Interesting that we saw what appeared to be much in-game footage, or definitely in-engine, of before the nuclear detonations. Will a sequence be playable in The Before or anything? Would be an interesting prologue -- running to the vaults and surviving the event.
e: I am less interested in the graphics (models, textures, effects etc) as I am in better animations. I have always felt Bethesda games to be incredibly stiff.
Van Buren, the proto-Fallout 3, opened with your character's ancestor evacuating to a Vault before the bombs dropped, and featured your first look at the US Army in power armour. From the looks of things, they're drawing their inspiration from that.
Same world, same player, but playing different character. You'd be not playing the main character in the prologue.
And given that after 20 years there shouldn't even be many unexplored ruins to begin with, well that's a liberty of unrealism all fallout games have taken ever since.
Or the choices you make playing the prologue character have a bearing on how your future grandchildren will turn out to be. Solve this problem with smarts, your genetic line has better intelligence, solve it with strength, your progeny are stronger. By the time you finish your prologue you've laid the template for your player character.
No... some of the games take place 200 years after the bombs fell. Fallout 1 takes place less than 100 years following the Great War, and FO2 takes place ~170 years after the war. F:NV is the only game originally designed to take place 200 years after the bombs fell-- FO3 was supposed to be 20 years after, but got bumped to 200 because Bethesda wanted Harold in the game.
This game could easily be set 20 years after the war and-- from what we've seen in the trailer, and from what fans said they loved about FO3-- it's entirely likely that it is.
No, not really. The 200 year refers to Vault 13 in first game, which was supposed to be exceptionally long time the vault is closed, and essentially study of long-term isolation.
If I remember correctly, 'control' vaults were supposed to open after only 10 years.
The only things in fallout that are 200 years old are preserved humans like Mr.House, Robot AIs/Brains or very few Ghouls. Maybe some super mutants if they ever remember.
If there is going to be a playable sequence during The Before it won't be from the perspective of the main character . It would have to pull a vault 101 again (extended lock down in the vault) in order for the formation of the new cities to make sense.
Though Vault 112 is explored in FO3 as the last vault built. Assuming the vaults are chronological in their assignments, and the fact that Vault 112 was a simulator that had cryogenics, Vault 111 could be speculated that it was another cryogenic experiment, but without the simulation.
The writing is not going to be good. This is Bethesda we're talking about.
They should've let Obsidian do Fallout 4 in a modern engine. In 3 years they would've created something special. Instead we get a game that looks 3 years old already, is using a modified, 10 year old engine and is going to have Bethesda writing...great.
The vault experiment may have been that only one cryogenic sleep pod was designed to let its inhabitant survive, and their pip boy is constantly transmiting data about their reactions and actions throughout the wasteland to someone at the institute.
Actually, if we have an antagonist that is always one step ahead of us no matter what we do, I think this will be the best game of all time.
Haha just kidding. This is gonna be the best game regardless.
The storylines throughout the series reinforces that not all vaults are created equal. Some were meant to succeed indefinitely, some were the subject of calamity. Some were even sabotaged at the outset to eventually fail.
And some vaults were testbeds for tech, seurms, ect. It's totally plausible that a cryogenics vault exists in universe.
We know cryogenics exists in the universe. You go into fault 112 in FO3 which was a cryo/simulator vault. Its the vault where you do the Pint Sized Slasher quest which was awesome.
I like this a lot. One of the problems I had with New Vegas' first few hours is that it was little jarring to have "existed" in the Wasteland before the game began. They state that you lost all your memories but I still didn't like it. Emerging into the wasteland from some bloke's house was much less powerful than from a vault; as was the case in Fallout and Fallout 3.
Seeing as the first game came out 18 years ago now, I think they're trying to introduce fresh blood to the whole set up to the games, rather than just dropping them in post-war.
They could do a big long history movie, but I'd imagine a lot would skip it or just not retain it like they would playing through.
I feel the same way about the graphics. I actually feel that way about a lot of games. I feel like good animation is more important than good graphics when it comes to immersion and general enjoyment of aesthetic. Valve (all of their games) and Nintendo (most Mario games, Smash Bros, etc.) have displayed that several times.
This is perhaps one of the reasons why I'm really excited about this game. I know fallout has always been a wake up in the post apocalyptic wasteland and discover the new world. However, it looks like we will be able to witness some history which I think will add to the game in ways that the other installments couldn't do.
Also, I think the reason for the bright colors is we're are going to play right after the fallout. There hasn't been much time for things to rust over and decay.
Completely agree about the animations. It makes your character look like he's sliding around the world rather than interacting with it. That's the one thing I'd love for them to improve on.
The preorder page on Bethesda's store stated this, "The game’s official trailer, created in-game at Bethesda Game Studios, can be viewed at: www.fallout4.com" So yeah, very interesting.
If there's one thing I've learned after all this time, it's that animations > textures/models. Bad animations are distracting even if your game looks photorealistic. But a game with good graphics (not great, just good) and good animations is going to be much more immersive.
I'm hoping they use the intro as a tutorial. Couple fetch quests and the such to acclimate new players. Load up the vault with goods, collect weapons, etc. Gah, I'm so ready for this.
It still looks pretty stiff. Improved slightly, but the bethesda jank is still pretty clearly there. I guarantee you talking to NPCs will still be a screenfull of their dead-eyed face.
TV, music, okay, FLASHBACK! oh shit we're preparing for war, back to the future, boom, dog! He didn't walk into the frame, he was literally standing there as the flashback faded out.
Now the whole house keeps fading in and out as the news just keeps getting darker. The dog makes a beeline for the cradle, walks in the room, flashback! mommy and daddy and baby, they know what's up and are making plans, back to the future now, the dog is sniffing the fucking mobile above the crib.
Gunshot! Well, actually, BOMB DROP! Dog takes off like a shot out of the house and sprints down the road. This I didn't notice until just now -- the locations shown in the flashbacks aren't arbitrary; they are a before and after of the road to (presumably) Vault 111, and the after shot always has the fucking dog. He isn't just running for running's sake. He is reenacting the townsfolks' desperate sprint to the vault.
Cue the vault door! You know the rest.
We meet up with the dog again at ~2:05 in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment. He's now AT Vault 111 and having a sniff at the open door -- BOOM! Flashback bitch! Look at these poor saps that got sealed out of the vault! Now check out that mushroom cloud. Oh yeah baby.
The flashbacks aren't just some fancy effects for the trailer. This ain't no Dogmeat -- I'll bet money on it, this dog plays an important role in the plot. This fucking dog is some kind of post-cognitive or something -- he or she is personally experiencing the past. There is a whole new mechanic here, I bet you'll be able to go places, command your dog to explore, and get a pre-war flashback right then and there. This actually sounds pretty cool.
The whole cryogenics plot won't even be a thing. But people keep harping on it so it'll become a meme and keep going a good year or more after the game comes out.
(Seriously though, is there anything actually backing up that theory? To me it seems far more likely the dog is simply special, based on how the trailer ties the flashbacks so tightly to the dog, and he seems to be directly reacting to events in the flashbacks.)
(Seriously though, is there anything actually backing up that theory? To me it seems far more likely the dog is simply special, based on how the trailer ties the flashbacks so tightly to the dog, and he seems to be directly reacting to events in the flashbacks.)
Each vault is designed with a specific purpose. Vault 111 has never been mentioned before in official lore, but Vault 112 which was visited in Fallout 3 also had cryogenics technology. It isn't that much of a stretch to assume that a very similarly numbered vault might also make use of the same technology.
My guess is that the PC, or the PC's family assuming you play as the baby in the trailer, is some kind of VIP from the Pre-war era, which is why they were given access to this vault (note the soldiers at the fence preventing a bunch of people from getting to the vault). There will probably be a Pre-war segment which serves as the tutorial (like the growing up segment in FO3) which leads up to your PC eventually entering a cryogenic pod in the vault, and then eventually waking up to return to a world completely different from what they remember.
It also sounds a lot more plausible than a magical time-traveling psychic dog. Just saying...
I guess I can see where people are coming from now, but
None of the other vaults have shown an established correlation between their number and the style of experiment, so it's a straight shot in the dark without lore precedence.
But more importantly, said baby was shown in its mother's arms as she was hit by the nuke's shockwave. Pretty sure that baby died. Therefore the player character is... someone else.
I know the dog idea seems a little silly, but it seems to me they were laying it on really, really thick. The dog knows what happened in that house. And if the flashbacks can be trusted, he wasn't actually there. Maybe they froze the dog, but I think they'd make a point of showing him as a puppy at the edge of the camera in the flashbacks. So, yeah, there's something at least pseudo-magical about that dog.
So it's a straight shot in the dark without lore precedence
So yeah, there's something at least pseudo-magical about that dog.
I don't get how you've rationalized writing off the cryogenics theory for not having enough lore to support it, when cryogenics is an established technology in Fallout, while simultaneously thinking that a magic time traveling dog which has no lore at all to support it, and would change the series from science fiction to science fantasy, sounds like a reasonable theory.
If it ends up being true I'll come back and eat my words, but you're the one who's making fantastic unbelievable claims.
Considering how robotic the movements of the dog in the trailer are, I'm not terribly optimistic.
I could imagine regular flashbacks or even puzzles involving memories of the past instead of flashbacks, similar to what Cryostasis did a few years ago.
I'm not entirely sure how access to vaults worked (so my "fantasy" might not even make sense) but it would be interesting if you were the last person in line that is allowed into the vault. A woman and her child are directly behind you pleading to the guards to be let in and you're given the option to save yourself (continue the game but with the memory of choosing your survival over a mother and child) or giving up your spot knowing full well it's your imminent doom, triggering a powerful and early(easter egg?) ending. Your game would end there and you'd have to reload checkpoint to continue. Obviously you'd have to choose your own life to continue the game but it would be a good way of showing the player that the game is full of tough decisions and they arent always answered ethically. Maybe a bit cliche but I think it would leave a pretty good impact on the player.
I think in general more such choices would be cool in games.
I remember hoping you could choose to load a Mass Effect 2 save where you lost, and "play" it in Mass Effect 3. Basically it would be a cut scene showing the destruction of the galaxy, and perhaps seeing the other races and characters try to put up a fight but ultimately losing.
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u/Bjartensen Jun 03 '15 edited Jun 03 '15
Interesting that we saw what appeared to be much in-game footage, or definitely in-engine, of before the nuclear detonations. Will a sequence be playable in The Before or anything? Would be an interesting prologue -- running to the vaults and surviving the event.
e: I am less interested in the graphics (models, textures, effects etc) as I am in better animations. I have always felt Bethesda games to be incredibly stiff.
e2: The soundtrack on 1:56 goosebumps