7. Settlement Building & Implementation
So, settlements, the one big new feature outside the gunplay that you could point to across the game as a defining difference between Fallout's 3 and 4. They're... strange, to say the least. Many reviewers have noted their execution in the final product feels pointless even by the game's end, connoting the same feeling as Assassin's Creed 3's Homestead-building side-mode. It's certainly a robust toolset where you can hop in, place defence turrets, walls, floors, lighting rigs etc. - all in the hope of staving off random attacks from Raiders and Ghouls - but the narrative setup is nonexistent. Why does your character suddenly have the authority to completely scrap towns and remake them? How do you know how to disassemble everything from cars to houses to electronic systems? It's not explained or talked about, and any followers you have just go with whatever you will into being, making it all feel very strange in the larger gameplay loop of exploration and discovery.