I can't wait forever for basic fixing of this game I'm afraid. No hotfixes for simple things like the keybinding problem, let alone a decent patch to fix more than just the basic issues. So I sent the following message to the website I bought the game from. I suppose I will need to return the item and will get a refund.

Dear Sir or Madam,

This game for PC, Fallout 4, does not work as advertised i.e. its minimum requirements are incomplete. For the game to work properly, you need a widescreen monitor. Also to a lesser degree, the game offers the option to redesign keys but making use of that option renders the game unplayable. You need to either use the standard key assignment or you need a gamepad. And another argument: the product I bought is only 20% complete.

First things first. After launching the game, I couldn't click on anything (like "new game") so I couldn't start the game. After hours of googling and reading, it turns out I had to unplug my gamepad to be able to use a mouse to click on anything. You shouldn't have to unplug some hardware to get a game to work. But ok, problem solved.

After a very short time in the game, I encountered a locked briefcase. Clicking it is supposed to show a "minigame" screen to lockpick, but my screen just turned fuzzy and that was it. After a lot of googling, I found out the game doesn't support 4:3 and 5:4 monitors but only the widescreen monitors (and mind you, it only supports widescreen monitors but NOT ultra-widescreen monitors). This should be mentioned in the minimum requirements.

There are a lot of threads offering some possibilities (see reddit). After many hours of googling, reading and experimenting, I got the minigame working. Yeah! The day after that, it was broken again. After many hours of googling and reading, I found out I had to manually mark some files as "read-only" because the game automatically reverts to its non-working state every time you launch it. Great.

Only a very short while after that in the game, I get to the first place where I can build a settlement. Again, I'm stuck. After many hours of googling and reading and experimenting, I found out what the problem is. Turns out I can't move while building a settlement because I had the audacity to change the key bindings. You either need to play using the standard key bindings or using a gamepad. If that's the case, why do they offer an option to change the key bindings in the first place? A practical joke?

Add to all this that the product I bought is only 20% complete. The remaining 80% of the game needs to be downloaded. That's just not right. If I buy a movie on DVD on your website, I should be able to be sure to receive a DVD containing the full movie. Not a disc containing 20% of the movie and the option to download the remaining 80% of it.

For all these reasons, I'm contacting you. I can't believe I'm about to say this but I would like to return this item. I've been a fan of Fallout since the very first game way back in 1997. As I'm sure you can verify, I pre-ordered this game as soon as possible on your website.

Before you hand out the standardized reply, which I'm sure will help me returning the item, I want you to consider this. I'm loyal enough to the game series to wait it out. It's been a week since the release of this game but still no patch. For some things, there is a partial fix made by the players, which is saying enough. For other things, I am stuck and I'm not alone. Not even a hotfix that allows us to change key bindings AND have the game still run properly? I'm losing faith here.

I'm not sure what the "deadline" is to return faulty products sold on your website. I'm willing to hold on to my faulty product for a while longer, and see if updates fix it. If that's not an option, I ask to return this faulty product and to get a refund. I will not be falling into the trap of pre-ordering again. The Witcher 3 was also hardly playable after release. Some of us had to wait for weeks and many patches to be able to play the game as intended.

Kind regards,

Amazon doesn't have anything to do with anything made by Bethesda apart from selling it. and posting on a online forum owned a second or third party or even a forum owned and run by Amazon does not constitute formal notice of anything to anyone. You still have to use registered mail with return receipt, and keep a copy of the letter.

By the way, bethesdas fan nickname is bugthesda.

Them launching buggy unstable and for some people completely unplayable games have been an standard business practice since at least Marrowind.

I would love to hear if you ever got a reply from Amazon about this matter and what they said.

Come on guys, this isn't a topic about Amazon's customer service but about the game not working properly for some people although their computer meets the minimum requirements. It doesn't matter where they bought the faulty product. So I edited out the name "Amazon" in the original post. But since you asked, I will let you know what the reply will be.

EDIT: only 2 hours after my message to Amazon, I got the following reply: "I'm sorry to learn about the problem you had with the item of Order #.... Please return the Fallout 4 (PC) to us and, as requested, we'll refund you as soon as possible." Still, the basic message here is that it's sad I have to return it.

Don't feel bad, mine's going back Friday unless there's a patch by then, or an announced patch.

Oh don't get me wrong, my interest wasn't in regards to Amazons customer service. I was more interested in whether they accept your reasons for returning the product as a legit reason. Seems they agree right? Chances are they've probably had many returns of the game and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

I understand. I'm sure not listing the full minumum requirements should suffice for all stores to offer a refund. For them, it's like selling a DVD and only after people receive it, it turns out they need a blu-ray player to be able to play it. A lot of people will be like "Come on, who hasn't got a blu-ray player these days?" but they're missing the point completely, of course. If a blu-ray player is required, the product details should mention that. If a widescreen monitor is required for Fallout 4, the product details should mention it. The (web)stores get those details from the devs/publishers so the latter are at fault, not the people selling it. The other arguments I mention are valid, too, but what with that single argument alone, a refund is the only decent thing to offer, which is what Amazon did.

All the problems you describe exist, no question about that. But while they are annoying, none of them belong in the minimum requirements.

You compare that to needing a Blu-ray player to play a DVD. In that case you couldn't play that disc AT ALL.

Apparently you CAN run the game. With issues, but you CAN run it. So apparently the REQUIREMENTS to run it where correct, weren't they?

There is actually something "missing" from the official requirements, but that's nothing you're complaining about. It's the required DirectX version the graphics card needs to support. It's implicitly stated though the minimum graphics cards but not mentioned explicitly, as it should.

As for 4:3 and 5:3 monitors, the game DOES support them, as you found out. It's just an oversight that they're not listed in the resolutions offered by the launcher. An annoying oversight to people affected but also an understandable one, considering that hardly anyone uses them any more:

According to Steam Hardware Survey numbers, currently about 5.2% still use an old 1280x1024 5:4 monitor. All other non-widescreen resolutions combined reach less than 1%.

And ultra-widescreen displays are used by about 0.3% of steam users. That leaves out multi-monitor setups but that's a different story.

91% of the steam users use 16:9 or 16:10 widescreen displays, so this oversight does not really affect that many people after all.

Disabling mouse and keyboard if a gamepad is plugged in is just plain stupid. But still, both work, just not at the same time.

As for building, if you assign the cursor keys to movement, you can still control the build-menu with shift+cursor keys.

As I said before, you're complaining about annoyances, not about unmentioned requirements that keep you from running the game...

To be able to open a locked container in Fallout 4, you need a widescreen monitor. Opening locked containers is an integral part of the game. So a widescreen monitor is a required piece of hardware to be able to play the game, the whole game that is. That is what I paid for and that is what anyone would understand from "minium requirements": the hardware needed to run the whole game, not the hardware needed to run part of the game or even most of the game.

I respect a different opinion but throwing some numbers around saying "with your hardware setup you belong to a small minority of players" is just plain wrong. That is not a valid excuse. I own about 450 games total and they all run properly on my 4:3 monitor, except for this one. That speaks volumes.

Fortunately, the store I bought Fallout 4 from agrees with me and they will refund me.

No you don't need a widescreen monitor. You just need to play with a widescreen resolution, "letterboxed" with black bars. If you have a 1280x1024 5:4 display you can for example play at 1280x720 or 1280x800. On a 1600x1200 4:3 display you can usually use 1600x900 or 1600x1000.

nVidia supports scaling with the correct aspect ratio by the graphics hardware if your monitor doesn't support these resolutions natively. I suppose AMD does the same.

Or you can try this: http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/143

And I didn't say you're part of a small minority to excuse the problem, I just wanted to give you the most likely reason why they forgot to support it...

5% of a very large number can equate with a lot of dissatisfied folks. And you can argue whether the minimum requirements should have included a widescreen monitor, but it clearly should have been included in the recommended requirements, as at best players with standard ratio monitors are being offered an inferior experience.

While I understand it could be frustrating, there has to come a point where wide-screen becomes standard. It takes extra time and money to build for different aspect ratios and they probably just put that towards something else.

Or maybe they'll patch it in later.

I guess that depends on how many of those folks blame Bethesda for a slightly inferior experience on their outdated hardware.
On top of that, that's 5 to 6% of ALL Steam users. Over 50% of Steam users don't even meet the requirement of a quad-core CPU, more than 20% have still less than 4GB RAM, not to mention the 8GB stated in the requirements. I believe the number of people still using such old displays on a computer that can run the game AT ALL is actually MUCH, MUCH smaller...

Either way, as said before, the game WORKS on such a display, so a widescreen monitor is not REQUIRED to run the game. It's better, but not required.

They could have stated somewhere that a widescreen display is recommended for the best experience, but the thought probably never occurred to them until someone complained about that. To most developers - and gamers - these days, such monitors are a thing of the past, computer history.


One more thing: Support for "standard" aspect ratios was probably included in previous games because of last gen consoles. The assets where there, so they were included in the PC-version as well. Current gen consoles are widescreen only, so I guess no one thought to create the necessary assets for the tiny minority of PC users still wanting support for this...