So far Fallout 4 seems to be very full of life, it's environments are much more verdant than previous titles and it appears that the world seems to be getting back into the swing of things. I hope that this is reflected in the games wildlife, I would like to see the ecology of the Fallout world begin to establish predator prey relationships between the creatures big and small of the wasteland. Instead of just waiting for you to stumble upon them, the animals of the wastes should be interacting with their environments. Herbivores could graze and flee predation, carnivores could hunt and defend their territory, and while all of this happened we could just sit back and watch or intervene if we chose.

I think this would to quite a bit to liven up the wasteland. I also hope that Bethesda doesn't neglect the aquatic environments in this reguard which should at least have a few exclusively aquatic creatures that can't go onto land like Mirelurks. There's a lot of potential in the mutated wildlife that could populate Fallout 4. The world's and irradiated mess but in time life always adapts and eventually thrives, it would be nice to see the ecology of the commonwealth to reflect this.

Thats what I always wanted.

from the looks of things, molerats and radscorpions attack from scripted underground spawn points and are not just sitting in the wild to be attacked by other creatures like in previous games. That being said, I agree it is great fun to have the ai fighting each other so you get the feel that the world does not revolve around you.

I would be a bit surprised if there is aquatic life, but we'll see

some of the concepts arts show a 2 head deer, i hope they add more animals, plus is the first time we will see birds.

I would love to have more animals to hunt! Set up one of the more remote settlement spots as a hunting lodge!

The point about living in a world that doesn't revolve around you is great,

How about an option to have healthy normal domestic and wild animals from vast areas of New England wilderness where there were no target worth a nuke, as opposed to more mutants? Dangerous doesn't have to be hideous, how about escaped wild animals from zoos and private collections that could survive in New England's climate extremes, and establish stable populations over 200 years.

I have to wonder how much game resources that takes, and if that is part of why it hasn't been included. I would like to see more normal wild life, a healthy Yao Guai or wild dog that doesn't have it's hide falling off.

Two headed animals tend not to survive and reproduce it nature, neither does any other non adaptive evolution. They do make great monsters to shoot on sight because they are 'monstrosities' but how about hunting and harvesting something healthy because you need the food and or hide to survive, or help others to survive.

How about game and predators so healthy you feel some regret having to harvest such a magnificent animal. Maybe it has a mate, parent , offspring or companion that tries to comfort or defend it as it struggles, and suffers to survive it's wounds, before it dies. That's a challenge of survival, life and death in the real world.

Many in the world hunt for the satisfaction of honing and preserving a skill set they may need to provide for their family, it is harvesting free live stock to help feed themselves, family maybe friends and community when needed, protecting live stock and local food supply from other predators and competitors. For most of the world's hunters, hunting has never been a sport.

There were birds in NV, you got 1xp for killing them

I do agree with this, worked well in Skyrim so we know Bethesda can do more wild life and smaller critters and birds. It was also great in the Witcher 3 helping to make it feel like a real world.

Be nice to see where all these squirrel soups and iguana bits are coming from...

Indeed it would be.

Since Skyrim had aquatic life with various fishes, I would expect to see some in FO4 as well. I plan to have a place by a waterway and it would be nice to go fishing and relax when I'm not hunting synths for bounty.

200 year old refrigerators. Tasty!

Its not squirrel or iguana........

I do dream one day that Fallout would have a mini game with fishing. We did see fish in NV and HH had the tribals catching them for food. Had a PS2 game with fishing as a great mini game (Dark Chronicle/Dark Cloud).

You keep lizards and rodents in your refrigerator..?

I think it's not so much about resources in terms of memory or processing power, but in terms of getting the algorithms working reliably and predictably. Radiant AI gave Bethesda many problems in Oblivion, with utterly chaotic behaviour arising (such as small civil wars breaking out in towns with most of the population wiped out) when it was set with too much realism or ambition in the data parameters. A similar problem could easily arise if wildlife is set so as to appear that it is living independently of the player, and this could take a lot of fine tuning and QA to get right.

Skyrim tended to overcome this problem with wilderness encounters, with the player entering an area spawning a group of predator and prey animals, with the predators set to attack the prey. So it faked the appearance of dynamic wildlife quite well - the only downside being if you entered an area often enough you tended to see much the same little scenes playing out several times.

I wouldn't be surprised if Bethesda so this again with Fallout, as they got it sorted pretty well for Skyrim, but in keeping with the setting I'd expect such encounters to be fewer and further apart.

i will love to see some mutant aquatic life more with the ocean so close

nope...keep them in my room in cages/tanks. XD I did keep pet rats and a lizard in my room

I do think a more food web style world could add a lot to the lore and game, having quests involved and some statements. Hell we could even have some of our Towns/Villages/Bases linked with some wildlife and food chains. We have seen a range of environments which leads to all sorts of possible critters

Thank you andyw, very helpful, informative and encouraging. I've edited and added to the post as I had to leave to go into work as I was fixing typos on a Word doc about options andf choices to have more non mutant animals as opposed to more mutants and access to vast wild areas of New England where there were scattered communities with maybe light industry that weren't worth a nuke , no radiation and maybe animals from zoos and private collections who could adapt to the climate extremes and establish stable populations.

My goal was to allow those who want to shoot mutants the choice shoot mutants, and those who see harvesting wild life a required task of survival that must be kept honed to be reliable if needed, the local game and ammo resources to used wisely the choice to see their game animals as I believe most hunters through history have seen them.

Indeed it would be.