Begin at the beginning, as they say, and the first time we've seen the pre-war world of Fallout in full swing. It's a veritable cornucopia of timely 1950s references, injected with all the retro-futuristic stylings of things we're more accustomed to seeing after the bombs drop. Sleek automobiles roam the streets with utopian Americana churns on, but the problems come in that we only spend a good 10 minutes in this place, before the hurried pacing spurs you out the door and into the nearest Vault. It all happens rather coincidentally too; a Vault-Tec representative comes to your door pushing to get you signed up, and literal seconds after he's toddled off, everything goes to hell and you're being ushered away from your home. Assumedly this is supposed to give your situation a bit more weight and pacing as you just narrowly make it to safety, but on the other hand, why even bother creating this entire chunk of town, if we can't explore and interact with it more? You literally end up going from playing with your infant child, to watching him get stolen, your partner getting killed and crackin' wise with Codsworth in the new world, in space of around 20 minutes. It's barely enough time to connect with anything, and feels like Bethesda shouting "We know what you guys really want! Here's the wasteland!" rather than anything that should've been more meaningful.
