Fallout 4 is going to take up all of your free time
Bethesda makes massive games that take up huge portions of your freetime. We know this from the Elder Scrolls series and we know it from the Fallout franchise. It's no surprise then that their upcoming installment, Fallout 4, is looking to suck you in for more than 500 hours of game time. Now that's a bold claim but one which the game is sure to live up to.
In fact we've gone ahead and scoured the internet for every shred of information about the game and the following list is our top five reasons why Fallout 4 is going to surpass 500 hours. Say goodbye to the real world folks, this one's going to be a doozy.
5. Loveable Characters
What keeps bringing you back to the Fallout world again and again? Strong and loveable populations that’s what. You care about the various settlements, you care about your friends and you care about the various factions fighting against each other, or at least you care about the outcome of their fights.
There's noone better to love than your dog
You inadvertently feel an emotional connection to the people you encounter, though sometimes of course that connection does result in mass murder but that’s really a topic best left for another day. When you like, or even dislike, an NPC you then care about what happens to them, and you will try your hardest to either help them or hinder them, actions which often involve spending hours doing numerous side quests for them, or putting a bullet in their head.
You will put many hours into these games just helping out your favourite characters, this becomes particularly prevalent in Fallout 4 with the ability to build and run your own settlements, you will then be able to fill it with your friends and ensure they remain safe and well.
4. Simply put, It's Massive
Bethesda studios is known for its large open world games that are filled to bursting point with various side quests, collectables and interesting places to visit and explore. Not to mention the various inhabitants to meet and slaughter mercilessly, erm I mean befriend.
As you’d expect Fallout 4 is far bigger than its predecessor and thankfully it’s also far more densely populated and less depressing than the setting they used for Fallout 3.
Look at that Playground
With such a thriving and well populated region to explore you can guarantee there’s going to be an almost unlimited number of things to go and do and countless fellow survivors to meet.
In fact Fallout 4 is so vast with so many different objectives to achieve that even the lead game developer has not seen everything, and he’s put in over 400 hours of his life into it.
“I’ve played the game probably 400 hours, and I’m still finding stuff that I haven’t seen yet,” Jeff Gardiner proclaimed during an E3 2015 roundtable.
That's an incredibly large amount of time to spend on a game, and it doesn't even include the numerous playthroughs to do to get every ending possible.
3. An Engaging Story
Everything Bethesda has done, from the Elder Scrolls to the Fallout series has been crafted with a truly magical story that takes the player to far off lands and leads them on an exciting journey of discovery and adventure.
It’s the story that keeps bringing you back to these games and it will be the story that keeps on bringing us back to Fallout 4 for hundreds upon hundreds of hours. Bethesda has created a world teeming with life like characters that flesh out their plot and get us all emotionally tangled up in the outcome of the story.
Total Badass
And it’s a story that’s not just told to a watching player, it’s an active and evolving tale that we can shape and change with our actions. We can bring love and laughter to a town or we can destroy it and kill every survivor there, shaping not only ourselves but also the world around us as we do so.
With such options at the players disposal Fallout 4 is not always going to be the same game. It can be played multiple times and each time the story will be different and the world will react in different ways. And that means there are numerous endings to reach and experience adding countless hours of replayability to a game that will already be sucking up much of your life.
2. Hundreds of Side-quests
They’re a mainstay of any RPG title but nobody has been able to do side-quests quite as well as Bethesda has, which is why we can all rest assured that Fallout 4 will be filled with many interesting side quests and activities to do. From the likes of crafting to clearing out settlements of mutinous beasts you can guarantee Fallout 4 will always have something for you to be going and doing.
Settlement quests are a Fallout mainstay
The main quest is the bread and butter of the RPG genre, but it’s the side quests and missions that provide the garnish around it.
Some of them are simple go and fetch or go and kill missions but many others add real depth and emotion to the main core of the game, from helping out local civilians to expanding your own circle of companions. Side quests allow the player to make even more choices in the world of Fallout 4, choices that will have a very real impact of the world around them. People will see you and treat you differently depending on how you have tackled these quests, do them well and with chivalry then you’ll be hailed a hero, but take a more evil approach and you will become their villain. It’s really all down to you.
1. You Can Build Your Own Settlement
The settlements always provided a place of solace for the players back in Fallout 3, they were places to go and rest and restock your supplies. You could also gather quests and make friends with the various inhabitants, which would always provide a nice respite from the horrors of the outside wasteland.
Fallout 4 is taking this attachment with settlements one step further and will actually allow you to make your own piece of Eden in amongst the desolation. You will be able to design and build your own houses and shops and over time it will become populated with fellow survivors.
Make sure it has at least 4 walls
You will be the leader and defacto guardian of this little slice of heaven and it will be down to you to keep away all the little nasties that will seek to destroy it.
More than ever before Fallout 4 is going to give you a unique and customizable experience, you will be able to craft and build a settlement that no other player in the world will create, you will be able to shape the landscape of the world with your very own hand.
Not only will the story keep bringing you back to this world, so will the sense of responsibility you have to the wellbeing of your citizens, to the people looking to you for protection in a world of desolation. You will be their hero.
