Before release we had heard that FO4 was rated at 400 hours of gameplay. Uhhhh, I'm at 300 hours and have completely maxed everything (minus the perk chart), side missions, all story endings, etc.. and am wondering how they came up with the 400 hours of gameplay scenario? With that said how many more hours of gameplay will the DLC bring (obviously respective to an average full play through)?

I'm at about 600, but I've played two characters.

The video game industry is a business, adhering to the same sales tactics as any other business. Devs always exaggerate the life span of your first playthrough the same way any salesman would exaggerate a product's most attractive features. As a rule of thumb, anytime a dev claims an RPG playthrough guarantees you hundreds of hours to complete everything, divide that number in half, then subtract 50 more hours for a more realistic figure.

I played 550 hrs.


But real contents worth barely 150 hours gameplay in my opinion.


Extra hours come not from undiscovered contents but from things u have already discovered and want to expand. like settlement & weapons

Agreed and just thought I'd ask. Skyrim gave me 200 hours with the base and another 200 with DLC and mods mixed. I have been very underwhelmed with FO4 but this is not to say I did not enjoy it nor consider it to be bad. Expectations were hyped and I've felt like this was finding a huge dinosaur with alot less meat than we were promised (underwater exploration, backstory lore, meaningful full bodied quests, memorable characters, etc...). Here's to hoping that in a couple years, DLC and mods bring the meat!

New Vegas was the only game that I could play for over 300 hours.

Oblivion I played close to 300 hours

Fallout 4 I put in around 200 hours but I'm pretty much done.

Skyrim I couldn't get pass the 150 hour mark.

Fallout 3 I could even get 100.

Morrowind I have no clue since the game doesn't tell you jack.

ya I have a little over 300 spread over 3 characters, I got pretty deep into the institute with my first playthrough and my others have just been wandering around idk I don't think I've even done more than one mission for B.O.S. and Tinker Tom kinda got on my nerve so I ruined my relationship with the R.R. by taking his hat ....anyway idk I guess it depends on what you do but ya Irwin's right the main game/real content is limited.

hmmmmm let see i have almost 600hs on Fallout.

But if i take on account how much took me to explore all and do everything on the game (w/o max leveling)

i will said Fallout 4 come close to 250-300 maybe. Still for me is a well spend money =P not much games give me that much play time. The only other game that isnt a Bethesda game i can think that i get that much of play time is WoW

People really held onto that 400 hours comment. It was never meant to be a feature of the game. It was a statement people took and ran with for some weird reason. I've played 500 hours and I'm still finding stuff. That doesn't mean there's 500 hours worth of content. He said he's played 400 hours and is still finding stuff which I think most people could agree to.

So absolutely no disrespect intended here but I am really wondering to the people at 600+ hours what in the heck you are doing to really soak up the fun in this barren land? I've covered every square inch multiple times, built up every settlement, collected all, maxed out all companions, finished the main story lines 5 different times (saving myself 2 different endings for future DLC/mod playthroughs) and just reached over the 300 hour mark.

I'm racking my brain, other than starting a new character and attempting a different path (which seems a little pointless given no Karma system or really huge alterations to different choices you can make), how do you stay entertained with this for so long? Is it just staying in the Fallout land or are you tapping in to hidden secrets that I have yet to discover that are outside the Survival Guide (which I only looked at once I had beat the storyline a couple times)?

Once Bethesda releases the GECK, you can best believe the modding community will definitely extend the life of Fallout 4 with wacky new, creative quests. Some even featuring new VA dialog, new land mass, the whole works. Though Bethesda has been pretty good with DLC so I'm sure we're guaranteed at least one more DLC that will match the size of Far Harbor. So far, Fallout 4 definitely has less content than the vanilla version of previous games. I think the content seems less meatier than previous games,because there is something new in every nook and cranny, unlike previous games where everything was spread out and you'd run around through barren areas for 5-10 minutes before discovering something cool.

Wasn't this a Todd Howard quote where he said that he had played well over 400 hours and was still discovering new things?

That isn't a promise of 400+ hours of content. I drive to work every day, and every once in awhile I see something new.

edit:

It's from a roundtable posted over at Gamesradar before the game was released:

"I've played the game probably 400 hours, and I'm still finding stuff that I haven't seen yet," lead producer Jeff Gardiner noted.

Ive only finished the MQ stuff once. But im like 1000 hours or close combined. I keep restarting when I get tired of my guys face lol.

Yes people are just taking it as a promise or feature. I really don't see how people misconstrue the comment to mean what they're thinking it means but it spread like fire on all the gaming sites after it was said. But that's what the media does lol

I've played for 350 hours, at the mark actually, nicely done me! But that is for 3 characters, and they have all finished their stories pre-DLC. Thing is how many hours of content is in a game is very subjective when its open world etc. We all spend different amounts of time on doing stuff. Some speed through everything, some just take their time. Honestly i have never spent 200 hours on any playthrough of any game. I think my longest Skyrim playthrough was 100 hours or so, and that was both DLC's, Mainstory, two factions and every Daedric quest, and it was on Legendary Difficulty. Some people will tell me i rushed it, but i played it at my pace. Not sure what the point of my post is, i have to write stuff!

So how's that "enormous" underwater exploration?

Well, I have many, but not yet 300-400, hours and am hoping the game just goes on and on; I really like it!

The underwater exploration that was never mentioned by anyone by bethesda? It was great. Almost as much enjoyable as the gaming sites made it out to be once they saw all the water and assumed there'd be something.

Side note, there is stuff under there with the groundwork of possibly being something DLC related in the future. Certainly a good opportunity for modders to do things. I'd like a vault settlement with underwater entrance myself.

I was using my first character for around 420 hours. My second character has been going for about 200 hours now. I think people were putting way too much stock in that likely arbitrarily chosen number.

Lol. Now that's funny.

DLC and mods. Granted, there is still time and room for this to become something useful but too bad for us who expected it in our first time experience. I'll need to create a new character to feel a nice sense of "underwater exploration" unless they do a huge overhaul of the game. I will be extremely happy if they do something with it but it's a bitter sweet feeling. After 300 hours of gameplay I'm taking a hiatus for at least 3 months from FO4. I'm looking forward greatly to the DLC but until it's all out, I'm tired of it. Just saying, that's all.

I mean, NV didn't have much going on in the water aside from that bomber and even then it wasn't much. We did have some stuff in PL like the sub and some wrecked ships, I assume we'll get something similar with Far Harbour considering it's island setting. But we'll see. I do feel like it's a missed opportunity somewhat. But with no DLC out yet I can't condemn them for it. The may have plans yet to be implemented. Overall I'd say I have more hours base game to base game than 3/NV though.

I mean, you got 300 hours out of a game. That's still quite something.


That is about the same I got, and only with one character.

I think 400 hours is a reasonable estimate. It certainly can't be promised, because different people will approach the game different ways. If you just focus on the MQ and play it through without varying off the path of one faction, that can be accomplished quickly. Afterwards though, some might lose interest as there aren't that many side quests out there that aren't faction related, and the radiant quests get repetitive quickly. Many gamers probably went the, play every faction out until you have to commit to a final path, in this instance. This stretches the game out much longer. Add multiple settlement building locations on top of it all, and discover all locations, 400 hours might even be an underestimate... Personally I got close to 700 hours on my first play through, probably because I was wrestling with the limited mechanics of building construction and finding work arounds and other technics to accomplish something beyond ordinary.

I don't see myself playing as many walk throughs as I did with Skyrim, the factions are too intertwined, but I do feel the game is well worth the purchase price as it stands, and I'll welcome DLC like Far Harbor. Holding off on my second play through until survivor mode drops.

Fair enough. I had read articles beforehand on making this sound big and was almost positive that somebody from Bethesda had stated how much exploration there was to be for the underwater element. I went in thinking we were going to have hidden treasures galore with quests in abundance and like many a thing in FO4, I felt this was a huge missed opportunity. The dismal voice acting and limited holotape reaction to the nuclear apocalypse unfolding was too me, a huge disappointment as I thought FO3 svcked me so much farther in to the Fallout immersion. It seemed one experience after another was just short and bland in comparison to both FO3 and Skyrim, even at the base level.

I would reference the "potted meat" quest along with the fun Eddie Winter scavenger hunts and the BoS entrance as being my most memorable experiences in fo4 but aside from this, everything else was forgettable.

Again, I'm a huge Fallout fan and I wanted to LOVE this game but in my quest to share a complete honest take on this, as of just a few months of it being out, I'm looking at FO5 or TES 6 unless the DLC/mods provide a "Revolution" to the commonwealth.

No doubt. And in comparison to the "gaming" field no one else holds a candle to Bethesda. With that said, it's more just underwhelming from looking forward to it so much. Absolutely love Fallout as a whole and FO4 still is a game I will play in the future, I just wish it had left me with the same "WOW THIS IS THE GREATEST GAME ON EARTH" type of feeling that FO3 and Skyrim had left me with. And really, it's not that FO4 just doesn't have it, it's that it feels like they spread themselves out too thin and that they didn't love the art as much as they worked the business. But still...