Authors Saving Throw / Fallout

• Fallout 3's ending caused some rather... negative reactions, in no small part thanks to its Diabolus ex Machina (as the endings boil down to "Good" (activate the water purifier and kill yourself with the ensuing radiation) or "Bad" (get Sarah Lyons to turn it on). Either choice prevents you from playing with that character further unless you have a save file prior to the final quest, and all of your companions, including those immune to radiation, refuse to activate the purifier for you. The DLC/Expansion Pack Broken Steel changes the ending, letting you send a radiation-immune companion to activate the purifier (though the ending narration still calls you a coward if you chose to do this) and allowing the game to remain playable regardless of your choice. Word of God says the game's default endings (without the expansion) are non-canon.
• The Fallout: New Vegas Downloadable Content Dead Money confused lots of players when it came out, as one of the major plot elements involves the Sierra Madre's Vending Machines. The Vending Machines are explained as being Matter Replicators, and characters with knowledge of the Pre-War world (like Father Elijah and Dean Domino) act like they were a common appliance before the Great War. However, a major part of the Fallout series' backstory is the Resource Wars, which had the world tearing itself apart over the last few remaining resources left on Earth. But why would the Resource Wars even happen if these Matter Replicators were so commonplace? However, the Old World Blues DLC solved this by having records in the Big Empty explain that the Sierra Madre Vending Machines were actually extremely state-of-the-art experimental machines before the War, and everyone that said otherwise during Dead Money was lying to the Courier, whether they knew it or not.
• While there are still many bones one can pick about Fallout 4, it's generally clear that Bethesda listened to a lot of the complaints given about 3 (and even New Vegas, to a lesser extent) when working on it.
  • Two of the most common complaints given to 3 were the revamped Karma system and how it interacted with the main quest. Many people complained that not only was the Karma system too easy to cheat/manipulate, but that it seemed arbitrary on assigning morality to certain people/factions in the Capital Wasteland. Relatedly, old-school Fallout fans complained that the East Coast Brotherhood of Steel was written as too much of a "White Knight" organization due to their active participation in the Wasteland instead of their Fallout 1 and 2 neutral alliance with other Wasteland factions), and the Enclave felt both shoehorned in and like a Designated Villain. Also, while all of the companions in New Vegas were well-received, many of their unique companion perks/best endings were either hidden behind obnoxiously subtle clues or infuriating bug issues. Fallout 4 amends all these issues by removing the Karma system entirely and replacing it with the new Companion Affinity system (which, admittedly, still has its own flaws). The new Affinity system - what the Sole Survivor's followers feel about their actions - now helps guide the Sole Survivor on a more personal moral level, giving their actions more weight. The Affinity system is also clearer on what a companion likes/dislikes, and makes it easier for the player to befriend them and level up their affinity with them so as to get a unique perk.
  • On another note, the Brotherhood of Steel characterization swung to the opposite extreme), with the Brotherhood Outcasts even being mentioned as rejoining the organization after Elder Maxson took charge. The aforementioned removal of the Karma system and the new take on the BoS also helps reinforce the game's Grey-and-Gray Morality, which is far more complex than 3's Black-and-White Morality and more like the complicated morality found in New Vegas. 4 also offers different faction-based endings to the main storyline like New Vegas (which 3 lacked), although it sadly still lacks the Modular Epilogue found in 1, 2, and New Vegas.
  • Several older Fallout fans complained that the decision to have 3 be set on the East Coast (while all the previous Fallout games were set on the West Coast in California) made it feel too distant and didn't give enough allusions to past events. While 4 is still set on the East Coast, the game has loads of Call Backs (Wattz Consumer Electronics apparently had a Boston office), Continuity Nods (Elder Maxson got his position thanks to the Lost Hills Elders back in California), parallels to previous games (the Institute is more or less a saner Think Tank without a Dr. Mobius to keep them in check), and Mythology Gags (The Brotherhood now has a zeppelin to use in their travels) to all the games before it. At times, it even gets to the point that 4 verges on Continuity Porn levels.
  • Many gamers complained about the lack of weapon variety and about the somewhat clunky gun play (like how the player had to manually switch to grenades/mines to use explosives) in 3. Others grumbled about how most of the residents of the Capital Wasteland came across as either just depressing or really insufferable, which made it hard for players to really care about the game's various storylines. Other players expressed annoyance/disbelief that the Wastelanders have unable to restart society in the intervening centuries after the Great War, especially while the West Coast has thriving nations & city-states like the New California Republic, the Shi Empire, New Reno, and Vault City. Meanwhile, 4 offers much more weapon variety, improves on the weapon customization introduced in New Vegas, and takes cues from countless other FPS games in making the gameplay more exciting and engaging (grenades can finally now be hotkeyed and used in conjunction with other weapons). Related to the above, while the residents of the Commonwealth still have their fair share of Jerkasses, most of them are either surprisingly friendly or just ordinary people trying to live their lives that are properly cautious of outsiders, helping incentivize audience investment. Also, all of the main factions are presented with both sympathetic and unsympathetic traits, and the player is allowed to join each of them to help serve as an Internal Reformist and improve the Wasteland. Finally, the lack of an organized government in the Commonwealth is actually a major plot point this time around, with it explained as being due to a combination of several factors:
    
    A) The nearby presence of the Glowing Sea, which helps provide a "safe place" for Demonic Spiders like Deathclaws, Charred Feral Ghouls, and Bloodbugs to thrive and continue harming the Commonwealth; and the Glowing Sea's infamous radiation storms which helps cause crops to fail and mass starvation to ensue.
    
    B) The Commonwealth Minutemen's recent Humiliation Conga triggering a second regional societal collapse.
    
    C) The Institute's near-constant meddling with the surface (which discourages people from organizing together and becoming a potential threat to their power).
  • In fact, the entire Settlement system has the purpose of helping create & organize peaceful towns and settlements across the Commonwealth, from which a new society can arise.
  • Last but not least, one of the complaints often leveled at Fallout 3 was how much darker and more depressing it was than its predecessors, lacking most of the series' dark humor. Ironically, while New Vegas was significantly cheerier (in part because of the Wild Wasteland trait), some complained that the game was too optimistic and breezed too much over the many serious situations in the game. Fallout 4 reaches a happy balance between the two, more or less. While the game still has a fairly grim and serious main story (with many a Gut Punch and Tear Jerker to be found), it's overall far Lighter and Softer than both 3 and New Vegas, cranking up the Black Comedy while being more optimistic and generally having sillier side-quests/random encounters.
• Concerning Fallout 4 itself:
  • After the base game was criticized for focusing too much on combat-focused endings for quests/bosses, the storyline DLCs (Automatron, Far Harbor, Vault-Tec Workshop, and Nuka-World) started to supply more varied options to solve quests/defeat bosses. For example, the usual ending to the Automatron DLC involves getting through a rather grueling attack sequence against the Mechanist's Mecha-Mooks, and usually then killing the Mechanist afterwards. However, the player can instead:
  • A) Pass the battle entirely if they have a high enough rank in the Hacker perk by accessing a normally-locked elevator to take them straight to the Mechanist's lair.
  • B) Peacefully talk the Mechanist down after the battle by either having a high-enough Charisma stat for the needed speech checks, or wearing the Silver Shroud costume to unlock unique dialogue options.
  • On a related note, Fallout 4 was criticized by fans for downplaying the series' famous reputation for Video Game Cruelty Potential. Several fans snarked (not unfairly) that the closest thing to an "Evil" option in the game was the "Sarcastic" dialogue option. The Nuka-World DLC can be seen as a response to this, with it going in the opposite direction of the base game (which leaned towards positive options) and instead leaned towards negative outcomes. In fact, the Nuka-World DLC is actually the first Fallout work that actually lets the player join up with Raiders, and even lead them on a massive invasion of the Commonwealth while sowing chaos and misery in their wake. Though, this does make the DLC worthless to good-aligned players on a story level.

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