12 Ways Bethesda Should Have Made Fallout 4

2. A Need To Explore

I'll refer to this as 'Mass Effect 3 syndrome' i.e. a narrative imperative so strong, it prevents you from exploring the rest of the game. In Bioware's trilogy-capper it was amassing a galaxy-wide army to thwart the Earth-enslaving Reapers (not exactly something that could wait), and here, the fact your own infant son was anywhere other than in plain sight.

As such, you could employ the age-old open-world rationale of "See that? You can go there" as reason to do so, but you never needed to. Crafting components could be found in everything from kettles to destroyed androids, but there was no indication that specific areas would have richer rewards, or why you'd even want to seek them out.

My entire time with Fallout 4, there was always a story-driven reason to pursue my lost son, and then, to explore his motivations and finally, to stop a faction war. Unlike The Witcher 3, where Geralt being a supernatural bounty hunter means its always worth finding new villages and monsters, your place in the world here, is not one befitting exploration.

Fallout 4 had a far more dense map than ever, with some of the most detailed settlements and outposts in Bethesda's history - they just didn't give you any reason to seek it out.