...charming.

Also, please explain how "all that work gone into your character is wasted", when you can keep playing it. What "wastes" the "work"? Where is the function that deletes your saves and/or prevents you from ever doing anything else with the character?

(And how is OWB-style "keep playing post-Finale with no reference to it" any different than "keep playing from a pre-Finale save"? Just the lack of being able to loot & equip Col. Autumn's laser pistol?)

Considering that we have settlements, and such being incorporated into the game...I think permaendings are not a worry in the slightest. Think about it like this:

Play game.

Build settlement.

Put work into settlement.

Set up caravans.

Progress through story.

Complete the main quest.

Game ends.

The above would be a classic case of the developer Punching The Player. Hard. I don't see Bethesda doing it. Not when they want you to invest time building things in the wasteland. I think the possibility of this is zero. I just don't see them being that stupid. They didn't put a lot of work into an open world game, with building construction (a whole system, pretty much unto itself) just so they could end the game and have you start over. I just don't see it.

Honestly, though. Given that after FO3, Beth said "Whoops, we see you're upset", released Broken Steel to "fix" the non-existent "problem", and then said "we've learned our lesson"?

There's no real discussion to be had here. FO4 will let you continue. Regardless of whether it was really a problem or not.

but if we were able to play the game after its complete.. then it would mean that the game isnt really complete..

Does it really need to be though?

Some people confuse completing a quest in the game with completing the game.

well, the original fallouts ended with you killing the main villian. So if they want to stick to the old school it better does.

This isn't Zelda or Mario 64. Ending the game after the final mission works for more linear games like COD or Half Life, or the aforementioned "linear game with a few things on the side" like Zelda or assassin's creed (though even they don't actually do it.) but not for these sorts of open world sandbox games. Otherwise it becomes a game of "let's avoid the main quest like it's the plague".

Also I'm getting really sick of the Fallout 1 fetishism in this thread.

... Yeah, Fallout 1 did end after the boss. It was the first game in the series and it didn't know what to expect, and open world gaming like this was relatively new at the time and this was coming from a company that was used to making much more linear games. In 2 they had you playing after that point was finished because they knew what they'd created and knew what did and didn't work and knew from feedback that players wanted to continue the game afterwords.

@ Trannigan. ALL of the Fallout games to date have had ENDINGS, Fallout 2 gave you the OPTION to carry on after you'd completed the game (main quest line), which I personally think is the way to do it (I was flamed down when I suggested it while New Vegas was in development).

As I've mentioned multiple times previously and will undoubtibly mention innumerable times again, MOST games have hard endings and do NOT allow you to play after completing the main storyline. It's the games which allow you to continue playing after finishing the main storyline which are the minority. The Fallout series is not the TES series, please don't try to force Fallout to become TES Apocalypse.

I think it's become pretty clear that Bethesda isn't content to stick to the style of the old school Fallout games.

I seriously doubt that Fallout 4 will have a definitive ending, and that isn't in and of itself a bad thing.

Bethesda Game Studios games normally don't have endings, and Todd Howard is on the record as stating that they probably won't have a hard ending again after the reaction they got for Fallout 3's ending. Like it or not, Fallout is now a BGS game. It's not those advocating open ended play who's trying to force change ... open ended is now the status quo. It's those who never fully accepted Bethesda's acquisition of the franchise who's trying to force the game back into the past.

@ Morchai. Most of Bethesda's games actually do have hard endings, Rage, Hunted: Demon Forge, The evil within, Dishonoured, Call of Chuthulu, Wolfenstein. It's their TES series which is open ended. So claiming that their games normally don't have endings is a load of twaddle.

Bethesda Softworks and Bethesda Game Studios is not the same thing. None of those games are Bethesda Games Studios games.

Those are games that Bethesda Softworks has published, they were created by other game studios. The only games Bethesda Game Studios currently makes are TES and Fallout.

Edit: Damn it, ninja'd

In fallout 2 it was optional to continue playing after the main quest. i for one stopped right after it because lets face it anything you do beyond that point is totally trivial and wont change the game outcome.

@ Rylasasin. In return stop trying to force Fallout to be come TES Apocalypse.

The reason I'm so adamant about hard endings is ALL of the games which were designed to be open ended and also have main storylines which you can finish have all be utterly insipid and overwhelmingly underwhelming with the end of the main storyline, and have all left at least myself feeling & saying "was that it ????" and left me feeling that nothing I did ingame made any difference at all to the game world (endings let you feel you made a difference as well as at least usually giving a good climatic end mission/quest/battle etc)

I've never said that that should then be it, I've been saying that we should then be given the OPTION to carry on or not as our personal preferences dictate. Which is apparently anathema to at least some of those who want to force Fallout to be open ended (end of story so to speak).

I mean that's great that you stopped, but a heavy majority would like to continue after play.

Does the option of starting a new game really differ that much from an explicit menu asking you whether you'd like to start a new game or continue in the wasteland?

But all of those except TES are not made by Bethesda,only published by them.

but whats the point though? if you want to explore the wastelands just do it prior to finishing the main quest.

If you want the game to end after the main quest, why don't you just start a new game or quit after all is said and done?

it doesnt offer as much of a sense of 'completing' the game as a plot climix, cutscenes and credits roll with game returning to the menu. you have to do the one you suggest manually while an official ending comes automatically.

In Fallout 3 at least I had lots to explore and do after the main story ended (and frankly the endng was moronic if you had a ghoul or super mutant with you), add in past experience with Bethesda TES/Fallout games and the settlements coming in Fallout 4 and it would seem that they are expecting us to continue playing rather than the main story being the big thing.

I'm expecting there not to be a hard ending in Fallout 4, if there is then the main story is likely to be buried in most of my playthroughs.

You weren't paying attention to a single thing I wrote, did you?

We aren't trying to force it to become TES Apocalypse. It already is and always has been since Fallout 1.

It doesn't require a hard ending. In fact giving it a "hard ending" is actually the lazy way out. It requires effort to be put into the post game content.