I think there's also a more vertical aspect to the games exploration than FO3 or FONV had. When exploring/clearing the Covega plant, you keep going up & up and can easily fall to your death trying to avoid snipers. Settlement construction also adds to that vertical aspect. I loved both the previous fallouts, but when exploring in them there was a lot of dead space, especially NV which had large areas of open desert & hills. The map is definitely denser with more areas to discover. It doesn't feel as big as Skyrim, but Skyrim was, to me anyway, exploring the natural environment.

One thing I do wish for would be for more vaults. It seemed like there were more vaults in NV hidden away in the hills that had there own unique story attached.

Fallout feels really small. I dont know if we have here just a Problem of missing Space/Quests/Locations or whatever or just an Problem with bad placed Locations. The Boston Common has over 7 Fast Travel Points on a very tiny Area. Diamond City has in total 3 Fast Travel Points, 2 is ok but the third is totally unecessary. There are a few more tiny Areas with multiple Location Points. When you go from Quincy a few Feets to south you already have a new Locations called Peabodys House, 10 Feets away to soth/east you got already the next Location. Near Fort Hagen just a few Feets away you got a Police Station and a Red Rocket Station so 3 FT Points very clsoe to each other. Many more Locations feels like they got placed just for making the Game looking bigger as it is. I guess Bethesda just forced a Number which is close to Skyrim so People cant complain so much about it.

I think the game feels about the right size. I wouldn't object to them making it bigger, but it's a different type of game as opposed to Skyrim. It's Fallout, and they've never really been about big sprawling game worlds, more about locations, back-story, and characters.

I havent fast traveled since Oblivion and yes I've played all Bethesda games since Morrowind.

Guys my issue is when I wander from one side of the map to another without stopping I get to my destination too fast... Skyrim felt vast in areas like the tundra or the snowy regions to the north. There was a lot of barren land in between locations.

Barren empty space is not bad because there are potentially smaller camps or npc's spawning. Think about movies that had journeys like lord of the rings, or book of eli or even mad max.

In order to fully immerse myself I need to be able to take in the scenery at times, or let my mind wonder what happened in certain locations. Story telling is not always literal, it can be environmental as well. For instance in witcher 3, early in the game there is a large field filled with dead soldiers and flags. The game didnt force you to fight in that battle, instead you investigated to area and came to your own conclusions. That particular moment was an unforgettable experience so when I think back about that game a couple of years later that is one of the memorys I'll have of it.

Fallout 4 feels like its missing that journey aspect, I didnt feel like it was a true journey from concorde to diamond city. Fallout 3 had that "Journey" when we went from megaton to Galaxy news radio and so on. The glowing sea is interesting but not much is going on there.... I looked at the map again and there is empty space to the west and south of the map, hopefully a modder can expand this area, and maybe modders can even add underwater locations to the sea so we have areas to explore with our power armor. But still I feel that the map we have now will get fully discovered and old before the next game comes out, even with mods. Heres to hoping Far harbor really adds to the longevity of this game.

Interesting to read these debates from my position over here, as a rookie in the Fallout 'verse.

The map feels about right to me. I live in a small city/oversize town with delusions of grandeur IRL, and if I walk from one side to another, it would seem a lot like the FO4 map: rural farm fields and isolated houses, then there are a couple factories and gas stations on the highway; a college and the associated housing; denser neighborhoods as one approaches downtown; a couple high-rise apartment buildings; the downtown itself, with various stores, streets, and mysterious dead-end alleys; a police department and county jail; library; theater; restaurants and bars; then a rapid change back to houses as one crosses the street and continues on. Another mile and it turns into a wasteland of abandoned factories and vacant lots. There's also a fairground that looks very spooky when there's nothing there. A mile later and you're back to farms again.

At a fast walking pace, such as I could maintain when I was younger, the whole town takes about 25-30 minutes to cross (as I often did). In Fallout, we're actually travelling at a jog most of the time. That could account for the feelings of "smallness" as well.

Yesterday I set out from Sanctuary, on foot, to meet Deacon on the highway outside Lexington and overshot it by miles. I found myself way down by the Corvega plant. Along the way I encountered a mutant Behemoth and then found a bunch of Synths holed up in a Slocum Joe's shop, so I shot it out with them. Little did I know they were the goal of the quest I was on at the time... funny old thing, life.

Exactly my point! There is a difference between slapping map markers just about everywhere even for small meaningless locations, and actually putting a map marker at a substantial distance from one another, near an actual meaningful location.

People here also forgetting how a lot of unmarked locations existed in previous Bethesda games.. it was really cool to find those. Now it feels every outdoor toilet is worthy of a map marker just for the sake of it.

And to prove another thing: How old is the Imperial City now, as seen in Oblivion? 10 years? That city had districts, a lake with dungeons around it, a ton of stores & inns, an arena, docks, etc. Go compare it to Skyrim. A lot of "cities" in Skyrim look like friggen glorified towns cause it has a Jarl's Longhouse in it, but that's about it. Go figure about quantity over quality.

I really hope Far Harbor blows us out of our socks because right now my own Sanctuary project probably has more overall networth / sustainability / defense / whatever else you could name than Diamond city.

Finally someone who get's it. Because something is "barren" it doesn't mean it really is barren. And you can still have a small thing going on here or there. There needs to be a balance between stuffing a map at some area and keeping a place barren in another. Both TES & Fallout are explorer games. Saying that it fits Skyrim more than Fallout, like I see some people here claim is total nonense. Exploring = make a good world. Your overall story and the quests are loose from that.

Also props to you for using W3 as an example. W3 is by far going out of it's way to show that you CAN make a good world + story + look next gen dapper as hell.

Also I agree, there is a LOT of stuff that can be filled in later dlc.. infact for balance sake they could even modify the map during an expansion toward the north, right now it makes little sense to have sanctuary all stuffed up in a corner when it is probably the best settlement location.

I restarted playing Skyrim yesterday and I'm not sure what type of map I prefer...

The map roughly has the same amount of locations, but you have to walk way longer between them.

This may have been great when I played Skyrim for the first time, but now after knowing every single corner of the map it gets really tiresome having to walk between even Whiterun and Riverwood.

As someone who doesn't use fast travel, I really think the Fallout map is more suited... and it perfectly hits the 'city' feel with its density, while Skyrim is more about its landscapes.

Another thing that I noticed about Skyrim is how it streches its world with those mountains.

They really limit the freedom that you have when wandering around the world. I feel like I'm getting forced to use the same paths over and over.

Every important city and location is blocked by them :/ It's a bit annoying after being used to the flat Commonwealth.

http://abload.de/img/1m8qzw.png

So they streched the Map in Skyrim and it wasnt bad at all but they coudlnt do it in Fallout 4? Why, just why? Everything in Fallout feels compressed and other Areas like West, South and so are almost empty.

I know what u mean OP about the map size.

For me it come down to a perspective of what the game map want to represent.

U have a game like Skyrim that the map is representing a full region with multiple big cities and all. The scale use for it make the map feel alot bigger. But at the same time towns and cities feel smaller for what they try to represent.

Then u have a map like Fallout 4 where it is focus on 1 cities and the area around it. Yeah u pensive the map as smaller but actually what is represent with it is alot bigger. Like towns actually have house to contain the population of a small town or a big city.

For me Fallout 4 map size is ok really. It doesnt feel small at all, it actually transmit really well the feeling about exploring a big city ruins.