inb4 "Not like that's a high bar" or "here comes the FO76 revision threads"
Anyway, let me preface this thread by saying a few things to get a sense of where I'm coming from:
1)I played ~90 hours of Fallout 4 on release. I "beat" it, and came to the conclusion that it was my least favorite Bethesda game and overall a mediocre game. I never played the DLC, which I heard included one actually decent expansion. I replayed it with mods on PC about a year ago, with emphasis on survival mechanics, and really enjoyed the 30 or so hours I did re-exploring the map, but dropped it pretty hard after some time. I played about 70 hours of FO76 within the first few weeks of the game's launch. I stopped somewhere at the beginning of December last year. I cannot speak to the game's current state, but I can speak to how I feel about the time I spent playing it. After 6 months of sitting on it, I still feel positive overall about my time with the game, and with the things I thought it did well.
2) Now, I can defend parts of this game because there are aspects of it which I like; what I can't defend is Bethesda's activity as a company surrounding the game. But there have been a myriad of threads about that already so I'm not going to cover that here.
3) If you had to ask, I would still place 3 above either this game or 4 in terms of how much I enjoyed it at the time of playing, and Obsidian's New Vegas even exponentially higher above 3. That being said, you can enjoy multiple things for different reasons without having to tear down the others.
Now, I think 76's map is genuinely great on an environmental design and artistic level. The variety of environments, as well as the overall quality and level of detail of the design, is genuinely impressive and I believe surpasses 3, 4, and even New Vegas. Yes, you read that correctly. Here are some examples, all screenshots taken by me:
One thing Fallout 4 had, to varying degrees of quality, was a relatively dense map with a lot to do. Fallout 76, despite lacking NPC's, actually has a LOT of content to uncover pretty much everywhere you go. On top of that, the notable enemy variety (as well as enemy design) and environmental storytelling is almost forced to be at a higher mark than normal due to the game's core design being so oddly restrictive about keeping those previously seen elements out. The game's loose framing of following in your Overseer's tracks around the map adds a cohesion to the world that reminds not only the player, but the developers too, of how each of these areas once interacted with and continue to influence each other, before and after the bombs, respectively. One actual faction questline in the game involving a sisterhood named the Order of Mysteries, I think, is a standout storyline not only in 76 but in Bethesda's entire catalogue.
It involves following the life of a middle-aged actress named Shannon Rivers, whose beloved role as the "Mistress of Mystery" in the radio adaptation of the fictional "Silver Shroud" comic book series was the highlight of her career before the War. Through audio logs and journal entries, you hear Shannon's account of dealing with producers and Hollywood executives in creating a more inspiring and positive depiction of her character (who's often sexualized and pushed as Silver Shroud's femme fatale foil), all while pushing herself to fulfill the role as best and as faithfully as she can. Shannon is eventually told that the radio show is going to be adapted into a live-action adaptation, but due to her age and despite the commitment with which she trained herself to play the role, she'll be ousted in favor of a younger and "more attractive" actress. She sees her career hit a wall and this opens up deep vulnerability in her character which the narrative delves into. Due to Fallout satirizing mid-20th century Americana and its cultural impact, it's no mystery what this questline has to say about those themes of entrenched mysoginy and exploitation which come with the setting. It would take a while to summarize, and I'd rather not openly spoil it.
This is what I had to say in the OT at the time I completed it:
Overall, despite the massive glaring issues of the game, I enjoyed my time with 76 much more than I did with 4. Yes, its already paltry claim as an RPG are basically completely gone with the card system and lack of dialogue or NPC's (there's one travelling Super Mutant merchant but that doesn't really count), but in terms of moment to moment gameplay, there's a greater variety in what you're actually doing, even compared to New Vegas. You're scrounging materials for use because they actually are important, water/hunger and radiation is something you actually have to pay attention to, and even caps or ammunition is not something you can basically just forget about after a few hours, at least not until much later than in other Fallouts. On top of that, discouraging fast travel by making it cost caps forces the player to actually engage with the world more often, which is chalk full of encounters and environmental mysteries. Now, don't get this misconstrued with me saying I think it has better overall gameplay than New Vegas, or maybe even 3, but the retention it draws from the player in its "small-picture" design is definitely higher than those predecessors, which consisted of running (without mods to sprint)/fast travelling to locations to shoot things or make an ability check, which is ultimately just choosing a dialogue option.
I don't know if Fallout 76 as it is now is worth your time, or if it will somehow be turned around to become a genuinely great game with the upcoming patches and expansions, but it's a game that I went into expecting to hate, and came out enjoying for some things that it does really well. After seeing what Bethesda has in store for the game at E3, which albeit comes across like an Onion article in the form of "NOW INTRODUCING: DIALOGUE OPTIONS AND ACTUAL NPC's", I have hope that it can eventually match the quality of some of the few aspects about it that I think are worth remarking.
Anyway, let me preface this thread by saying a few things to get a sense of where I'm coming from:
1)I played ~90 hours of Fallout 4 on release. I "beat" it, and came to the conclusion that it was my least favorite Bethesda game and overall a mediocre game. I never played the DLC, which I heard included one actually decent expansion. I replayed it with mods on PC about a year ago, with emphasis on survival mechanics, and really enjoyed the 30 or so hours I did re-exploring the map, but dropped it pretty hard after some time. I played about 70 hours of FO76 within the first few weeks of the game's launch. I stopped somewhere at the beginning of December last year. I cannot speak to the game's current state, but I can speak to how I feel about the time I spent playing it. After 6 months of sitting on it, I still feel positive overall about my time with the game, and with the things I thought it did well.
2) Now, I can defend parts of this game because there are aspects of it which I like; what I can't defend is Bethesda's activity as a company surrounding the game. But there have been a myriad of threads about that already so I'm not going to cover that here.
3) If you had to ask, I would still place 3 above either this game or 4 in terms of how much I enjoyed it at the time of playing, and Obsidian's New Vegas even exponentially higher above 3. That being said, you can enjoy multiple things for different reasons without having to tear down the others.
Now, I think 76's map is genuinely great on an environmental design and artistic level. The variety of environments, as well as the overall quality and level of detail of the design, is genuinely impressive and I believe surpasses 3, 4, and even New Vegas. Yes, you read that correctly. Here are some examples, all screenshots taken by me:
One thing Fallout 4 had, to varying degrees of quality, was a relatively dense map with a lot to do. Fallout 76, despite lacking NPC's, actually has a LOT of content to uncover pretty much everywhere you go. On top of that, the notable enemy variety (as well as enemy design) and environmental storytelling is almost forced to be at a higher mark than normal due to the game's core design being so oddly restrictive about keeping those previously seen elements out. The game's loose framing of following in your Overseer's tracks around the map adds a cohesion to the world that reminds not only the player, but the developers too, of how each of these areas once interacted with and continue to influence each other, before and after the bombs, respectively. One actual faction questline in the game involving a sisterhood named the Order of Mysteries, I think, is a standout storyline not only in 76 but in Bethesda's entire catalogue.
It involves following the life of a middle-aged actress named Shannon Rivers, whose beloved role as the "Mistress of Mystery" in the radio adaptation of the fictional "Silver Shroud" comic book series was the highlight of her career before the War. Through audio logs and journal entries, you hear Shannon's account of dealing with producers and Hollywood executives in creating a more inspiring and positive depiction of her character (who's often sexualized and pushed as Silver Shroud's femme fatale foil), all while pushing herself to fulfill the role as best and as faithfully as she can. Shannon is eventually told that the radio show is going to be adapted into a live-action adaptation, but due to her age and despite the commitment with which she trained herself to play the role, she'll be ousted in favor of a younger and "more attractive" actress. She sees her career hit a wall and this opens up deep vulnerability in her character which the narrative delves into. Due to Fallout satirizing mid-20th century Americana and its cultural impact, it's no mystery what this questline has to say about those themes of entrenched mysoginy and exploitation which come with the setting. It would take a while to summarize, and I'd rather not openly spoil it.
Anyway, once the bombs hit, Shannon and her husband Fred (a RobCo engineer) struggle to raise their young daughter Olivia in a world ravaged by the war. Due to her dedication as an actor, Shannon finds that she is able to use her skills in stunt-training and basic survival techniques, as well as her husband's engineering abilities, to create a relatively safe home in their sprawling Riverside Manor (seen in the final screenshot I provided), which the player stumbles upon as a start to the questline. This comes to a head when the family confronts a group of bandits and rescues a group of orphaned girls. Months go by, and Shannon raises the girls on their estate as her own. After repeated struggle and hardship, her altruism sparks the idea in Shannon's head that she is capable of fulfilling the role of a hero that she previously only had served as in fiction, and that it's her responsibility to use her abilities to help others in the apocalypse. Fred, using blueprints and materials he had on hand from his time as an engineer, had built numerous items to help fulfill her role as the Mistress. This eventually resulted in an underground hideout below the Manor, pretty much like the BatCave. With this headquarters, Shannon decides to take on the girls as her proteges and raise them to be a group of highly-trained scouts, assassins, and survivalists modeled after the Mistress of Mystery, for the purpose of saving what little good is left in Appalachia, especially from opportunists and raiders who prey on the weak and take advantage of the destruction the war brought. She creates the "Order of Mystery" as an organization to take in, train, and divide responsibility among her daughters, and other young women in need who join, in completing various missions. Over the next decade, they stop bandits from overtaking the region, deal with some of the areas most dangerous creatures, and generally help to save those in need, but only when absolutely necessary in order to remain hidden in safety from within their seemingly decrepit manor.
The player follows in the footsteps of some of the sisters, listening to their stories and retracing the steps taken on their missions in tracking down important items and gadgets that they will repair in order to become fully-fledged members of the Order (regardless of the player's gender, though the system assumes the player is female due to an override). This search takes the player on a journey through vastly different areas of the map, and includes delving into abandoned government sites filled with robot protectors, corpse infested towns overtaken by radioactive creatures, and city-scapes wracked by flooding and decay. These items include a sword, pistol, EMP disruptor, and clothing that allowed the sisterhood to traverse in dangerous environments while remaining stealthy and protected. Through audio logs and journal entries, the player learns that over time, a sense of resentment grew in Olivia as her mother's heroic idealism and strictness drove a wedge in their mother/daughter relationship. Due to not wanting to appear to play favorites with her own biological daughter, Shannon often dismisses Olivia's concerns of their group being overly passive and misguided, all while Olivia continually proves herself to be the most capable member of the Order. Eventually, one of of the girls (now young women) disappears and dies while away on mission. This loss shakes the foundation of the sisterhood, and further drives Olivia from her mother. Issues with the group's missions become more and more frequent over time as the Order's activity seems to draw the attention of the surrounding bandit groups. (Coming across one of the corpses of the sisters also prompts this faction questline for the player as an alternative to finding the manor). Shannon is racked with guilt and driven to desperation as her adopted daughters begin to die under her watch. Olivia fights with her mother over how to deal with the situation, and disappears. It is later revealed that Olivia had made a secret deal with a Bandit named Brody Torrence, who was her childhood friend, to join up and take over the Bandit group he belonged to in exchange for minimizing the Order's interference with Bandit activity in Appalachia by feeding them information about their plans. Olivia would use this to insert herself into the Bandits, and usurp leadership in order to bring stability to the region with outright force as opposed to her mother's method of covert and limited influence. Brody took advantage of Olivia's trust, and used it to hunt down Olivia's sisters rather than outmaneuver them as Olivia assumed he would. Olivia's disappearance is revealed to be out of anger and regret for her betrayal.
The rest of the Order is hunted down until it is just Shannon, who is nearly broken by the collapse of her family, and the destruction which she feels her actions, inspired by her role as a fictional character, have wrought in the harsh and unforgiving reality of their post-nuclear world. But, if you've been paying attention, this new barbed-wire and mutant infested reality fueled by the atom isn't the one which really drove this destruction on Shannon and her daughters. It was the pre-War reality, the manipulative and implacable reality of Hollywood's identity-distorting machine, fueled by exploiting dreams and fiction, which would eventually annihilate hers.
Olivia contacts her mother, and reveals her betrayal, and asks for them to meet in a beloved camping spot from her childhood that Shannon promised but failed to take Olivia to just before the bombs fell due to obligations to her role as the Mistress of Mystery. Using inference from one of the earliest journal entries in a computer found among the rubble of Olivia's room in the manor, the player discovers this to be Seneca Falls, a distinct landmark in the world. When arriving, the player will find Olivia and Shannons' corpses embracing one another, and discovers that the two were ambushed by Brody after a fight ensued among themselves, which ended with Olivia defeating her mother. They die together, realizing the mistakes they made which drove their conflicting ideals.
The player follows in the footsteps of some of the sisters, listening to their stories and retracing the steps taken on their missions in tracking down important items and gadgets that they will repair in order to become fully-fledged members of the Order (regardless of the player's gender, though the system assumes the player is female due to an override). This search takes the player on a journey through vastly different areas of the map, and includes delving into abandoned government sites filled with robot protectors, corpse infested towns overtaken by radioactive creatures, and city-scapes wracked by flooding and decay. These items include a sword, pistol, EMP disruptor, and clothing that allowed the sisterhood to traverse in dangerous environments while remaining stealthy and protected. Through audio logs and journal entries, the player learns that over time, a sense of resentment grew in Olivia as her mother's heroic idealism and strictness drove a wedge in their mother/daughter relationship. Due to not wanting to appear to play favorites with her own biological daughter, Shannon often dismisses Olivia's concerns of their group being overly passive and misguided, all while Olivia continually proves herself to be the most capable member of the Order. Eventually, one of of the girls (now young women) disappears and dies while away on mission. This loss shakes the foundation of the sisterhood, and further drives Olivia from her mother. Issues with the group's missions become more and more frequent over time as the Order's activity seems to draw the attention of the surrounding bandit groups. (Coming across one of the corpses of the sisters also prompts this faction questline for the player as an alternative to finding the manor). Shannon is racked with guilt and driven to desperation as her adopted daughters begin to die under her watch. Olivia fights with her mother over how to deal with the situation, and disappears. It is later revealed that Olivia had made a secret deal with a Bandit named Brody Torrence, who was her childhood friend, to join up and take over the Bandit group he belonged to in exchange for minimizing the Order's interference with Bandit activity in Appalachia by feeding them information about their plans. Olivia would use this to insert herself into the Bandits, and usurp leadership in order to bring stability to the region with outright force as opposed to her mother's method of covert and limited influence. Brody took advantage of Olivia's trust, and used it to hunt down Olivia's sisters rather than outmaneuver them as Olivia assumed he would. Olivia's disappearance is revealed to be out of anger and regret for her betrayal.
The rest of the Order is hunted down until it is just Shannon, who is nearly broken by the collapse of her family, and the destruction which she feels her actions, inspired by her role as a fictional character, have wrought in the harsh and unforgiving reality of their post-nuclear world. But, if you've been paying attention, this new barbed-wire and mutant infested reality fueled by the atom isn't the one which really drove this destruction on Shannon and her daughters. It was the pre-War reality, the manipulative and implacable reality of Hollywood's identity-distorting machine, fueled by exploiting dreams and fiction, which would eventually annihilate hers.
Olivia contacts her mother, and reveals her betrayal, and asks for them to meet in a beloved camping spot from her childhood that Shannon promised but failed to take Olivia to just before the bombs fell due to obligations to her role as the Mistress of Mystery. Using inference from one of the earliest journal entries in a computer found among the rubble of Olivia's room in the manor, the player discovers this to be Seneca Falls, a distinct landmark in the world. When arriving, the player will find Olivia and Shannons' corpses embracing one another, and discovers that the two were ambushed by Brody after a fight ensued among themselves, which ended with Olivia defeating her mother. They die together, realizing the mistakes they made which drove their conflicting ideals.
This is what I had to say in the OT at the time I completed it:
Overall, despite the massive glaring issues of the game, I enjoyed my time with 76 much more than I did with 4. Yes, its already paltry claim as an RPG are basically completely gone with the card system and lack of dialogue or NPC's (there's one travelling Super Mutant merchant but that doesn't really count), but in terms of moment to moment gameplay, there's a greater variety in what you're actually doing, even compared to New Vegas. You're scrounging materials for use because they actually are important, water/hunger and radiation is something you actually have to pay attention to, and even caps or ammunition is not something you can basically just forget about after a few hours, at least not until much later than in other Fallouts. On top of that, discouraging fast travel by making it cost caps forces the player to actually engage with the world more often, which is chalk full of encounters and environmental mysteries. Now, don't get this misconstrued with me saying I think it has better overall gameplay than New Vegas, or maybe even 3, but the retention it draws from the player in its "small-picture" design is definitely higher than those predecessors, which consisted of running (without mods to sprint)/fast travelling to locations to shoot things or make an ability check, which is ultimately just choosing a dialogue option.
I don't know if Fallout 76 as it is now is worth your time, or if it will somehow be turned around to become a genuinely great game with the upcoming patches and expansions, but it's a game that I went into expecting to hate, and came out enjoying for some things that it does really well. After seeing what Bethesda has in store for the game at E3, which albeit comes across like an Onion article in the form of "NOW INTRODUCING: DIALOGUE OPTIONS AND ACTUAL NPC's", I have hope that it can eventually match the quality of some of the few aspects about it that I think are worth remarking.
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