From what I hear this is supposed to be multiplayer. The type has not been defined. But vault 76 was supposed to be a control vault that opened 30 years after the bombs fell, so set before Fallout 3 and 4. From the soundtrack sounds Appalachians probably
Kotaku says they've got sources that told them it's a survival RPG. There's a hell of a lot of those though so hopefully they've come up with something better than "except it's set in Falloutverse" to differentiate it.
Something like that I guess. That's so far the only article I've seen with any detail. All the other sites are reporting some stuff they got from some anemic press kit that doesn't say anything. Last I heard Kotaku was still on Bethesda's shitlist though so they give no craps about media blackouts.
Yeah, I'm hearing the same rumors this is going to be an online survival game like Ark or Rust. If so, no way in hell am I even considering this until after I've seen solid reviews post-launch.
I'm conflicted. I love fallout. I hate survival games like Ark, Rust, and all of the rest of them with a fiery passion. You know, I'm not all that conflicted after all. If that is what kind of game it is, I'm just going to pass.
The game could also go many different ways depending on how they do the multiplayer. Possible choice is free for all, factions, pve coop, pve with pvp specific areas. VATS would also be gone considering how that game mechanic functions.
My most recent guy in FO4 was a nigh-indestructible waif who punched deathclaws so hard they exploded. PvP using Fallout mechanics would be so amazingly broken I kind of actually want to see it happen.
I never found out since everything I met was very, very, very stoppable, but whatever it is I'm sure it can be solved by more punching.
Hmmm... If it's something like an open world that has interesting PvE elements (besides relying on just PvP), I could get behind that. By comparison, the problem with Ark, Rust, etc. is that they require a lot of effort on the player (or server host) to create interesting PvE content. If Bethesda can create interesting PvE content that's ready to go "out of the box" for players to latch onto (ie. story questlines, cooperative obtectives, etc.), that could really distinguish it from other "survival" games. But if it in leans heavily on "here's a mostly empty world with creature spawns and chests to loot", count me out.
One of the things I liked most about fallout were the smaller locales you could stumble across on your journey. Walking along with ammo reserves running low and you come across this big old lone building out in the middle of nowhere. Now you have a choice: walk away and continue what you were doing or antagonize fate and explore, ammo reserves be damned. If this game has alot of that, I'm likely in.
Bethesda's the king of that sort of elaborate world-building. I bet I haven't seen more than 10% of the content in their Fallout and Elder Scrolls games, and that's not even counting the really crazy games. Daggerfall's map covers sixty thousand square miles. Arena is six million square miles.
At the same time, it's dangerous to associate large worlds with high engagement or lots to do (especially looking back). Hell, that's one of the reasons they have opted to shrink the size over time. Take Daggerfall for example, yea, it's huge, but so much of it is empty nothingness. Thre is literally a series of youtube videos chronicling how long it takes to walk across it. It's literally 14 videos that are several hours each. Total time is nearly 70 hours just to walk across. That said, click through this video and tell me how much you actually do. Yes, I understand that the technology was different a couple of decades back, but the idea remains the same- larger worlds do not automatically give you engaging gameplay. So many games these days rely on an "open world" approach, but what do they fill it with? Sure, Fallout traditionally does a decent job, but, if we're honest with ourselves even Fallout 3 had that same sense of large nothingness (other than the occasional radscorpion) frequently. I can't help but help but hope that any focus on an open world with a multiplayer aspect will ask how they can fill it with truly engaging content rather than cloned procedural content. I'm still expecting a multiplayer settlement simulator. Hope I'm wrong.
I can't speak for Daggerfall but I never found that FO3 felt empty. All that space is just full of stuff. Some of it's mundane, just caches of items or gear. But some of it's Gold Ribbon Grocers. Or Harold. Or the Republic of Dave. Or balcony seats for the destruction of Megaton. Or alternately opening the door and letting the undead horde in. Or some total nobody who just needs some water. Or a whole city of slavers who don't know it yet but are suuuuuuuper dead. Or THOSE! Or Dogmeat. Or a family of sympathetic vampires. I'm forgetting so many things and god damn it if you make me reinstall this game it'll destroy me. ... /opens Steam
I think there is a different tolerance level for everyone. People who are used to a tighter story may get bored by the open-ness of a game like Fallout or Skyrim. Personally, I have loved my time spent in both Fallout and Skyrim games and yet I have never finished any of them. As much as I enjoy them, at one point or another one random cave encounter felt the same as any other. That being said, I have over 300 hours logged between Skyrim and Fallout 4. I think this is less of a real "problem" of the games and more just a problem with my more limited time and attention span for video games.
