Is there ever going to be a Fallout 4 Demo that we could download and play before the actual game comes out, and more than 1 week before? It would be great if it was for all platforms that are getting Fallout 4.

I'd love to be part of its beta, but people seem to think that single player games don't have invite betas. I've beta'd for over 60 different games since 2001, and that thought that single player games don't have betas is BS!

No. Bethesda to my knowledge has ever done that.

I would be shocked if they did.

Almost no games do this anymore. Even less of a chance with this game.

Yup

Demos are part of the dustbin of gaming history now, as was said virtually no one does demos anymore. Hidden demos/beta tests where developers release unfinished games and let the wider public find problems that are patched in the first few days after release, on the other hand... many games do that one, sadly.

I think they did it for TES II: Daggerfall, but that was quite a long time ago and it was a different person in charge (Julian LeFay). The last time they let outside people play a demo version of a game of theirs was Skyrim, but I think they wound up revealing more of the game than they intended, and they probably don't want it to happen again with Fallout 4.

Demos don't usually happen for single player based games. Games with an online option, might have a beta test. But that's about it. And being since this is a single base game, I don't think it will have a demo at all. Being it would be a rather large download for a demo.

Beth don't do demos for there games, which kinda makes sense, how do one make a limited demo of a open sandbox game, without ruining the feeling of open sandbox that's at the core of a Beth game.

With a time limit, they did it for just cause 2

Okey how do you make a demo of a sandbox RPG and don't spoil the story to much then ;p

Give them only 2 min of playtime

That would not be enough Time in a game like this. You would not even get to the vault, or past the character create section. Big game, you would walk then demo over if it was two minutes.

I believe there was a demo released for Elder Scrolls: Arena on a 3.5 floppy disk..

No one really does demos anymore. A few small developers will do this but for most, the "demo" has shifted into "early access," in which you pay for the "privilege" of beta testing for the developer. Seriously, why have in house beta testers that you need to pay when you can hype the game up, market the hell out of it, show off aspects that are working properly and masses of people will pay you to beta test for you? MMO type games will still usually do a stress test beta event that lasts around 3 days or something, just so they can stress test their servers (which incidentally never actually accomplishes anything since their servers are always overloaded and broken on launch day regardless of their "stress tests").

Consider the purpose of a demo is to show of the game that kinda fails to do so, plus it still doesn't avoid the catch 22 that its a RPG, so you should show of story, but at the same time Beth doesn't wanna spoil anymore story before launch...

20 minutes then

does no one remember the demo for Fallout 3 or maybe it was new vegas. Sadly released like 4 months after the actual game came out. I do, Xbox 360. Look it up.

I would imagen if a demo is ever made it would be lime this, post launch, tho in this day and age, post launch demos are of little use/demand.

The demo wouldn't have to be connected to the main quest in any way, shape, or form. Look at Rage. A demo for that game came out and it put you at the start of a mission where a gang of bandits had invaded the waterworks of Wellspring, completely separate from the main quest. Bethesda could do the same thing here. They could pick one of the many side quests, and make that the demo.

If there ever was a demo for either Fallout 3 or New Vegas, it's gone now. Just tried to find it and had no luck. I even Googled to see if there was a demo released and nothing came up.

Well clearly Beth doesn't seam to want to spoil any more at all, plus then you come back to how do you handle the fact its a sandbox game, it be kinda misrepresenting to drop players in a mission area with lots of invisible walls in a game series known for its wide sandbox appeal.

Edit: plus Peter mention they already feel like making stage demos and presentations is svcking to much valuable dev time, imagen the efforts of setting up a pre launch playable demo.

No such thing existed. Googling turns up nothing to 'look up' , I've been here since Oblivion and a playable demo being released on just one platform let alone all mof them would have lit the forums up.

Are you sure you're not thinking of gameplay videos?

And yeah, as has been said Bethesda don't do demos for their games anymore, haven't done so since the days of Daggerfall and Arena. Sometimes there may be a demo for a game released under Bethesda Softworks publishing wing, but never by a Bethesda Game Sudios game.

Back in ESO beta, the game started on a small island you couldn't leave until you finished its storyline. It caused an outrage because people thought it didn't feel Elderscrollsy enough, they wanted to roam freely like in the previous games. ZOS finally caved in and put new characters on the mainland instead with an option to return to the starting islands.

Now consider Fallout 4. How do you slice out a fragment of the world without it feeling "not Bethesda enough"? A playable demo without the single biggest draw of Bethesda games. What's the point?

As for invite betas/early access, I think they're complete BS unless you're an MMO or low budget indie dev. I'm not paying for testing an incomplete game, it's the publisher's responsibility. But more importantly, games have only one launch: if you do early access, that's it, the words goes out and that's what your game is going to be. Everybody would rush out to buy Fallout 4 as soon as possible and 99% of these people wouldn't do any testing. Bethesda games are broken even when finished, I don't even want to know what buggy mess we'd get in beta. Thanks, but no thanks.

And cheesy f2p MMOs will just open up their games with an "open beta" which is effectively just a launch, since they'll let anyone in & they turn on the cash shop. Eventually, at some point, they say "ok, game launch!" as if everyone hadn't been playing the game for a month or two already. (probably to attract the people who feel like they're getting one over on... someone... by getting to play the game "sooner" or "free".)

Honestly, the whole "beta" thing is pretty silly at this point. The word's starting to lose all real meaning.