Fallout: Where Bethesda Went Wrong

A Hopeful (Post-Apocalyptic) Future

Fallout 4 is not a bad game. It still provides an intriguing and imaginative world that you could explore and make your own. The central narrative still posed difficult moral questions that made us think about which faction to align with. But when the moment-to-moment choices are stripped of agency, the overall effect is an unsatisfying one – or at least not as satisfying as re-playing New Vegas to see how other choices would play out.

The disaster of Fallout 76 was the tipping point that highlighted that Bethesda may not be as competent at crafting immersive roleplaying games as they once were. Something made more evident when Obsidian showed it’s still possible to create a quirky sci-fi RPG where player choice really matters with The Outer Worlds.

Hopefully, Bethesda will learn from their recent mistakes and put player choice back in the heart of the next Fallout game.

With recent news that Microsoft has now acquired Bethesda, putting them under the same roof as Obsidian, the future of the series is looking bright. Especially if this means we could potentially see a fully realised sequel to New Vegas somewhere in the not-too-distant future.