One of the reasons why I debate games are art, is how some games can crack into your emotions and get them feels out.

(I had this group once, called the Brotherhood of Feels. We just sat around, getting deep man. Real deep....)

In Fallout 3, wandering around Downtown.... It just made you feel... Lonely. It makes you think. There were people once here. This was a thriving city. And now its all gone. I don't know about anyone else here, but I am an Urban Explorer, and if Fallout was an Urban Explorer simulator, it would be a good one.

So my hope is that Fallout 4 gives you that same feel. When you walk past these huge skyscraqers, or travel through the Metro tunnels... you will feel alone. And the soundtrack adds into the mix too. Sometimes, when I am in a abandoned building, I get scared honestly. Its weird, but my nerves are vibrating, and hearing your footsteps and that random noise, is pretty nerve racking. And it doesn't help when your companion knocks something over.

Another reason why the Radio is so important. It takes the spook down a notch, even though the spook really adds to my experience.

Anyone know what the hell I am talking about?

Yeah, I know what you're talking about. I think there will be plenty of desolate areas in Fallout 4, but also think there will be more populated areas.

There should be areas that do just that along with some that are massively populated. Fallout 3 failed to balance it, hopefully with the next-gen engine they can improve NPC count.

Hopefully the Commonwealth is a livelier place than the Capital Wasteland was. As Littlemike said, F3 failed to balance populated areas, and unpopulated ones. But I don't think they need to have places necessarily be as empty as they were, to make the PC/player feel a sense of lonesome. I mean, after all the PC is a person from the pre-war era. Seeing the world they knew, after 200+ years, just destroyed should also give the player a sense of loss and loneliness, even amongst people in populated areas.

I don't think I ever can visit downtown Washington DC without getting fallout 3 flashback all the time

Errr....I'm not sure how realistic it would be for places to be "massively populated" only a few generations after a Nuclear War. Population explosions require some period of stability and prosperity to have existed and being able to support a large population in close proximity requires a significant infrastructure with efficient resources.

While I get that having dozens of NPCs roaming about is possibly a technical limitation (or achievement), the game's environment and lore does not really support it.

It sounds to me as though your sense of immersion is great- the storyline and environment- and that you can easily place yourself into this environment where human beings spent millenia stumbling along from one problem and disaster to the next but somehow evolved- and then abruptly tossed it all away and almost destroyed themselves. If so, I can appreciate it. I'm not a huge gamer, but I've played more than a few- and I've never had the feeling of immersion in any other game that I've had in FO3 and FONV. Part of this is due to my satisfaction that as a race, we're not only headed toward something not entirely unlike this, but that it is a practical certainty. The rest is due to the fact that the developers of both simulations fleshed out a theoretically believeable storyline where we "shoot ourselves in the chest", but yet still manage to survive and start the game of survival pretty much over again. In doing this, they demonstrate fairly well that despsite our knowledge, we've never actually made it out of the jungle. Something along the lines of "lost opportunities and what might have been."

No, I think I'll feel right at home in the Boston wastes....

It doesn't matter how many people surround me. I will always feel lonely.

The story is about you waking up years later, losing your family. The main plot is lonely.
Let's not forget these are Bethesda's writers. I'm expecting this game to be lonely.

If I lived in Boston ... or had every visited the place, it might be painful to see something I recognize in ruins.

But I grew up in the high plains of CO, so I would relate more to FONV's vib as far as the environment goes.

http://i59.tinypic.com/2eexwlx.jpg - Pic of Dust Devil from back home. Flat. Dry. Big Sky country.

I do admit seeing DC in ruins felt odd at times as I have been there a few times.

I always found the Mojave wasteland to be a fascinating, but lonely place. Then I went there in real life and it was even worse. There's literally not a FUKIN thing there! Except that big roller coaster.

Parts of the wasteland are probably going to be a little lonely, but companions really help with that. Honestly, the radio in 3 almost made my character feel more isolated. There was just this certain feeling of isolation that came from walking through the metro system alone while listening to the radio. It would be cool if they implemented echoes indoors. Anyway, with the right companion, it's pretty hard to feel alone.

Lived in Ma for 17 years, 30 miles North of Boston. Wonder if my town is going to make it onto the map? Anyhow, yeah, I love Ma, just hated the winters. I want to head over to Paul Revere's house to see what's in there.

I hope this game makes us all feel. I would love if some areas are scary it would be nice to get immersed like that and let's be honest it would be scary as hell if it were real

How do you feel lonley?

Not insofar as the color palette, it won't be lonely. F3 had a huge, essentially monochrome setting. This lent itself well to isolation, I think.
This game seems to have defined color palettes depending on where you are in the game world. Which breaks up monotony.

As others have said, I think that you will be made to feel (they will attempt to make you feel, at least) lonely, but for your time.
I think places like the Memory Den will work to reflect this a bit more in the story. Well, that's the hope, anyway.

I know what you are talking about. In Fallout 3 the metro tunnels were always super lonely, in addition to being scary, and I never cared for them. In the wasteland the random sound of the wind created an atmosphere of isolation and desolation as you wander through the bombed out ruins. I’m hoping Fallout 4 has the same atmosphere and feel to it.