Is Fallout 4 Linear?


If that's linear, I wanna see your definition of "non linear".

Lots of great philosophical discourse on the true nature of linearity in this thread.

My opinion? Nope, not linear. Certainly not any more than any other Bethesda game except maybe Daggerfall.

No.


I've played linear games. This isn't one.

Bethesda's "main quests" tend to all be linear - they have a set sequence of quest stages, that you go through with very little variation each time. But that's just the MQ, the world & game aren't linear, and certainly not in the "follow the hallway" style of some/many story-based FPS's or various non-open-world RPGs.

Its not a true RPG, but no its not linear. I do not recommend the game

Oh, please! First you tell us that a circle is linear because the the circumerence is a line, now you're saying that a binary tree is linear because any single path has no branches when considered in isolation. Next thing you'll try and tell us that a sphere is linear because it's possible to define a series of points within the volume that make up a line.


You're not strengthening your argument with schoolboy debating tricks like this; it just makes it seem as though you've run out of honest arguments.

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Furthermore, Merry Christmas to one and all!

I think the problem is Fallout was originally izometric with focus on tactical fights and dialogs. Both of that is impossible to convert into 3d RPG, instead you have FPS element with some RPG, that sound quite linear itself. And it seems like Bethesda has problems to replace the features, that are in izometric games by something else.

I think Bethesda does a mistake when they threat Fallout franchise the same way as their fantasy franchise. Because fantasy itself has a lot of variability given by different roles you can take within different classes, also the fantasy setting itself is quite colorful, but when it comes to post-apocalyptic world, with FPS (not cyberpunk with a bit of magic), you have to deal with reality setting, where the variability is lowered from beginning, or to build up a good FPS with challenges.

I have no problem with taking away skills - they were only problematic in a FPS realistic game anyway, but with level limits that limit RPG only. And they didn't provide enough of other features, that would give you the needed variability of different playthrough (crafting isn't enough).

The only other features I can think of in such setting are choices in dialogues and a lot of different playthrough styles - like the good guy, charismatic, etc. They tried to put it there in some cases, but with 50% of the game being the very same faction optional quests, they killed any variability - the overall feel will be a dull game. And with a lot of hostile factions you cannot interact with, you don't have much other options.

In other post-apocalyptic worlds the tension is provided by survival element, and grey NPCs-everyone can be your friend or your enemy.

While in Fallout 3 Bethesda was able to implement a lot of choices with FPS missions, in Fallout 4 the good quests are scattered and the main features - factions feels the same.

So I believe, that Bethesa will have to put much more effort into features, that would give players the needed diversity, or it will feel linear. And they cannot say modders will do that, because it will not be their credit.

Fallout 4 is everything it needs to be. If it doesn't conform to the very narrow definition of "RPG" held by the most inflexible among the gaming community, then the simple truth is that it (or any other game, for that matter) doesn't need to. Being an RPG as more broadly defined by the vast majority of the industry and gaming community is enough.

As to being a linear on rails experience, apparently I've jumped the tracks. My second character is unfolding quite differently from my first.

Completely agree. It would be quite weird, and boring if games had to adhere to certain standards to qualify as an RPG, or an Adventure game. We'd all be playing the same boring games if that were the case. I don't think I would appreciate Bethesda games quite as much if they stuck to an exact formula in each and every game.

Agree with this.

I enjoy my legacy character more in FO4 because she's not the SS. She found the body of the SS, got curious and wanted to find the SS's son to satisfy her curiosity after reliving the SS's memories. And for some reason everyone thinks she is the SS, so she has no choice but to play along. That way, I can rationalise her getting distracted because my character's looking for someone else's kid on the side.

To bring my TES legacy character to Skyrim, it was much easier. She ended up in Skyrim because [reason].

In FO4, it's more difficult. She ended up in the Commonwealth because [reason] and she apparently has a son even though she's lisbian and never married a man (and would rather flee to the Glowing Sea) and she was living Pre-War.

There should be a mod where you can RP as anyone you please and you help the SS, rather than being the SS. That would dissolve the need for such a contrived backstory.

Okay. I take it all back. Nothing is linear except FO4.

After all, even a zig-zagging pattern IS linear . . .

Happy now?

Well, one point I want to make, is that FO 3 and 4 both also "direct you" towards a specific spot. You can ignore it of course, but you are saying that FO 1,2,and NV also direct you towards locations, and you can also, ignore it.

But, lets say you don't ignore it. The next settlement shown on your pip boy in FO 4 is DC, and that it. I can't remember what FO 3 puts on your map in Megaton, but I know you get GNR, and maybe you can get Rivet City, too(but that may be limited until you work up Moira, can't remember). So, FO 3 is more than FO 4.

In Fo 1, I think you get Junktown in Shady Sands(Shady Sands doesn't appear on your map, you just run into it after leaving the Vault heading towards V 15). In Junktown you get the Hub and maybe some other areas, but in the Hub you get just about everything except for maybe the Cathedral and Military Base(can't remember if Harold plops that on your map or not). Fo 2 it is even more widespread, getting all kinds of locations plopped on your map fairly early on, making it pretty free wherever you want to go(even on first play through and not knowing whattup). The only locations that are somewhat hidden are San Fran and Navarro(probably so someone doesn't finish the game in 30 minutes on first playthrough), but either way, the freedom is there, fairly early on.

Now in 4, I never got anyone to mark Bunker Hill on my map, which is odd imo, seeing how that the trader location(the wandering traders don't even mark it. uhhh?) and I didn't get Covenant marked either on first play, but I did through random dialogue in DC on my second. Which is kind of annoying because on my first playthrough I had a hard time finding actual cities(and thus, quests and stuff to do), so the only thing I really had to do was random exploration or follow the MQ.

But I don't think suggesting a route means linear, but in FO 4 it seems like it because marked locations are for some reason more difficult to get than previous games(and early on all the marked locations are connected to the MQ, unless you get lucky and pickup on some random conversation). Whatever happened to good old talking to people to find out about other settlements?

I've tried to reply to this twice and both times my cats (clearly budding literary critics) have jumped on the laptop keyboard and somehow cleared the message buffer. So I hope you'll forgive me if I keep this brief

"Well, one point I want to make, is that FO 3 and 4 both also "direct you" towards a specific spot. You can ignore it of course, but you are saying that FO 1,2,and NV also direct you towards locations, and you can also, ignore it."


I don't suppose I can really argue with the directing aspect of things. It's just that one game does it by mentioning a town in a computer report, and then letting the player enquire after the whereabouts of their father. The other one uses similar mechanisms, but backs them up by having bloatflies on one side of a fence and level thirty-whatever giant radscorpions on the other. It just seems to me that one of those approaches is far, far, far more heavy handed than the other.

"But I don't think suggesting a route means linear, but in FO 4 it seems like it because marked locations are for some reason more difficult to get than previous games(and early on all the marked locations are connected to the MQ, unless you get lucky and pickup on some random conversation). Whatever happened to good old talking to people to find out about other settlements?"

Yeah, I miss the confusing names and frequently inaccurate directions of Morrowind as well. Quest markers are here to stay, I suspect, but yeah, I'd sooner have to work for the location.

The important thing here though is that "linearity" is a matter of degree. It's not a question of whether a game is either "linear" or "non-linear". It's "how linear and compared to what and in what regard". I don't think NV is a rail shooter just because it very strongly tries to encourage you to follow a certain route. But I really don't see how anyone can claim that a starting character gets equal freedom to explore in NV compared to one in F3 or F4.

Gotta tell ya, i can do without 'em. Morrowind still holds the record for most time spent in any Beth game(over 2k hrs) and lot of that was blind wandering trying to find an unmarked objective. Currently i am at a loss in FO4 because the Railroad quest has no markers. I come to these games for exploration but I'm going to have to look it up soon because i just don't have an endless amount of time to look for it.

Well said DocClox. I actually found that FONV was more "limiting" in geographic exploration and more demanding in terms of "needing" me to go to certain places at certain points in the flow of the overall story. But it does seem there was more "real choice" with consequences at least in so far as the result of dialogues and the siding with various factions. Even with that said, I seem to recall that these "constraints" from choice in alliances were pretty easily gamed by the player. Been too long to recall with certainty, but I seem to recall it was possible to side with one of the criminal groups, and to ALSO side with the innocent civilians in the starting town.

The Apples and Oranges anology conveys the issue quite nicely. They are different games, with different flavors, different strengths and weaknesses, but all nutritious and tasty.

Well that is fine, and I can see someone saying that FONV pushes you in 2 directions rather than another(can still go east instead of south), but you originally also said this was the case for FO 1 and 2, and that is where I would really argue isn't true at all. There is absolutely nothing from keeping you going any way you want in the first 2 games, when you get close enough locations pop up on your pip boy world map. I find the first two games offer the most freedom, the MQ in both games isn't broken up into sections(like in the later games), they are simply "find a water chip" and "find a geck". Upon completion of those objectives, the MQ just moves on to something else. In 3, NV, and 4 the MQ is broken up into parts, each one having you chase a trail, in 3 it is dad, in NV it is benny, in 4 it is clues to Shaun.

Is the game linear? In some ways for immersion yes. Everything about your character in FO4 just feels too overscripted for the more mainstream "cinematic" story and I found it too constrictive for my tastes. There is just not enough plot-neutrality to the story that gives you the choice of how you want to be represented within it, instead you are defined by it. In NV however, you were just a courier who worked for someone that betrayed you, you could be anything you wanted in addition to that and weren't necessarily a good guy or bad guy.You just learned more from how other people handled situations similar to yourself. It was so much more morally relaxed. It had a blank slate to shape with it. In FO4 you don't get that much room to define your character's morals at all because of how much you are more leaned into abiding to being "good" while socially shamed by your companions for not being a savior they wanted you to be.

It was why they should have went back in more of the traditional oldschool RPG format where you could pick what you start as an avatar, and craft your origins as well like how you can craft weapons, and then the game sets you up based on your compilation. For the sake of narrative it should have been more like NV, more lore heavy and political advancement. Not solely about you. There's less emphasis on "surviving the wastes" and too much emphasis on finding your son.

All games are linear, they cannot be anything else. Modern games can provide the illusion of being non-linear but it can only be an illusion.


Do I have enough freedom in F4 to feel like I am master of my own fate? I feel like I do. As to replay value, Imo F4 has it in truckloads.


I think too many wannabes try and pick the faults in anything in order to appear intelligent and cool, and come out looking like the opposite.


I laugh when I think of those at work that ridiculed F4 and stated SWBF4 was the way to go, most of them have now bought F4.


I think F4 more than exceeds expectations and will continue to excel with dlc.


My friends play F4 differently than I do and have given me some great ideas which I intend to try in a future play through.


Is it linear? Yes, not enough t5be constrictive though.

Its not as if this is the first game of its type or even of its own installment. A lot of the concepts to it what people would rather consider for these games that by now aren't impossible to adhere to, it just never happened because Bethesda as you admit, lacks creativity from obviously cut corners.

I think you might be confusing the datum with the statistic or, in more general terms, confusing the part with the whole. The fact that any given path through the tree is linear does not make the entire tree linear becasue the totality of the tree is not confined to the path through the tree.

Not sure if it was touched on yet, but I think part of the reason FO4 seems so linear is because of the main premise of the story. To me, at least, it feels really weird having my character run all over the commonwealth doing things for people he doesn't know when he's supposed to be looking for his son. That makes me usually go a little too quickly into the main quest.

Yep, ludonarrative dissonance. It's kind of the same deal with Skyrim and Oblivion (other titles, too). There's this looming doomsday plot and yet the player is running around crafting potions and frolicking in the sunflower fields.

It's still massively easier to go south than it is east. You're quite definitely pushed south.

1 & 2 - well, maybe. If you do an outdoorsman build and if you're lucky with the skill and if you don't meet anything with ranged weapons that you can't outrun. And assuming you don't decide to explore b following the coast south and run into one of those encounters with hordes of centaurs and floaters and the like.

But yeah, I'm not saying it's not possible' just that it's far easier to follow the script, and I think that is intentional on the part of the designer. Also I don't think that I'm ever going to believe that grabbing a suit of Enclave armour at level one is a feature.

Still and all, I'm not saying either of those are bad games. They are both great fun and I enjoyed them immensely. I just think that Beth give you a world that's easier to explore in the beginning and which offers more options. Not so much in 4 as in 3, but even so I think this is one of the things the game does well.


If you look at it like that, Real Life is linear. The nature of time means that one event necessarily follows the one before, which in turn means that everything anyone will ever experience is linear. Including computer games. The trouble is that this definition, while undeniably true, is also completely useless. It's a waste of a word.

On the other hand, most gaming discussions in which I have participated seem to use "linear" to mean that your actions are not constrained to the same sequence of activities on every play-through, and that you can replay a scene and attempt quests in a different order, side with another faction, or even just head east instead of south. That is a rather more useful definition since some games conform to this ideal considerably better than others, and so it it gives us something to usefully discuss.


Quite.

Stories and narratives ARE linear there is really no way around this. Stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. Fallout 4 does as well but fallout 4 allows the player to engage this "main narrative" at their pleasure allowing them to explore or experience a multitude of different stories the setting provides without going through a linear progression of which stories or when you experience them.

So yes each individual story within the FO4 game is linear but you are able to experience this content on the whole in a non linear fashion.

Real life = linear? Must be some good stuff you're smoking dude! You are reaching for sophistry to put an argument forward,

Linear means you have to follow a corridor, simply because there are several branches to take along the way that always return you to the corridor does not equal non-linear.

Real Life - I can leave the commonwealth and explore the world.

Linear - Invisible walls around the commonwealth.

All games are Linear, they are constricted by memory space, hardware profiles and coding, they can only ever provide an illusion of freedom. Some games can do it better than others.