Is anyone else worried about the apparent lack of settlements in Fallout 4, especially after the QuakeCon demo? Hear me out.

In both the e3 footage AND the concept art, we've only really seen one settlement in Fallout 4 - Diamond City. And Diamond City? Looks quite small and underwhelming to me (looks a lot like Megaton), and yet it is probably the game's major city as the Commonwealth itself is probably just full of scientists and workers. Furthermore, the QuakeCon 2015 demo confirmed that Concord was the HQ for the Minutemen, and it also confirmed another location, Lexington, as a settlement that was recently taken over by ghouls. This has echoes of New Vegas, which is a worrying sign.

On your way to New Vegas, you passed a handful of settlements that had great potential, and would've made the game feel more alive and lived in. Primm was a shadow of its former self due to the Powder Gangers, Nipton was massacred by Caesar's Legion, Nelson was taken over by them, and Boulder City was recently destroyed.

I bet Bethesda consider Concord as a major settlement in the game, even though it only houses 5 or 6 Commonwealth Minutemen. And, with Lexington conveniently taken over in what seems like a few weeks or months before the Sole Survivor's arrival, it seems that they are following a similar path to their previous titles. Add that to the ability to create your own settlements (essentially doing Bethesda's work for them), and I think we have something to be concerned about.

I get that it's a post-apocalyptic wasteland, survival is rare, and the Commonwealth is supposed to have this reputation of a "quagmire of violence and despair", but I was hoping that Fallout 4 would improve in this regard. Bethesda has always had these epic open worlds, but the amount of settlements and the size of these settlements has always been disproportionately small in comparison.

Everyone remember Skyrim and it's major cities? Cities like Dawnstar, Winterhold (literally four buildings and a college), and Morthal? With the perk system now reflecting Skyrim's, I wonder if FO4 is going to reflect that game too closely (my personal least favourite in the TES series - although that's an argument for another day )

Um, I don't know what you've been reading, but from what I've seen so far, Fallout 4's perks are NOT like Skyrim's. At all. It's almost like you're invoking a comparison for no other reason than to provoke people.

That being said, as far as I'm concerned, the built environment has long been one of the weakest aspects of Bethesda's world's. You mention the tiny cities in Skyrim, but it was worse than that. Of the unique cities, most of them were little more than facades. Markarth and Windhelm were particularly bad about that with very few free standing buildings. Riften was also bad. Solitude, while it did have a lot of free standing buildings, had the problem of the interiors and exteriors not matching up. It is particularly noticeable in the cathedral, Blue Palace and the Hall of the Dead. Whatever, if you ignore Dragonreach, probably has the best free standing buildings of them all. Unfortunately it's far too open and sparsely built up. It doesn't feel right for an ancient city on a hill.

So in all honesty, when it comes to Fallout 4's built environment, my expectations are a minimum.

I personally feel after oblivion their city design started becoming less impressive. Any city in morrowind or oblivion has much more scale to them than anything in fallout 3, skyrim or new vegas(i know it was made by obsidian). I would say I'm a bit scared, but so long as at least one settlement has enough development to be interesting I can deal with that.

Not like Skyrim's? They removed the skill system, just like in Skyrim, in favour of a perk tree, and you say it's not like Skyrim's "at all"?

And that's exactly right - the built environment is one of the weakest aspects of Bethesda's worlds. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't change. They revamped the combat, so I was hoping for an improvement on settlements/cities, but I'm afraid that no such improvement has been made.

That's because larger settlements are fundamentally counter to having more world to explore, and usually amount to nothing but fluff anyways.

The Imperial City is a great example, its fairly large, but how much of it did you ever actually use? Not much, in fact, most of the houses in the city served no purpose beyond being fluff items to make the city larger.

It basically boils down to if you want

A. A city like GTA, or the Imperial City in Oblivion, where everything is a cardboard cutout, NPCs are nothing more then props that walk around the block all day and cant be interacted with, and 99% of buildings cant be entered, or, if they can, they have basically nothing in them.

B. A city like in Morrowind or Skyrim, with far fewer buildings and NPCs, but ones that you actually enter every building, talk to every NPC, and generally find a use for every building in them.

I think you're getting things mixed up. Skyrim had skills. It was the stats that were removed. The perks you could choose were dependent on how high your skill was and had to be picked in order. Also, only a handful of them had multiple ranks.

From what I understand, Fallout 4 still has stats (SPECIAL). It's the skills that have been removed. The perks you can take are limited to how high it's governing stat is, but you can choose any of the perks available. They are also all multi ranked. There may also be perks obtained by other means.

So no, it isnt like Skyrim. About the only thing they have in common is that they use perks.

As for the main point of the thread, you act like the sky is falling and the game will svck because of something you thus far know very little about. It's more likely to be simply more of the same. Is that good? Maybe not and they could certainly stand to improve in this area. However, it really isn't something to freak out over. Not yet, anyways.

What I would like to know is to what extent do we have load free interiors.

Hopefully not too much - I wouldn't want buildings to have to be "simplified" so that all the clutter/etc could load into the same worldspace as the exterior. Honestly, loading screens have never bothered me. Maybe because I'm on PC and they're not as long as console?

As for the main question - no, I'm not particularly worried. But, then, I'm looking forward to the game instead of worrying about everything (seems like the forum is all "worried about " threads sometimes. )

You think that because they haven't shown more than 1 big city in what is 2-3 trailers that there aren't any more? Want them to spoil everything for you?

I'm all for load free interiors as long as they don't do what you say. I'm not really worried either, like you I'm looking forward to the game!

Yeah, I meant stats. But can't you see the similarities? Judging by the QuakeCon information, many of the perks in FO4 will be based around increasing your proficiency with certain weapons and skills, in order to reflect the skill system that they threw out. In other words, I fear that everyone will be good at using all types of weaponry. Sure, you can specialise in one type, but a perk tree doesn't offer the same penalties as the skill system.

I am looking forward to the game, actually. This is one of my very few concerns, and I think it's a discussion worth having (it's not like I'm actually tearing my hair out over this, just surprised that it hasn't been discussed yet). They improved the combat (yay), so why shouldn't they improve this major aspect of their world building?

No, but Diamond City is all they've shown, and they've shown it a lot. There might be more settlements, but it's obviously the largest settlement they're offering - which isn't very big.

I think the similarities are minimal and that they are fundamentally very different systems. Different enough, even that calling it "like Skyrim" is misleading and wrong.

I'm betting that Scollay Square will be decently sized. I have a feeling that it'll be Fallout 4's "Freeside" of sorts. That said, I doubt that it'll be bigger than Diamond City.

My guesses for major settlements are: Diamond City, Scollay, the Institute, wherever the heck the Brotherhood of Steel made camp (I'm betting on BOS aka Logan Airport), and probably 1-2 more large towns.

Everything else will be small like Fallout 3's Big Town, Arefu, or Canterbury Commons.

I would definitely like to see an increase in traders too.

Forgot about Scollay Square.

And yeah, I don't think there'll be much of a shortage of small Arefu-esque towns, but beyond Scollay Square and Diamond City I don't see there being many places to trade and chill out with a community of other survivors.

I think they're trying to save the rest of the settlements for us to discover. I mean, they only showed us Whiterun and Riverwood for Skyrim before it was released iirc.

Well, there will be whatever location that is the main HQ of the Brotherhood as a settlement. And if my gut feeling is right, the Institute will be a faction we can align with, and thus they too will be a settlement we can visit. Those will probably be two "big" settlements.

I also have a feeling we'll be seeing a settlement/faction of sentient synths somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

I don't think there will be a lack of settlements. I think they're saving most for when we get the game.

I hate to sound fickle, but I don't really see Brotherhood HQ's and a scientist lab as settlements. I mean, they are, but what Bethesda's games need more of are large settlements full of ordinary people to talk to, trade with, play card games with, and do quests for.

In Fallout 3 and New Vegas, one of the best spots too trade was with the Brotherhood. Now I'll admit, the talk, card games and quests were sorely lacking, but I rarely spent a lot of time in town... unless it's for a quest. And the Institute is going too be more than a scientist lab, we don't know how many scientist and those who support them will appear, but they also need stores/traders, bars, etc. etc., to wind down and relax just like everyone else.

Though based on Bethesda, it'll probably be a bare minimum, but that's what modding is for

You know, I think there are too many crazy people in this thread that simply don't get it. They obviously don't understand that a lack of evidence/information clearly means that something won't be in the game.

Thing is, I can't tell if you're going for some sort of over-the-top sarcasm thing, or if you're being serious. (hazards of the internet, eh?)

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All in all, I was okay with the towns in Skyrim and with most of the ones in Fallout 3 (Arefu was a bit off). So.....

I have a feeling that MIT is gonna be an actual town Instead of just a lab. It's 168 acres and housed thousands of students and faculty. Even with the apocalypse, I bet that they preserved a sizeable population. Toss in synthetics and I bet that it'll be pretty substantial.

True. I guess keeping MIT a secret does make sense.

Who are you talking to?