 into something resembling an RPG is if a another studio overhauls it in its entirety ala Enderal. Otherwise, the game's simplistic mechanics and dialogue are so intertwined that no amount of superficial texture packs, boob mods, and gun packs do anything but gloss over the problem.

Bethesda's games have been less and less RPG with each iteration, but they have reached a breaking point(for me) with this rendition of wannabe Fallout. It's more a blend of clunky FPS and Minecraft than it is an RPG.
 
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Drithius said:
Bethesda's games have been less and less RPG with each iteration,
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That's very subjective since there's no good definition of what is RPG. If I look into Wiki to read what RPG is, I have to laugh because Wiki's explanation fits Adventure type of games much better than those of RPG. Nevertheless, FO4 is quite an RPG considering Year 2016. It may not be a perfect RPG in terms of Year 1985 or Year 1995, but who cares actually about year 1985 except for historians? :)

It is a nice game though and funny enough to attract many players. This may turn some people off, especially those of us who don't like mass production and prefer something unique. Their loss, I would say.
 
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How is it their loss? Bethesda reproduces the same game every few years, each subsequent title being more and more watered down for broader commercial appeal. People know exactly what to expect out of the company - for better or worse.

So, if someone believes the company to be absolute rubbish when it comes to the person's definition of an RPG and acitvely avoids Bethesda hiking simulators, how would it be their loss? It's not as if Todd Howard is likely to change the very predictable formula (or game engine) anytime soon.
 
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Drithius said:
How is it their loss?
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That's my opinion and I'm not going to explain it to you, since talking to a hater is useless.

FO4 is indeed an open world RPG and it is similar to FO3. If FO3 was for you then you know what FO4 is. There are some differences of course like more comfortable gameplay, better graphics and a bit more interesting elements spread out through the world. I like FO because of exploration. Same thrill as I had in Skyrim. Only different settings.
 
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Drithius said:
How is it their loss? Bethesda reproduces the same game every few years, each subsequent title being more and more watered down for broader commercial appeal. People know exactly what to expect out of the company - for better or worse.

So, if someone believes the company to be absolute rubbish when it comes to the person's definition of an RPG and acitvely avoids Bethesda hiking simulators, how would it be their loss? It's not as if Todd Howard is likely to change the very predictable formula (or game engine) anytime soon.
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And yet, you still bought it… or at least bothered to play it, judging by your comments.

I'm a fan of Fallout 1 & 2 who was extremely disappointed with FO3. So I haven't bought FO4 and don't intend to play it, because from what I hear it's not that different / even more watered down…. Why torture yourself playing something you know is just going to disappoint / frustrate you? Are you that bored?
 
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