https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqQqeEgWb7Q @ 6:50

"(...) what can you tell us about the story?"

"Nothing?"

"Hahaha!"

"Hmm... I can tell you that we have spent more time... I wanna say without spoiling anything. Looking at how people experience an open-world game and yet tell a story... and... a strong story that, uh... and how it reacts to the choices you make, so... you know, looking at Skyrim we do sacrifice - or other games - we do sacrifice really good storytelling for player freedom and open world. And we will still make that sacrifice but we found - sitting down and going through it and we (????) designer and writer on this one, he was in Fallout 3 - uhm... looking at... well, what can we do... not... you know, fix it is the wrong word, but take advantage of the fact that it's an open world. What is a really good story to tell given this is the kind of game we want to make? And so I think we've made some really good ingrows (?) there."

So open world first, story second, which isn't necessarily a bad (or surprising) thing.

I wonder when developers of open world games finally try to abandon classic storytelling by converting it into organic, dynamic storytelling that equalizes story and setting.

It sounds like there's still a mainquest within the open world of Fallout 4.

Edit: http://www.gameinformer.com/games/fallout_4/b/playstation4/archive/2015/06/17/19-new-details-fans-need-to-know-about-fallout-4.aspx?PageIndex=2 (thank you FALLOUT4LIFE70)

-Fallout 4's narrative has a lot more branching paths and overlapping of "if that than this" than Fallout 3. They want the game to handle all the fail states of missions instead of forcing players to reload saves.

-Bethesda has always valued player freedom above storytelling, but with Fallout 4 the team wants to bring more emotional resonance to the plot thread running through the game. This is why they chose to recruit voice actors for both the female and male protagonists the player can make their own.

Sounds pretty good (maybe sweet little lies, but Todd Howard is no Molyneux). I like how Bethesda seemingly came from a totally different prospect (not forcing players to reload) to the same conclusion many players share about branching storylines.

I knew it! That's why they focus on action, boom headshot and minecraft in the presentation.

I'm not sure I like what I read ...

Jeez, he needs a whole lotta words just to say nothing really changed

Did he just admit that Skyrims story was kinda crappy? 馃槂

It's tradition already, they bashed Oblivion pretty hard to make Skyrim sound amazing too.

Let's just hope that there will be more interesting side-quests. One of the reasons the wasteland is so fun to explore is those side quests...

Alduin died too easy XD I think that's what makes the story not quite good... How could the harbinger of the end of the world die easily compared to a sub-typet of dragon? (which supposed to be his underling)

I think their goals might be a lesser focus on "urgency" so that it doesn't feel weird from a narrative standpoint to pause the main quest and do whatever you want. There was this sense of crisis or urgency in their last couple of games that made it feel kind of awkward to just ignore the main quest.

Do you ever look at the E3 presentation of New Vegas? It was the same 'focus on action, boom headshot'. Without minecraft.

Thinking back, I can really agree with you on this. It is pretty weird to be told "hey, we are about to have a major fight. Are you ready?" and you leave because you don't want to do it just yet.

I actually like the idea of finding things to do other then have a main driving focus.

Example Skyrim's MQ was not the greatest. In fact you could blow through it in a couple of hours. But it wasn't the MQ that kept me hooked on Skyrim. It was all the content within the game that I came across. I actually would RP my own "MQ" for my characters and never even touched the actual MQ. So to have that same experience in Fallout 4? Heck yeah I'm good with that. Just don't use that as an excuse for poor story telling in Fallout 4 please.

In Fallout 3 and New Vegas I spent most of my time exploring and simply doing stuff. I'm quite content to repeat that in Fallout 4. And now with the ability to make settlements and other neat stuff? I'll be good for a long while heh.

While I think that's a worthy goal, I can't imagine it being executed well (without making the mainquest feel unimportant or too personal to make a change). But we'll see.

I'd much rather see no mainquest at all and instead a world that is in itself a very multifaceted mainquest to grant players access points to the storyline everywhere. You know, I think the mainquest should also be something to explore, something to pick options with, something to dynamically change and organically adapt, by eclipsing (through consequences) and branching individual storylines.

And I think that "War Never Changes" gives a very good hint at what such a storyline would reasonably be: The war. Make the setting a setting at war and make the war the story. Thus you equalize story and setting and grant access points to the main storyline everywhere, because war is everywhere.

Haha that is really true. The enemies must be so polite to wait for us to decide our minds XD

It was always going to BE that sort of presentation at E3 because thats what a lot of the people expect. A lot of trailers for games never really paint the character of the game they are 'demoing' the right way.

I kinda like the open world first.. story second view, because like a lot of people its fun to just walk off in one direction and keep walking and react to whats happening to you, or follow that caravan to find out about a new location you can travel to.

I however think that a main story IS important. You need a focus for a story because if you dont have one a game can start to feel a little directionless. To me a game like Stalker is evidence of this. Its not really an rpg, although it has rpg elements. There is a story there .. perhaps even a main story but its covered by searching an area in Ukraine for strange artifact things. I dont mind playing Stalker but their attempts at an overarching plot are pitiful and after an hour or so of play I lose interest.

To me I think that the story of F04 is going to be about the Androids.. or rather the Android Underground vs the Institute.. it could even be 2 factions within the Institute jostling for control. but its all going to come back to the Android issue.

I thought they said they wanted to give the PC a voice because there was a larger focus on quality storytelling this time around. Now they're saying that story is being sacrificed for freedom.

So our voice was ripped out and replaced with Bethesda's so they could tell us a better story that they decided to sacrifice for our sense of freedom. But we can't have our voice back.

I mean that's the one thing people always complain about in the end "the story was bland, fallout new Vegas did it better, blah blah blah". I think if Beth can pull this off, then we will get the best of both worlds. Sounds like they are trying hard to bring us an engaging story, hope it works out.

So he knows that people want a good story, but says he is willing to sacrifice good storytelling for open world freedom, but he wants the story to be good while still sacrificing it.

What the hell is he even talking about?

It sounds to me like he's saying they are trying to create a good story that is based around player freedom or one that doesn't interfere with it. I don't know what to think of it.

To me it translates into "we do what we do best, give you a world full of wonders to explore. The story remains secondary, but we try to do our best". I didn't expect anything else.

It's such an engaging story that they've refused to let us engage with it yet.

  

I actually think the main story will be a war... a war between brotherhood of steel and the institute.. the reason i say this is that you can see in the trailer a brotherhood capitol ship kinda thing.. really big airship.. being blown up and you can also see what appears to be the institute being hit by some laser.. so im guessing the main story is the war and you get to choose which side you join.

Could definitely do with a lessened sense of urgency, that has been an issue since Oblivion (Morrowind got away without it due to the story being you figuring out what was going on, and the big bad wasn't ready to unleash anything for at least a few more years) with Bethesda. Oh, monsters invading? End of the world? Enclave taking over? Don't mind me, I'm off to go explore!

I mean, it's not hard to ignore and pretend the MQ isn't there, but it would be good if they could factor it in.

More like:

• Open world first
• Minigames second
• Wow-effects third
• Graphics fourth
• Story fifth
• The rest of the writing last

Seems to me that they want to create the best narrative possible without it conflicting with the open-world gameplay, which precludes certain ideas (hence the "sacrifice"). That could mean a lot of things; anyone putting the plot in a coffin this early on isn't giving Bethesda a chance. I repeat myself: You've got to want to like something to have any chance of actually liking it.

You people really expect different? Have you played other Bethesda games? I'd rather have great open world vs story. Most of the time I explore, creating my own adventures. Who the hell plays these games purely for the story?