Fallout 4

[AjD]

Rumors are flying heavier than usual that Bethesda is getting ready to announce Fallout 4 at this year's VGAs, Spike's annual award ceremony known for game announcements and scheduled for December 11th....

Bethesda seems to be working on a new Fallout title after all. According to PCGamer, there are a few hints that the company is gearing up to make an official announcement soon. The first is a new website, TheSurvivor2299.com. It features nothing more than a countdown timer which seems to be ticking down to December 11. The second major hint is a recently-discovered trademark filing for Fallout 4. The trademark has been registered by Bethesda Softworks, putting questions about its legitimacy to rest.

Countdown Web site, with morse code sending 11-12-13 - that's Eurospeak for December 11, 2013 (will Fallout 4 be set in England or Europe? Hmmm...):
http://www.TheSurvivor2299.com" target="_blank

Also, the actor that voices Three Dog has recently sent some interesting tweets...

Known for his role as radio DJ Three Dog, voice actor Erik Todd Dellums released a couple of interesting tweets the other day. He asks if we are “ready to fight the good fight,” a line his character often says. His tweets are also accompanied by songs from the 50′s and 60′s, and we all know how much Bethesda likes using that music. Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra songs are being used to tease us.

More here....

http://tech2.in.com/news/gaming/bethesd ... ark/920798" target="_blank

And here...
http://www.hardcoregamer.com/2013/11/17 ... t-4/62718/" target="_blank

And here's the Frank SInatra tune tweeted by Three Dog... could this be Fallout 4's new theme song?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX3xfjnBzic" target="_blank

[Kelric]

If only super slow motion in Fallout 3 didn't crash my system almost every time...

[Daehawk]

I love Sinatra but that song does not fit at all as a Fallout game theme.

[dbt1949]

Yeh, it'll probably mean a computer upgrade for me.

[Blackhawk]

I'm kind of torn here.

On the one hand, new Fallout!

On the other, there is no way my PC would run it, so it would be the first Bethesda RPG I've had to buy on consoles. A Bethesda RPG with no mods would be heartbreaking.

[Madmarcus]

I guess that will set my upgrade schedule. Roughly 6 months to a year after Fallout 4 hits I'll have to get a new desktop right before a Steam sale.

[AjD]

I guess that will set my upgrade schedule. Roughly 6 months to a year after Fallout 4 hits I'll have to get a new desktop right before a Steam sale.

All the hardware manufacturers must love Bethesda right now. If F4 is any good it all, it's going to be a blockbuster. And it's bound to be a next gen title - so I think we're pretty much all going to have to consider upgrading our rigs (or buy a PS4/Xbox One).

I wonder if it will be an entirely brand new engine? Or just an even more heavily tweaked version of the existing one, made to exploit the expanded memory/graphics of this new console gen. My "tech wish list" for this game includes not only better graphics, but features that utilize the much bigger memory/processor speed - like a much larger game world; seamless transitions when opening doors to go inside/out (no silly loading screens!); and much better NPC AI (both the friendlies and the bad guys).

As a PC gamer who won't ever buy a console, the release of a new generation of gaming consoles always excites me greatly. Because, of course, it means the bar is finally raised on most new PC games. For a year or so afterwards, give or take, I get to feel like new games are actually utilizing the PC hardware power I've paid for. And I don't mind planning my next rig update around the next gen consoles (and their inevitable killer app, be it F4 or something else up the pike). Makes sense to me, and it's kind of fun!

(Except for the spending money part, of course ).

[Arcanis]

I want a threaded game so it actually will use more than 1 of the 6 cores I have in my system.

[Sarkus]

I'm not sure why everyone assumes a big PC hardware upgrade will be necessary for the next Fallout. The new console hardware hasn't exactly jumped all that far ahead.

As for the setting of the new game, if its not Boston I will be very surprised.

[Blackhawk]

I'm not sure why everyone assumes a big PC hardware upgrade will be necessary for the next Fallout. The new console hardware hasn't exactly jumped all that far ahead.

PS3 to PS4:

512MB of RAM to 8GB
256MB video RAm to 1GB
1x3.2 GHz CPU to 8x2.75GHz

That's a pretty solid jump. Also, with multi-core CPUs in consoles now, developers will actually start writing games for multi-core CPUs.

[AjD]

I'm not sure why everyone assumes a big PC hardware upgrade will be necessary for the next Fallout. The new console hardware hasn't exactly jumped all that far ahead.

PS3 to PS4:

512MB of RAM to 8GB
256MB video RAm to 1GB
1x3.2 GHz CPU to 8x2.75GHz

That's a pretty solid jump. Also, with multi-core CPUs in consoles now, developers will actually start writing games for multi-core CPUs.

Yeah, that's pretty much my point. The big ticket PC games (which are always coded first for console compatibility) will now be able to make much better use of the PC hardware we've paid for. At least for awhile. And then, moving forward, I'd imagine we'll still see the usual benefits of higher frame rates and more detailed textures on our rigs as this new console gen ages.

The memory jump is the biggest deal for me. I love sandbox games (like Fallout, Skyrim, etc), and more memory should mean bigger/smoother worlds to explore.

That said - if you're already sporting 16GB of speedy memory and an 8 core, you might be able to get by with just upgrading your video card. Although I'm just guessing here and would want to see some real world playtests before planning any new rig (be it just an update or total rebuild).

[Turtle]

Nah, you'll need a CPU and GPU upgrade to get the best out of things in the future.

If the initial PC specs for Watch Dogs is to be believed, we'll have some time before it gets bad.

[Sarkus]

Nah, you'll need a CPU and GPU upgrade to get the best out of things in the future.

If the initial PC specs for Watch Dogs is to be believed, we'll have some time before it gets bad.

Exactly. My point is that a middle of the road gaming PC is probably going to be just fine for most people with Fallout 4 or any other console derived title coming the next year or two. Thus, upgrading for Fallout 4 doesn't seem to make sense. And I'll believe it when I see it as far as a big time embrace of multi-core programming as that has been promised for years. Even the PS3 was supposed to have that capability.

Then there is the market reality of PC gaming still being dominated by dual and quad core computers. Bethesda isn't releasing a game anytime soon that requires 8 cores.

[Kelric]

As for the setting of the new game, if its not Boston I will be very surprised.

Where does that come from?

[El Guapo]

As for the setting of the new game, if its not Boston I will be very surprised.

Where does that come from?

I was wondering that too. The speculation that I read was guessing London.

[AjD]

The teaser Web site has now been updated with a new morse code message:

[T]he message says “CQ CQ CQ DE OZ PSE AS.” Happily, this isn’t just meaningless gibberish, and means (roughly) “Calling Any Station, Calling Any Station, Calling Any Station, This is/From OZ (Oscar Zulu), Please Wait.” This may or may not relate to the ‘Oscar Zulu’ station present in Fallout 3.

[Sarkus]

As for the setting of the new game, if its not Boston I will be very surprised.

Where does that come from?

Bethesda has a history with the Elder Scrolls series of hinting the location of the next game in the core series as each new one comes out. The "Commonwealth", with a clear tie to science, is mentioned at least twice in Fallout 3 and its DLCs and is the only major location hinted at that was not eventually covered. For example, "The Pitt" was hinted at in base Fallout 3 and then covered by the second DLC. So, for a long time there has been speculation that the next Bethesda Fallout game will be set in the Boston area, with the science angle covered by whatever remains of MIT.

[Kelric]

If they set it in Boston and then get the layout of the ruins wrong, I will be so angry.....

[Daehawk]

Needs to be Chicago or perhaps with TWD set it in Atlanta.

[AjD]

I kind of don't mind where they set the game - as long as it's good. Chicago, New York, London, California (again), doesn't really matter if the game rocks.

I suppose my only concern about Boston is the possibility of story elements repeating themselves, with the whole "player-visiting-the-ruins-of-patriotic-sites" angle (Bunker HIll, etc) happening again.

[Rumpy]

My guess is that it will use a more optimized and improved version of the engine used in Skyrim. Makes sense, as they like to share engines between Elder Scrolls and Fallout, as Fallout 3 and NV both used the one used for Oblivion, and they haven't yet had a chance to use Skyrim's for Fallout yet.

[AjD]

My guess is that it will use a more optimized and improved version of the engine used in Skyrim. Makes sense, as they like to share engines between Elder Scrolls and Fallout, as Fallout 3 and NV both used the one used for Oblivion, and they haven't yet had a chance to use Skyrim's for Fallout yet.

Well, if that's the case... I'd suspect the game won't tax our rigs as much as I'd actually hope. I've noticed that some of the new titles coming out for the next-gen consoles are playing both sides by also releasing versions for the older consoles (PS3/Xbox 360) too. Makes me wonder if they'll do that with Fallout 4 as well...

Which, if true, is a disappointment. I want to play a truly "next generation" Bethesda RPG, one that makes use of multi-cores and is designed to work with multiple megs of memory (with innovative gameplay only possible with that sort of new tech). Turtle mentioned Watch Dog, and that's a good example of this problem - although a brand new "next gen" property, it's coming out on the older consoles too. In the press previews, it's being called a "current gen experience":

It's harsh to chastise (Watch Dog) for being current generation when it's a current generation game. Who can blame developers and publishers hedging their bets by straddling future and current hardware with the forthcoming wave of releases? The installed base of 360s and PS3s is simply too vast to ignore. But based on this and other demos on hand at Eurogamer Expo, other than somewhat prettier graphics, we're not sure there's a compelling reason yet to stump up for a new console.

Perhaps it will be a longer wait for the first truly next gen games to hit this new generation of console hardware. We'll see... and then we can start thinking about whether we'll need to upgrade our boxes!

[Blackhawk]

They aren't going to release too many generation 8 only titles for a little while - at least until the boxes are in more peoples' homes. We'll get a wave of both-gen games first. Hopefully they'll be developed for the new systems then scaled down for the old, rather than the other way around.

[Smoove_B]

I'm one of the weirdos that thought Fallout New Vegas was a much more enjoyable game than Fallout 3, but I cannot deny how awesome it was to walk out into the wasteland for the first time in the original game's opening sequence. As much as I enjoyed the isometric games, I'm glad they made the jump to the first-person genre and I'm eager to see what this latest version brings. I also really enjoyed VATS and I hope it is part of Fallout 4 as I think it's one of the things that really separates it from similarly-designed RPGs.

[Daehawk]

I got invited to Beth's Elder Scrolls beta weekend. I deleted it. That thing is going to be still born. They need to stop pumping money into that bottomless pit of no return and concentrate on this stuff. I'd even like a new tac Fallout game. Seeing how awesome the new X-Com was i think a new FO one would rock.

[Sarkus]

I got invited to Beth's Elder Scrolls beta weekend. I deleted it. That thing is going to be still born. They need to stop pumping money into that bottomless pit of no return and concentrate on this stuff. I'd even like a new tac Fallout game. Seeing how awesome the new X-Com was i think a new FO one would rock.

I don't think Elder Scrolls Online has much, if any, impact on what Bethesda is doing. Bethesda Game Studios is the developer lead by Todd Howard that has done the core Elder Scrolls games and also did Fallout 3. They are a part of Bethesda Softworks, which is a publisher owned by Zenimax Media. Zenimax also owns id, which Bethesda Softworks now publishes. Zenimax Online is seperate studio created and directly controlled by (i.e. not through Bethesda Softworks) Zenimax Media for its MMO aspirations, and is run entirely seperately from the other studios (id and Bethesda Game Studios). So unless Zenimax is having financial issues (and there is no indication they are) then the MMO should have no impact on the resources available to Todd Howard and his team to do future Fallout and Elder Scrolls single player games. And after the massive success of the last few games they've done, I see no other reason they would be restricted either.

[Grifman]

As for the setting of the new game, if its not Boston I will be very surprised.

Where does that come from?

I was wondering that too. The speculation that I read was guessing London.

First off, Fallout 3 had a quest dealing with some visitors from "The Commonwealth", supposedly located in the Boston/New England area.

Secondly, it's been reported several times in the gaming press that Bethesda had sent reps up the Boston area to look around and check out places such as MIT.

Put 1 and 2 together and you get Boston and a storyline involving The Commonwealth.

[dbt1949]

Well, I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is I just upgraded to a new computer that should handle Fallout 4. The bad news is because my main PC broke last night.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

I'm one of the weirdos that thought Fallout New Vegas was a much more enjoyable game than Fallout 3

I don't think you're in the minority with that opinion. Bethesda is great when it comes to designing open world games and they did a tremendous job translating Fallout into a 1st person RPG. However, they have never been great at putting together interesting stories or creating characters you care about.

[AjD]

I'm one of the weirdos that thought Fallout New Vegas was a much more enjoyable game than Fallout 3

I don't think you're in the minority with that opinion. Bethesda is great when it comes to designing open world games and they did a tremendous job translating Fallout into a 1st person RPG. However, they have never been great at putting together interesting stories or creating characters you care about.

Yes.

Actually, Fallout: New Vegas was so well received that I'd really be surprised if Fallout 4 didn't take all that it did well into account. So many reviewers and players pointed out the interesting story/gameplay tweaks that New Vegas brought to the table.... and really how it improved the overall experience of the game and made it more "Fallout-y". Also, a big chunk (not all, of course) of the Fallout 1/2 purists who were saying "Fallout 3 is not Fallout!" came back into the fold with FNV. So I'm expecting Bethesda will at least try to build off of F:NV's successful follow-up with Fallout 4.

I'm hoping this means including distinct factions, more interconnected/branching (and interesting!) storylines, keeping the setting a bit less empty/bleak (at least parts of it - I don't mind some bleak), and, last but not least, getting that Fallout-style humor right.

Of course, Fallout:New Vegas was such a smashing success that I wouldn't be surprised if Bethesda is already planning on repeating the formula (e.g. Obsidian has been hired to create a F:NV-style follow-up to Fallout 4). Alternately - they may announce Fallout 4's design team includes Obsidian folks from the get-go. I'm speculating. We'll see.

[Blackhawk]

I've said it before: The best ES/FO game would be if Bethesda worked with another studio on a game. Let Bethesda write the world. Have someone else write the main storyline.

Vegas did have a much better story, better characters, and a better flow, but it had an inferior world. The 'go out and explore', 'what's over the next hill?' aspect of the game is what FO3 did better than Vegas.

[AjD]

Vegas did have a much better story, better characters, and a better flow, but it had an inferior world. The 'go out and explore', 'what's over the next hill?' aspect of the game is what FO3 did better than Vegas.

Completely agree. Fallout:New Vegas seemed much more "thought through," as a story and a game.

But the world of Fallout 3 felt epic in a way F:NV never did. I remember emerging from the vault, and experiencing the horrid grandeur of the wasteland for the first time. Incredibly memorable. It made you want to explore. The disappointment came when you realized that many of the things you discovered while exploring rarely connected to any larger purpose or whole.

It's almost as if they need to just morph the two games together to make the new one.

[Madmarcus]

Vegas did have a much better story, better characters, and a better flow, but it had an inferior world. The 'go out and explore', 'what's over the next hill?' aspect of the game is what FO3 did better than Vegas.

I know I'm in the minority but I hated the NV story. The game declared that I had to care about the chip and the faction struggles in a way that never clicked with me. If it was a revenge story than there was too much leading me by the hand down and around the long way. By the time I got to Vegas my revenge had cooled in a mass of side quests.

[Hyena]

Vegas did have a much better story, better characters, and a better flow, but it had an inferior world. The 'go out and explore', 'what's over the next hill?' aspect of the game is what FO3 did better than Vegas.

I know I'm in the minority but I hated the NV story. The game declared that I had to care about the chip and the faction struggles in a way that never clicked with me. If it was a revenge story than there was too much leading me by the hand down and around the long way. By the time I got to Vegas my revenge had cooled in a mass of side quests.

This. Cut me loose from the vault with a central quest, and let me follow or not follow it as I see fit. Make me CARE about solving the quest, and have some fun along the way as opposed to railing me down a path.

[El Guapo]

If they set it in Boston and then get the layout of the ruins wrong, I will be so angry.....

As a D.C. resident for several years, it bothered me way too much (and still bothers me) that they changed around the Metro subway map. It's in the future, so presumably the Metro will have added some extensions and maybe a new line or something by the time of the nuclear war, but the game used an entirely different subway map.

[Grifman]

If they set it in Boston and then get the layout of the ruins wrong, I will be so angry.....

As a D.C. resident for several years, it bothered me way too much (and still bothers me) that they changed around the Metro subway map. It's in the future, so presumably the Metro will have added some extensions and maybe a new line or something by the time of the nuclear war, but the game used an entirely different subway map.

It's a different universe. History took a different course. The subway is different just like the US flag in the game is different.

[El Guapo]

If they set it in Boston and then get the layout of the ruins wrong, I will be so angry.....

As a D.C. resident for several years, it bothered me way too much (and still bothers me) that they changed around the Metro subway map. It's in the future, so presumably the Metro will have added some extensions and maybe a new line or something by the time of the nuclear war, but the game used an entirely different subway map.

It's a different universe. History took a different course. The subway is different just like the US flag in the game is different.

ohh. Interesting, I never knew that. Nor did I ever notice that the U.S. flag is different.

[DD*]

If they set it in Boston and then get the layout of the ruins wrong, I will be so angry.....

As a D.C. resident for several years, it bothered me way too much (and still bothers me) that they changed around the Metro subway map. It's in the future, so presumably the Metro will have added some extensions and maybe a new line or something by the time of the nuclear war, but the game used an entirely different subway map.

It's a different universe. History took a different course. The subway is different just like the US flag in the game is different.

This - in fact, I believe they actually addressed this and said things diverged at X point (can't remember where I read that, though)

[Sepiche]

Things diverge a little in the early 20th century, but it really splits sometime between the end of WWII and the moon landing when the US is divided into 13 Commonwealths in an attempt to quell social unrest by giving each region more power over it's governance.

The new flag is adopted then with 12 stars for 12 of the Commonwealths surrounding one big star to represent the federal government and the last Commonwealth.

[Blackhawk]

Which is why the future looks like the 1950s. Technological advancement in the other universe focused on atomic power rather than miniaturization like ours did. A music player weighs ten pounds - but the batteries last for three centuries.