Fallout 4

Fallout 4 is a post-apocalyptic role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. The game is the eighth installment in the Fallout series, following Fallout Shelter. It was released on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on November 10, 2015, except in Japan, where it was released on December 17, 2015.

Setting
The events of Fallout 4 occur beginning in 2287, in the Commonwealth area and pre-War city of Boston. The story focuses on a spouse, the Sole Survivor of Vault 111, as they search for their missing child, Shaun. Along the way, the Sole Survivor discovers a world in fear of a mysterious organization called the Institute, consumed by paranoia of a race of robotic yet also biological human-like beings known as synths.

Outside of Boston, surrounding towns are explorable, including Cambridge, Salem, Concord, Lexington, Malden, Quincy, Natick, Nahant and Revere. The neighborhood of Sanctuary Hills is where the game begins.

Local landmarks like the Paul Revere Monument, the USS Constitution, and the Massachusetts State House can be explored, along with post-War settlements Goodneighbor, Bunker Hill, Diamond City. A large and still inhospitable nuclear blast site called the Glowing Sea is to the southwest. The starting area in the northwest contains low level enemies, but becomes progressively more challenging towards the southeast area of the map.

Gameplay
The gameplay allows the ability to switch from first to third-person view. Additional features include a split-piece armor system, base-building, a dynamic dialogue system, an in-depth crafting system that makes use of every lootable object in the game as a source of raw material and more. Enemies such as mole rats, mirelurks, raiders, super mutants, deathclaws, and ghouls return to the series.

The player character, the Sole Survivor, accesses the in-game menus through a Pip-Boy to manage statistics, maps, data, and items. Players can also find game cartridges with retro themed mini-games which can be played on the Pip-Boy. Another returning gameplay feature is the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System (V.A.T.S.), which can play a critical part in combat. While using V.A.T.S, real-time combat is slowed down, and action is played out from varying camera angles in a computer graphics version of "bullet time." Attacking in V.A.T.S. costs action points, limiting the number of actions available at a time, and the player can target specific body areas for attacks to inflict specific injuries; headshots can be used for quick kills or blinding, legs can be targeted to slow enemies' movements, and opponents can be disarmed by shooting at their weapons.

A new equipment system allows a wide variety of upgrades and customization for weapons and armor. Unlike the previous two Fallout games, weapons and armor do not deteriorate with use and no longer require constant maintenance.

A new feature to the series is the ability to build settlements. Within the boundaries of a settlement, players can scrap objects and structures for resources and use them to build their own structures, including housing, vegetable gardens, defenses, stores, and crafting stations. Each settlement can also connect to others by Brahmin caravan, which then share resources. Towns can be powered with electricity, using a dynamic power line system, as well as equipped with water pumps and crops/gardens to keep a steady income of food and drink. Merchants and non-player characters can inhabit player towns and help keep the settlements running as a community. Players can build various defenses around their settlements, such as turrets, guard towers, and traps, to defend the settlements from raids and attacks.

Skills have been removed, replaced with a 7x10 perk chart. At each level-up, the player can acquire a new perk, each with prerequisites based on SPECIAL attributes and level, and most have multiple tiers. A consequence of the new advancement system is that there is no hard level cap, allowing players to experience a little more freedom when it comes to exploring and combat. The player may continue playing even after they have finished all of the main quests, a feature returning from Broken Steel, which allows players to experience the aftermath of their decisions. There are plenty of side quests to pursue, many of which can also be experienced after the main story ends.

Story
The player is the Sole Survivor of Vault 111, referred to as Nate and Nora. The player can customize Sole Survivor's name, gender and appearance. Fallout 4 begins on October 23, 2077, the day of the Great War. It shows the player living with their spouse and infant son, Shaun. When sirens ring out, the family runs to the nearby Vault 111, where they are cryogenically frozen for over 200 years. They awaken to witness the murder of their spouse and abduction of their child, with the story following their efforts to find those responsible and reunite with their child.

The story of Fallout 4 guides the player into its world, discovering leaders of different factions with varying views of synths. These include Preston Garvey of the Minutemen which lacks a strong opinion on synths, Desdemona of the pro-synth The Railroad, Arthur Maxson of the anti-synth Brotherhood of Steel and the leader of the Institute behind the synths, "Father."

Endings
Fallout 4 has four main endings for each faction, with some variations regarding the relationships of the factions within. For example, in one ending, the Institute is destroyed while the other three factions co-exist.


 * In the Minutemen ending, the Institute is defeated.
 * In the Railroad ending, the Sole Survivor keeps an eye on the Institute while secretly helping synths escape during the Battle of Bunker Hill. The Brotherhood of Steel decides to attack the Railroad and the Sole Survivor fends them off in the church, although Railroad member Glory is killed. Deciding the Brotherhood must be destroyed, the Sole Survivor, Deacon and Tinker Tom steal a Brotherhood vertibird, infiltrate the the Prydwen with explosives and escape. Although Father wants the Railroad slaughtered, the Sole Survivor causes a planned synth rebellion in the Institute and helps modify the transporter so that Railroad members can infiltrate. Desdemona helps with the slaughter of the Institute while the Sole Survivor rigs the reactor so that the Institute is detonated. Before leaving, the Sole Survivor may choose to take a synth version of a child Shaun. On a rooftop, the Sole Survivor and Desdemona watch the Institute explode.
 * In the Brotherhood of Steel ending, Maxson orders the Railroad to be slaughtered which the Sole Survivor helps carry out. The organization powers up Liberty Prime, an anti-communist giant fighting robot previously seen in Fallout 3, which blasts a way into the Institute. The Sole Survivor rigs the reactor so that the Institute is detonated. Before leaving, the Sole Survivor may choose to take a synth version of a child Shaun. On a rooftop, the Sole Survivor and Maxson watch the Institute explode. Later, Maxson promotes the Sole Survivor to the rank of Sentinel.
 * In the Institute ending, Father demands that the Railroad be slaughtered. After carrying out the act, the Institute decides the Brotherhood must be destroyed and so they decide to assault the Boston Airport. The Sole Survivor defends a virus synth as it hacks into Liberty Prime, causing it to think the Prydwen is full of communists. Maxson in power armor tries to defend Liberty Prime but he may be killed by the Sole Survivor. The Prydwen is destroyed by Liberty Prime. Back at the Institute, the Sole Survivor visits Father who dies from his condition. A memorial for Father is built and the Sole Survivor becomes the new director.

No matter the ending, the Sole Survivor reflects on how the Great War changed their life and how the Commonwealth they explored is not the one they wished for, but it is still their home in the process of being rebuilt. The Sole Survivor mentions they have come to accept that it is impossible to go back to a time before the bombs fell, but they now feel ready to face the challenges that lie ahead.

If the player purchased the add-ons, the player can instead take a boat ride to Far Harbor and the Island or a subway train to Nuka-World, before deciding on a faction. The former story involves the mysterious disappearance of a teenager named Kasumi Nakano and focuses on synths, while the latter story focuses on three gangs trying to dominate the abandoned theme park.

Development
Initially, in 2004, Bethesda Softworks licensed from Interplay Entertainment the rights to create and publish three Fallout games (Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 4). Later, in 2007, Bethesda purchased the entire franchise, and Interplay licensed back from Bethesda the rights to a Fallout MMORPG. The legal dispute concluded January 2012, with Bethesda Softworks and its in-house development studio retaining the rights to all of the Fallout franchise, including an MMO.

In 2009, Bethesda's Pete Hines said, "The whole reason we went out and acquired the license and that we now own Fallout is that we clearly intended to make more than one." He also added, "This is not something we're going to do once and then go away and never do it again. When that will be or how long that will be God only knows, but we acquired it specifically because we wanted to own it and develop it and work on it like we do with The Elder Scrolls."

Development began right after Fallout 3's release, in 2008. The game had minor development due to Skyrim being developed at the same time. After Skyrim was released in 2011, Fallout 4 became the primary project for Bethesda.

During voice recording, Fallout 4 was given the codename of "Angelina" during auditions, according to voice actors Danny Shorago and Matthew Mercer. Many actors initially did not realize what they were working on, before reading dialogue that clued them into the fact that it was a Fallout game. The game features just over 111,000 lines of dialogue, more than all of the dialogue in Fallout 3 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim combined.

Announcement
Todd Howard revealed in an August 2010 interview with Eurogamer that Bethesda was working on two projects; one had been in development for two years (beginning after Fallout 3 was released), and the other was still in pre-production. It is now known that the title farther along in development was The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, while Fallout 4 was the title in pre-production.

In December 2013, Kotaku claimed information about Fallout 4; it was being developed, set in Boston, revolves around an Institute, there are characters named Preston Garvey, Travis Miles and Sturges, and the protagonist enters a cryogenic sleep chamber near the beginning.

Todd Howard was interviewed on Rock, Paper, Shotgun on February 18, 2014, and said that a new game announcement would be very far away. "We don’t [have a timeframe for our next game announcement]," he said, "but I think it’s gonna be a while." He was described as "forever positive" and enthused that "PC is resurgent." "Skyrim did better than we've ever done on PC by a large, large number. And that's where the mods are. That feeds the game for a long time. And it's exciting that the new consoles are very PC-like. That opens up avenues for us going forward to do things that we've wanted to do in the past. There are kind of random ideas we're working on right now, and it's like, 'Wow, I think there's potential here to do some really cool stuff,'" he said.

Countdown
A countdown timer was set on Bethesda's Fallout website on June 2, 2015, expiring the next day at 10:00 AM EDT. On June 3, seconds before 10:00 AM EDT, the Fallout 4 trailer was released on YouTube. The Fallout website also debuted in full Fallout 4 style, including a working teaser phone number, previously used during the Fallout 3 release.

Bethesda's first-ever E3 showcase took place on June 14, 2015, at 7 PM PST. The E3 showcase was streamed on YouTube and Twitch. Bethesda revealed gameplay footage including combat, a refined VATS system, a new crafting system, concept art, and a release date, which was confirmed to be November 10, 2015. A major new feature shown during the press conference was the ability to craft and deconstruct settlements.

Mod support
Fallout 4 is the first Fallout game to have native mod support for consoles. During E3 2015, at the Xbox Conference, Todd Howard went on stage to tell the audience that the Xbox One would offer mod support following the release of the Creation Kit for PC, which became available for download on April 26, 2016. The Xbox One mod support was released on May 31. Mod support for PlayStation 4 was initially announced to be due sometime in June but was delayed; by September, mods on the PlayStation 4 were reportedly canceled. However, Bethesda and Sony later came to an agreement and allowed mods to come to PlayStation 4 after the release of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition. Mods were eventually implemented for the console, but they are limited to using assets already found within the game files.

Downloadable content
A season pass for all add-ons could be bought at a price of $29.99 USD, €29.99 Euro before March 1, 2016, and a price of $49.99 USD, €49.99 Euro afterward. The released DLC includes Automatron, Wasteland Workshop, Far Harbor, Contraptions Workshop, Vault-Tec Workshop, and Nuka-World, along with the free High Resolution Texture Pack.

Creation Club
On August 28, 2017, Bethesda Game Studios inaugurated additional downloadable content that can be bought separately through the Creation Club. Content available on the Creation Club is fully compatible with the main game, official add-ons, and achievements.

Reception
Fallout 4 received a Metacritic metascore of 84/100 on PC, 87/100 on PS4, and 88/100 on Xbox One. The game received several awards and nominations, including 2016 D.I.C.E. Game of the Year and 2016 Game Developers Choice Awards Game of the Year. Fallout 4 shipped 12 million copies to meet day one demand.

Behind the scenes

 * On January 9, 2013, the voice actor behind Three Dog (Erik Todd Dellums) was given permission by Bethesda to hint towards his appearance soon. On his Twitter account, he stated, "To all my #Fallout3 and #ThreeDog fans: There may be more of the Dog coming! Fingers crossed!" However, in July of the same year, Dellums tweeted that the game he is working on is not being produced by Bethesda Softworks, therefore, it was not the anticipated new Fallout title.
 * Bethesda Game Studios announced on Bethblog on April 15, 2013, that they had completed all new content for Skyrim and were moving the studio's attention to an as of yet unknown title that had previously been in pre-production since 2010. Although Bethesda Softworks did announce The Evil Within during the same week, it was developed by another studio and had no direct impact on the project Bethesda Game Studios was working on.