I agree with you that FO 4 is a disappointment, for me, because it is not an RPG. It is an action game and every now and again you get to talk to people as they send you out to go kill stuff.

depends on whether Obsidian get another shot

i don't think you play fallout 4, there's WAY more content than all previous bethesda games and NV is an empty barren map, void of anything interesting so thats not even worth comparing, and the "metacritic site" ROFL all the old isometric fallout 1 and 2 fans all BU#T#$RT that bethesda owns the franchise so they have to spam metacritic site with bogus reviews, giving it a 1 or 2, yeah ok,, they never even played the game, 2 to 3 days after the game came out they were spamming like crazy, you were proably one of em, people making several accounts, all the same dumb reviews "obsidian should of made fallout 4" "the graphics svck" , the dialolgue is bad", "its dumbed down", its the game of the year and broke all kinds of steam records not to mention its selling great and tons of people are playing it, so go go play fallout 1 or 2 and stop bother people on here.

I'm still enjoying Fallout 4 immensely though I don't think it's not the lack of RPG elements that flaw the game. For me, it's the fact that there should be more interesting things to do, like evolving quests that involve more than fetching an item or killing a target.

Like in Fallout 3, you could capture slaves for fun. Both 3 and NV had cool Nuka Cola quests. The Wasteland Survival quest in 3 was pretty cool since you actually helped write a book. Tranquility Lane quest was pretty awesome in a sick, twisted way. Tenpenny Towers had a cool twist for the 'do the right thing' type of players. Bethesda seems to be on the right track with the Wasteland Workshop DLC and the settlement combat zones.

I'm sure Far Harbor will be awesome in scale, though I hope there are more creative and interesting quests like the Silver Shroud, The Devil's Due, USS Constitution, Cabot House, and less of the 'go here, get that and kill so and so' fetch quests.

lol what? A ton of the reviews are from Fallout 3 fans. Did you even read the reviews? The Steam reviews are even more telling in my opinion.

By the way, 3D FPS/RPG is as old if not older than top-down. In fact, even the first RPGs were first-person. When the first Fallout came out, it was the black sheep in a sea full of Wizardry and Might and Magic titles.

I've been playing Fallout 4 like crazy since it's release. It certainly doesn't have more content than Skyrim, but that's not an issue for me -- it's not a TES game. Secondly, I'm a fan of Fallout 4 and Fallout 3. I'm a fan of Fallout. If you look at the reviews as a whole, even outside of Metacritic, all the complaints are similar. I honestly don't think metacritic was any conspiracy by anyone to simply spam negative comments. I really think, reading through many of the reviews, these people simply don't know how to give a proper review. Many of the 1 reviews were from people who gave up because their game was too bugged or that the graphics didn't look good. Believe me, many of the reviews are a complete joke, but I think it's silly to think it's a conspiracy by anyone to simply bring down their metacritic score. The professional reviews of the game remain at an 84 -- that's still much lower than Fallout 3.

Looking at your post though, it's just one big block of negativity. I play games, old and new, and I don't take sides because I love RPGs, and I love Fallout. I don't care what people play or what people like.

What are you smoking? Sales are everything. The only thing to the studio, publisher, and shareholders that own it. And the notion that 20 million people ran out and bought a game off "hype" is one of the dumbest, most nonsensical things that pops up on this board. People read reviews, watch videos on YouTube, and follow the development of any AAA title. Nobody but people purchasing it as a gift are buying off faith. It's simply something people looking to dismiss the massive popularity of this game through out as some sort of half-baked explanation. I've seen plenty of sequals sell less because people didn't like the direction. And it's not even just a matter of sales. FO4 broke tons of records. Including number of people playing on steam. Or did they just play it because of hype too?

.

So there are two straw man arguments here. The "you are an old fuddy duddy if your don't like FO4" and the "it sold moar, so it MUST be better". Neither argument applies here.

I am finding that the more I play the game, that it evolves and changes. I have sorted out places, and many levels later I have returned to a place and find completely different enemies there, usually much stronger, and even a different quest linked to it. The game evolving as my character is also evolving. Repeats, not really.

I do like there being settlements as a way of change in play, the settlers able to take care of themselves and left alone for a long time. It's good to see settlers acting as real normal people as well and chatting amongst themselves, providing they haven't all been assigned.

Role play speech, well I think you need the Scrolls for that, Fallouts were never big on speech, though there is the feeling in this game of being more part of a community if you build your own settlements, and the settlers do at least talk to you, a bit one-sided, but ok. It is not all go do this, do that. I am finding it an enjoyable game, playing it in my own way.

Disappointing after Fallout 3, not really. I did wonder how they would be able to make a Fallout 4 that would be a good as Fallout 3, and not be just a copy of 3. Beth did it mostly by added another dimension to the game-play, Settlements and the constant evolving of the game as the player evolved.

I think Fallout 4 works ok.

I'm hopeful but I fear it is wishful thinking....

Never going to happen.

Don't see why you would say that when both companies have said they talk to each other and that letting Obsidian have another go at it makes sense.

Bethesda Game Studio is fully staffed and capable, and it makes zero business sense to contract out another game to a 3rd party developer, especially after the huge success that FO4 has had. Zenimax ultimately has the final say, and they are all about the profit side of the business, and unless OBS gives their services away for dirt cheap, it's more cost effective to keep production in-house.

It makes PERFECT sense to contract out to another game dev in order to speed up production of the next installment so they can ride the success of Fo4 while its still fresh in people's minds and make more money..... you know, the same reason they got Obsidian to do NV so soon after Fo3?

Bethesda is going to be busy making TES6 for the next 3-4 years after the last Fo4 DLC comes out, plugging the gap with a game made by another company is a smart business move.

It really doesn't work that way. Beth will have their sights set on the next big project which is very likely to be the next Elder Scroll game. They've got their hands busy with that. Getting another developer to put out an followup to F4 makes as much sense as it did for F3, both Beth/zenimax and the 3rd party dev can potentially make a nice profit. the only real risks for Beth is if a poor quality product comes out and damages the franchise. The real question is would Obsidian want to take on the work or do they have their own plans keeping them busy?

I suppose we shall see. My experience in the industry tells me that it will remain in-house now, but I don't work for Zenimax/Bethesda, so I don't know for sure that will be the case. The numbers very often don't lie, and the profit margin for their in-house has been pretty telling.

I would not be so sure on TES VI - Remember Beth just recently stated they have three new and big long-term games in the planning.


Beth also said it will be very different from what we know but still keeping in line with the familiar format of TES/Fallout gameplay.