Yes I would see the additional light as a Pipboy feature. Like modern cell phones can use the camera flash as a flashlight. I definitely wouldnt want it as a hand held object unless it was attached to a gun and could then be toggled off.

Yeah like other have said,I will have to turn my brightness down to get nice dark interior like all Bethy's games.

I wouldn't mind. In FO3 and FONV, I have the darker nights mods. I also think I've got a mod that makes caves darker... so night vision or flash lights are a must.

Well, they did have flares in the original Fallout games.

Aside from that, I would certainly like some sort of flashlight weapon mod or something like that.

Yeah I tried them too but it chages some stuff that I didn't like,like fires was to dark then it what should be.

luckly,Bethy finally made colorfull world in FO4 so dark nights mods shouldn't in theory mess up the fire colors to much.

i hope.

See, I'm mostly okay with the interior lighting mods because they don't make everything pitch black. But sometimes, and always with darker nughts mods, it's just a reminder that the game wasn't designed that way in the first place. When they deliberately incorporate darkness into the level design like with other games, it's excellent and works great - but it doesn't work as well when you just turn out the lights in a normal room, you know?

As an aside: does anyone remember the dark levels in the old Crash Bandicoot games where you had to book it to the next checkpoint before your light source went away? I loved/hated those levels so much. Actually I mostly remember just hating them.

What did you think of DC's metro tunnels? I always thought they were freaky and wished I had a flash light when I first started playing that game.

But yeah, the darker nights mod's were cool, but sometimes they just svcked too.

If you look in their concept art they recently released (I cant link as I'm on mobile) they have various head gear that seem to have flash lights, magnifiers, and possibly some sort of night vision eye sights.

What about the Pipboy light?

Also, if you look at the power armor footage you can see that there is a light attached to the helmet. In some of the concept art they also show flashlights attached to homemade looking helmets.. (but that could just be for a specific character design.) I personally don't really care for flashlights as they are very counterintuitive to being sneaky. I was always fine just using the pip boy light.

The pipboy light is not nor has it ever been a flashlight or a decent replacement for a flashlight. The F3 engine didn't support directional light sources, only omni-directional ones, so the pipboy light was a very weak omnidirectional light source. Not at all like how a flashlight operates.

If the engine didn't support directional light sources, then how did modders pull off making flashlight mods? I just think Bethesda was lazy and didn't bother or didn't feel the need.

They faked it by creating a string of omni-directional light sources.

Not just that. Look at the Power Armor demo in the fight against the Deathclaw. You can see the light from the headlamp working - it's not doing much, since visibility is already pretty good in the first place, but it's definitely there.

The metro tunnels would have been perfect for a flashlight, at least in some areas. I thought the lighting was fine, it was a good balance of atmosphere without actually sacrificing visibility (low visibility needs to be a design choice, is what I've been getting at this whole time), but they could have easily included more sections that were much, much darker.

Hey but it still worked regardless of what sort of trick made it happen, it just seems that modders know Bethesda's game engines better than Bethesda knows them.

No? The mod required a script extender to use, and the game engine wasn't even built to handle that many omnidirectional lights in the first place. I've never used the flashlight mod, but I can't imagine it didn't have any issues or performance taxes.

It also becomes a matter of what Bethesda even wants to do. If they had decided they really wanted an actual flashlight for Fallout 3, they could have figured something out. But they probably didn't really care - especially considering they've never heavily incorporated utter darkness into their level design in the first place.

That's a really good point about the game not having a script extender...hmm. That begs the question why they don't develop their game with extended script anyway since it greatly expands development options. Chances are the answer would be they didn't feel the need, but after so many years of seeing how the modding community turns out so much content that's better than a lot that the game comes with, that they'd have made such a change.

Actually according to a pre release interview way back before 3 way out, the pip boy light design was intentionally weak, due to a inspirational real life event one of the devs had.

I will certainly not preorder unless you can fix the headlamp to your gun with shoelaces.

What an exorbitant requirement is this anyways? Headlamps. Playing in darkness is so much more immersive.

I want shoelaces for the headlamp, because it's me me me that can't walk through darknes without proper light...

I could see them having flashlight gun mods in the game. They do have the Power Armor headlight. Makes sense they would. Would be nice to have a flashlight on your pipboy. You can set it where the light surrounds you or set it to aim forward, like a flashlight. PC holds hand up to shine the light forward. I dont expect that at all, but would be great.

The Pipboy light is designed to let your enemies know where you are more so than providing a directional light source, lol

If only it worked that way in Fo3/nv

That's... not how script extenders work? The script extender adds scripting functions that go beyond what Bethesda needed... the base game isn't "missing" extended script functions, the script extender just adds new ones. Bethesda could add as many new script functions as they want in a game and the script extender team will always be able to add more. Kinda like adding new guns, or quests... except for script functionality.

Fallout 4's darkest at night will probably too bright and unrealistic by default.

Have to probably turn down the brightness, though that might not remedy any artificial light sources and glows that overcasualize the darkness.

maybe they will add mod options for more realistic darkness and more incentives to use things like flashlights.

A flashlight on the weapon will not be an option, I'm afraid. I went through the weapon customization video frame-by-frame and didn't see any hint of flashlights on weapons. Unless they sneaked it in there after the video or unless there's a strange combination of weapon mods required to equip a flashlight.

More likely, the flashlight will be available for helmet, à la "headlamp", like we see on the power armor helmet.