Fallout: 10 Reasons New Vegas Is The Best One
2. Player/Character Cohesion
In RPGs, it is important to place the player in the shoes of the main character. To make them feel like they are living vicariously through the character. This presents a problem in Bethesda games, which always seem to push the player towards getting distracted. It can be jarring to have a main character who wants to find his lost son and a player who ends up spending four weeks building the ultimate potato farm.
Which is why New Vegas functions so well in creating cohesion between the two. Your main goal is to kill someone who shot you in the head. Your character doesn't have those high stakes and thus it can be easy for a role-playing player to justify mucking around picking flowers for a couple hours.
It is a small thing, but it can be incredibly noticeable in Fallout 4. You always have dialogue options to ask about your son, but most of the time the player is simply trying to find a bigger gun to use. New Vegas embraces that, putting you in the shoes of a gun-toting courier whose goal is defined by the next thing he can shoot!