there will be no game ending quest, if you want to end the game yourself you can after the main quest but it won't be forced on people. todd howard already has talked about this long ago

I hope it is open-ended. I would like to see the changes made in the main story after the "final" quest is completed.

I hope so although some people would say they prefer just the ending and move on to greener pastures. XD

the choices you make will affect the game while you're playing it, you're saying if the game ends your choices don't mean anything? well once the main quest ends in fallout 3 or NV all there is, is a slideshow so you don't see any in game affect anyway only the ending slides, i think fallout 4 will have choices and consequences during the game itself as far as factions and npcs reacting to you and other in game things reacting to your decisions, i would say there is NO CHANCE any quest will end the game, none whatsoever, bethesda fans generally like how their games play out and the ability to end it when you want to end it, i don't think the fallout 4 is going to be dependant on the main quest, skyrim wasn't, i never finished the main quest in skyrim and i played it for years.

alizarin327 makes a very good point. If I am going to spend the time playing a game like Fallout, I'd like the ability to end it when I want to, not when someone else wants to. Sure, you can save before the "final" then load back. I say, if you do not like open-ended, play the last quest, stop that play-through and create another game.

I don't know. I'm trying to compare it to Skyrim where the land basically seemed unchanged after your finished the MQ. Leaves you wondering why you even did it (hell didn't even get a statue or armor or any recognition at all this time).

I do like the slide show but I think it can cover the MQ and major side quests and still leave enough for me to do in the game after the credits roll.

That defeats the entire purpose of having an ending.

When the game ends, it ends, your character ends. That is the end of that playthrough. want to play more? Easy solution, start a new character and begin again. Don't want the game to end? Fine, with Beth games, that's easy enough to fix too; simply don't start the main quest. Problem solved, now your game won't end, and those of us who feel that Fallout should have an ending, can have that ending.

The issue is, that with most Bethesda open world games, they love having these "epic" world changing events and then always fail to follow through with the effects of dealing with them (get rid of Alduin and dragons are still around, all sense of urgency and dread from the main quest is told to you rather than actually shown and in the long run doesn't seem that important in the game world versus what they want you think it means). Being able to continue at the end of the main quest wouldn't be such a massive issue if the main quest itself were on a smaller, more personal scale.

What I am saying is the long-term affects of your actions won't be seen if the game simply continues right after the last quest. The slideshow exists to tell you what your decisions did for the wasteland and its inhabitants. I understand that Bethesda fans will relate FO to TES as if they're essentially the exact same game, only with different worlds and history but Fallout fans don't like to see it as a "Bethesda game," because they haven't proven they can be faithful to the series' established lore. I bring that up because, unlike Skyrim, the main quest in FO is supposed to mean something, not be some diversion to partake in when there isn't [censored] else left to explore. Bethesda also hasn't shown at all that your "choices" in-game actually have any noticeable difference while playing.

On a side note, Obsidian didn't feel like it was a mistake to have a closed-end mainquest, and FNV is generally the better Fallout game.

Um, the reverse of that logic is to just turn the game off after you beat the MQ and don't play anymore even if you could. It's easier for you to do that than for me to beat the MQ and then pretend I can keep playing when I can't.

God I hope it remains open after the end...

I kinda like picking up the leftover after a main quest, continuing doing my thing for a while.

Exactly.

I really hope that we don't get something terrible like in NV. A dialogbx that tells you if you continue further the game will end. Thats terrible, bad, the worst solution ever.

Fallout 2 made it clever. Let the game end, play the credits and ending slides and allow the player to continue if he really wants to afterwards. Its the best compromise that can be made to satisfy both factions.

Well, you would still get the ending slide show, and then it would do an auto save. If you so chose you could continue playing off that auto save.

Yep not saying that won't be the case, merely pointing out how little use I think this actually sees. It's very feasible to just save the main quest for last, at which point you've got little motivation to reload the character file anyways, and even if you do, you won't have much to entertain yourself with on a file where everything's completed, nor has post-ending gameplay ever had a huge impact on the world.

Except with his method, we get definitive ending slides and their claims are not cheapened by none of that actually happening in game and/or the scope of your actions is drastically diminished. With yours, we just plain don't get ending slides or little insights into what the future will look like, or they're very limited in scope.

@LongKnife You lack the appreciation for a Sunday Afternoon stroll with a fresh bag of ammo and a old-timey-tunes radio.

They could allow you keep playing if you want. Those that don't want to can just quit the game after the slide show and credits roll (easy right?). Then those that want to keep playing can use the new toys the last mission got them. NPC's could recognize you as the guy or gal that did that big thing, get some praise, maybe even unlock some new post MQ side quests that you couldn't do before because of that prior MQ problem, etc. and let those that want to live on do so.

I hope it won't be open ended. At least not to the point where it affects proper ending slides, or needs to be cheaply and clumsily retconned with a DLC.

it will not have a game ending quest, bethesda games don't have those type of endings and most fans like it that way, there is no reason to have it end, bethesda games are sandbox games and not story driven, they are exploration driven its not a requirement to even play the main quest in a bethesda game, their games don't stand or fall on the main quest, they don't require a main quest to enjoy and play them. now you can just stop playing after you finish the main quest and restart a new game.

There's every reason to have a story end. Especially if it is a branching one that promotes choice and consequence and reactivity (which has been the Fallout schtick since it began). Infinite gameplay only leads to quitting when bored without any real accomplishment; there's a much better taste in things ending while you still crave for more. There's a point to go forward when you have a goal and it promotes replay value which infinite gameplay has none since you can burn it all out in one go, whether it be 20 or 1000 hours none of which matters since you need to be allowed to go on indefinitely.

And even so, the story might not be time sensitive, so you can probably run about until the sun dies if you just don't finish the main quest.

It will probably be open ended which is a huge mistake, I may be in the minority but I hated the change to Fallout 3's ending with Broken Steel. I like that it ended at the purifier, was it the greatest ending no but at least it was an ending. More then we can say about Skyrim or Broken Steel.

I always guessed that the vault dweller died at the end of Fallout 3. But with the dlc....apparently not.

The chance of having a game-ending quest is very slim. Bethesda would be repeating the same mistake they made with FO3 prior to the introduction of Broken Steel.

Ideally, I'd like it so that after the main quest is completed, free-play is allowed and the wasteland changes due to the actions of the player character. Follow-up quests would also be desirable.

The only mistake there, regarding the ending, was that the ending they had was horrible. Oh, and so was Broken Steel (what an apt name).

The mistake was caving in to the people crying foul when they found out that Fallout ends, just as it should.

EDit: Initially, I too, was a little annoyed when I found out Fallout 3 ended, but I quickly realized how much sense it made in the context of what had been going on throughout the game.