So we knew it was coming thanks to the announcement earlier this month, but now we have all the E3 goodness from Bethesda we could ever want. Bethesda were not being secretive and didn’t seem to miss much in there fantastic show, giving us a ton of Fallout 4 at their E3 conference on Sunday. In addition to a ton of concept art, we got a good look at the new character creation tool, with which you can sculpt and alter the details of your character’s face while peering into a bathroom mirror, credited as being the exact system they use to create all the in world NPCs for the game, (I’m mostly interested in how ridiculous I can make my character look).
We also got confirmation of what the first trailer hinted at: Fallout 4 begins before the apocalypse, and we’ll be playing as the sole survivor of Vault 111…
VATS is back! You either love it or you hate it but the bullet time VATS looked amazing as we saw the lone survivor blasting some mole rats. An upgraded Pip-boy was also showcased, that even allows you to minigames on it using Pip-boy card found in the world.
A new crafting system will let you create and customise your weapons in ways never before explored in the fallout series, and you’ll even be able to customize your power armour. Base-building, yeah sure we can do that too! You’ll be able to salvage materials, build yourself a home, wire it, power it, and even add automated turrets to defend your home from raiders. You’ll be able to establish multiple bases and even run Brahmin caravans between them. This is next level emersion.
The Collector’s Edition of the game will come with an actual Pip-boy—one you can insert your smartphone into to act as its screen. A Fallout 4 app will provide a second screen experience. As Todd Howard put it: “As far as stupid gimmicks go, this is the best F@#king one I’ve ever seen.”
I left the best bit until last… The dog, we got to see a good helping of the dog in the gameplay video, and he is awesome. You can give contextual command to him as seen in the video sending him to retrieve items for you, and the AI makes him seem incredibly realistic as he does so.
So the most important detail for all of us fans, the release date: Fallout 4 is releasing on November 10, 2015.
Here’s the highlights:
Character creation and gameplay:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=35&v=bWuwLSFmATI
More gameplay:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzV1GlDDlv8
Weapon customisation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unji5X-zl8o
Crafting and house building:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOd9mB1OZsA