I would have preferred very little story and background ala New Vegas but if they were going to tell a story I agree that they should have fleshed out the beginning a bit more. Simply even adding that picnic at the park that was mentioned could have added some more to it.

F3 intro made me stop playing the game. Cannot believe this is even a comparison

baby depends on your looks

I was expecting a lot more dialogue between parent and son when they meet. He turns into a standard quest giver NPC too quickly imo.

Personally I like it better left to the imagination, even though one of the things I enjoyed about Morrowind was its questionnaire. And Fallout NV's got all my tagged skills right

Actually building the park trip in game would run too high a risk of making it robotic and awkward and thereby emotionless

I agree there was little time to get emotionally invested in the characters at the beginning, but it did surprise me.

There was quite a few people complaining that they didn't want a character with too much backstory before the game was released. It was a little nuts actually. So, I'm wondering if that influenced them to shorten it.

Again, a case of - you can't please everyone.

The introduction/prologue in its current shape is hardly something to identify with the protagonist. Happy suburbian marriage + vengeance. Been there, done that in countless movies, books and games. It's a really worn out cliché that seems to function as a sorry excuse to show a wee bit of pre-war world. Should be either something more interesting or something a bit different.

Still enjoying the game, just can't be really arsed into rushing the main quest although the story should rather encourage to do so.

I was hyped about the notion of exploring the Pre war world. But then you find out that you literally are jailed inside of your house. If you try and run a different direction you die. It would have been nice to see a bit more of the world in 2077 such as taking a monorail over the city BEFORE it was destroyed similar to how you got a tour of Black Mesa in the intro to Half Life before all hell broke loose. It amazes me that to this day only a few games have managed to come close to Half Life's intro and none have surpassed it. And it was long as hell but it didn't seem like it at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3xcOAWLC24

The problem with a fleshed out background is that you get something like Assassin's Creed 2 and Farcry 3, whose intros were so cringeworthy that I never bought them and never will.

Haven't played those, can't say much. Did like the blank slate courier from FO:NV or the prisoner from TES. Did like the mostly predefined Mass Effect's Shepard or Dragon Age's Hawke (Hawke's prologue actually allowed me to develop some attitude toward the family characters), too. This one seems just too plain. Too much is given and predefined and yet it's unbelievable due to its obviousness. I just can't force myself into identifying with the PC at this level. It's all the further actions and quests that make the character believable and easy to identify myself with. Would be nice if the initial "hook" was cast in the prologue. For me it's too vague and yet too idealized to start me thinking "what would I do if this happened to me?".

I truly believe that intentions behind such prologue were good, but I guess the approach should be different. If the prologue was longer and would allow the player to actually develop certain attitude toward the spouse or the baby, it would break the "blank slate" thing Fallout used to have. If it was to go more into this "blank slate" direction, it would have to be far more interesting and far less naive to actually hook the player emotionally.

I designed my spouse as well as myself. Perhaps you all did, but if I hadn't, I would certainly object to the protagonist, the wife, and the child

Yet we get none of the highlights of their life.

The first date

How we met

The War our character was in

The War Council we were suppose to be part of

The birth of our child

The pregnancy to begin with

All that would be lame imo tbh. Too much opportunity for things that would go totally against our RL personality's grain, and also for uncanny valley

I actually enjoyed both of those intros!

Ezio's more so than FarCry.. but both really eased you into your role.

I disagree. Then don't give me a baby and a wife I care nothing about and don't get an opportunity to bond with.

This or they should have had, her wake up from cyro with you and have her as a companion with Sean and you travel with them till a plot situation gets her killed. But there is something that is needed for bonding.

Well Far Cry 3's intro was saved by Vaas, but then again the entire game was. Ezio's intro is nothing short of amazing. Damn i have to play AC II again.

This is one game where I wish the "introduction" was longer. Get to know your spouse, the baby, Codsworth, people around the neighborhood, what is going on in the world. It was too short.

This very much or give us a blank slate character

Finished the main quest tonight at level 42. Did a lot of sidequests for everything but the BOS. After the underwhelming "I guess the game is done now?" end-scene I literally could think of no other word than "underwhelming" to describe my overall experience with Fallout 4.

Well the entire point of Vault 111 was to see the effects of extended cryogenic stasis on unaware/unsuspecting individuals. Vault-Tec nor the greater science community had a clue what would happen to the people, it's believable that you come out and your brain is so scrambled from being frozen for two hundred years that most of your original personality is rewritten as your brain tries to recover.
Roleplaying is fun

As for the pre-game introduction I agree... too short, it was very pretty and you understood the sense of urgency but I disliked having to learn about my preset character's military career via century old terminals. I think introducing new players to the combat aspects of the game in a flashback (before the Vault) of your character fighting in the trenches at the battle for Anchorage, Alaska would be nice... it'd help establish the history, and get you to like your main character... maybe put him through some scene where you're administering first aid to a wounded comrade and he's reaffirming to the dying soldier that he'll be okay as he bleeds out on the snow and mud.

He's portrayed as a kind, loving person who likes his peaceful life in Sanctuary Hills and has some knowledge and history in Boston's locales, but the only time I feel his attachment to the world before is when he chitchats with pre-war ghouls (who are very rare in Boston for some reason) when you activate the skeletons in the Vault and also when you inspect any cryopod and how his voice wavers and quivers a bit as he gets panicky that everyone is dead. I wish he/she made random comments as you explored the ruins of Boston, maybe you came across the veterans hall and the MC makes an offhand nostalgic comment about how if things had been different they might have been sitting there instead of standing in the ruins or something.

The voiced main character is simply under utilised.

Wow. I must be super empathetic. I found the intro gave enough exposition to form the relevant bonds between the family members without feeling drawn out or overly extended. I believe it was short due to the many complaints levied at Fallout 3's extended introduction. In that short time I think Bethesda certainly did enough to get the emotional impact across; assuming of course the player actually wants to try and get into the character.

Maybe it's because I have a wife and young child that I could easily access the emotions that the Sole Survivor goes through by imagining my own family going through those events. Either way, I think that Fallout 4's introduction did not lack emotional impact in the slightest. I may not have cared much about the characters themselves per se, but I certainly felt the emotion and was able to make roleplaying decisions based on them.

I think some people just expect too much or are unwilling to put a little effort into understanding their character.

The female sarcasm remark to going to the park, suggested thats where shaun was conceived.

;>_>

Must've been quite the experience.

But yeah, they could've done so much to show us the pre-War days. Maybe have us re-fight a critical battle at Anchorage (The real battle, not the simulated one), or maybe open up to us at a bar with friends, or...something. This was...too tacked on, too forced. I get it that Bethesda didn't want us to spend forever in the pre-War world, but we kind of needed to in order to see what the world was like before it all went to Hell.

I do think "they messed with my family" is low hanging fruit if story telling. An exploitable means of emotional amping. I DO appreciate the abbreviated intro though.

Step into the the charred shell of your former life... But from your character's perspective you were enjoying polite banter with your wife only an hour ago.

-mind screw-

i dont know, i think the intro can had been a little longer (not like living my life bc that is just bored of a game, but some other situations). But the main plot and the outcomes from it are alot better that the outcomes i get on NV or 3.

Any char or faction in NV was completely flat, dull, I didn't feel any simpathy towards noone, both in the vanilla and the dlcs. In Fallout 3 the situation was slightly better, but not that much. Bethesda hasn't the talent to make compelling characters/factions/stories.