I think there's a misconception where people think that Fallout is just like TES in regards to the character you control. In TES, the only thing predetermined is the fact that your character finds himself imprisoned in some form.

In Fallout, there's always been a certain level of backstory to the characters. Look at Fallout 3, where the first 20 or so years of your life are played out for you.

I don't get why this would be a deal breaker. I mean, I get that your past is more-or-less written (only in a general sense, really, the details are still vague). But, was that not also the case in Fallout 3 and New Vegas? The Lone Wanderer's mother died in childbirth, their father took them into Vault 101 where they were raised as a normal dweller until their father left the vault to resume his work in the wastes. Even your motivation is technically scripted, you want to find your father, though you can decide how closely you follow that. And The Courier was a, well, Courier, and some of your past was fleshed out in the DLC. NV really only got around your past in the first place by giving you amnesia via a bullet to the head. Heck, even in FO1 and FO2 your general backstory was written.

The TES games tend to be a little better about your backstory being open, largely because you start out as a forgotten prisoner. But Fallout's always given you a basic structure/outline of a backstory.

Depending on how much of your back story is involved in ~future~ events, you can just about ignore ALL of it if you want. You could just chalk it up to implanted memories (ala the Memory Den), or to Cryo-sleep induced dreams, or perhaps it "really" happened but you and your wife are secretly Mr. and Mrs. Smith --- secret agents ~pretending~ to be normal suburbanites until you reveal your plans. Of course if the main story locks you in to dialog / storylines where you "clearly" deeply care for your biological son and deeply love your wife, etc etc then yah, they could easily railroad us into a story where we have little choice in WHO we really are. All we can do is hope, and play.

I like to think the freedom to form your character comes from the fact that your past is gone. The Back When Times are over, and everything you thought you knew is gone. You awake in the vault with a new life, all alone, with no idea what's been going on for 200 years.

-Some will choose to focus on finding their family

-Some will choose to decide they are dead and forge their own new trail

-Some will do a combination of both

-Others will do something different.

-It's been confirmed we can have romances with companions, so we can literally commit infidelity, which will create some interesting situations later on if and when we find our family again.

It's a perfect fish out of water situation. You may be a soldier with some experience in warfare, but all the experience in the world can't prepare you for the war did to the world you knew. Or thought you knew.

I'm willing to give it a chance before deciding if it was a move I like or not. I'm sure when I'm up to my grin in all the awesome features, I probably won't care so much about the back story.

Closed by request.