7. More Hardcore Mode Options
The Addition of a "Hardcore Mode" which required the player to eat, sleep, and drink throughout the game was perhaps Bethesda's greatest contribution to the Fallout series. You know, other than suing the original developer, Interplay, and rescinding Interplay's rights to make an MMO. But that's neither here nor there. What I'm getting at is that Fallout: New Vegas was the first game to feel like the player was out to survive, instead of upend the entire wasteland without any effort. There were times when having hardcore mode active went totally unnoticed. And, there were other times when I found myself scraping through every trash can and abandoned box I saw because I had zero water left in my inventory. While those hardcore options gave the game a more involved feel, they were still a bit weak for the tastes of many gamers. In theory, the game could be expanded to allow for several hardcore options, letting players pick and choose the exact style of game they wanted to play. Maybe they found sleeping in game to be just monotonous, but got a kick out of needing to see a doctor to fix a limb. Well, why not let them set up a game that accommodates their specific wants. Further, why stop at the same system from F:NV? There are literally hundreds of ways to make the hardcore option more realistic, many of which could greatly increase the game experience. Long term poisons/venom, a less accurate map, need for batteries to power certain helpful devices, and disease are just a few options that Fallout could offer the player as a means of increasing their challenge. Of course, the ultimate challenge was the one that the original two Fallout games had, a mission timer. Though it might seem like an artificial restriction in a vast and unexplored world, the timer from the first Fallout had me on the edge of my seat. I won't drop any spoilers for people who haven't played it, but eventually you realize that unless you stop farting around the Mojave Desert and actually do what you set out to do in the first place, a lot of people are going to die. That's not a mechanic that everyone would want, since many people thrive on he exploratory aspect of the game. However, writing in space for the option, that's just good marketing on the part of Bethesda.