There is something 'wrong' with the style of Fallout 4

[The Dutch Ghost]

Hello all,

I have been playing Fallout 4 for a couple of days now, but for some reason I am constantly 'thrown off' by the style of this game.
With style I don't mean the detail of the graphics but rather the designs that have been chosen for things like machines, weapons, robots, etc.
Some of these really don't have a Fallout 'feel' and for me seem have more in common with Rage for the lack of a better comparison.

I liked the designs in Fallout 1 and 2, I liked some and tolerated other designs in Fallout New Vegas. But Fallout 4? There is just something wrong about its looks.
So far I actually do like some of the synth design even though they clash with the Fallout lore to a degree, but I don't really like some of the new additional robots like those pre war androids or what the security robots have become now.

To be honest I would much rather have seen the models of Fallout 1 and 2 turned into full 3D (robots, mutants, critters, etc), and if Bethesda wanted to expand the number of robots I would rather have seen them throw in the robots from Fallout Tactics and the Vault Tec robots from FOBOS (the game may suck but the ingame robots looked okay), and then perhaps the Synth designs.

Do others here also feel that the designs of many ingame objects, creatures, etc also don't feel very Fallout?

 

[RangerBoo]

I get that vibe too. The game reminds me more of RAGE then anything else. The style, models, lighting all look like they were ripped from RAGE and put in this game. Its very off putting.

 

[Deleted member 79804]

One of the things I picked up on pretty early was that a lot of objects in the world are definitely over sized. Like pill bottles, furniture, fridges. I can't really explain it properly but it almost reminds me of bioshock and it looks really wrong. If Obsidian gets to make their fallout game I think fallout 4's stink is going to rub off on it because they'll have to reuse a lot of these assets, and the comparison to rage is also fitting. The trailers made the art style look a lot better, especially the first trailer they released, it reminded me more of fallout 1's art.

 

[Jay-F]

I can not really agree with you. I think the artstyle is one of the few things that improved this time. The clothing, armor, especially the Power Armor, Ghouls and even the orcish Super Mutants are looking better compared to the old games by Bethesda.
There are still many logic holes that make the game feel ridiculous quite often.

 

[Deleted member 79804]

I definitely agree on the power armor part, they made it much more intimidating and it looks great, some of the weapons look really good too.

 

[Hassknecht]

I like it, even though some things look a bit too clunky/heavy/"back in the Fifties we made things of heavier stuff!". But personally, I like it. Too much pre-war, though.
The only Rage-like feeling I get is from my issues with the mipmaps/LoD textures. Half of the textures won't load properly...
And while the "cobbled together from junk" look works quite well for armour, I'm already tired of junk weapons, at least the pipe-variants.
Gimme back my Winchester City Killer

 

[kelveen]

I do not really agree with you, but i am definately put off by many other things.
The style is ok to me, and since this is in boston, i have no genuine comparisons to make especially in the environment. I still think the atmosphere is more like a virus epidemic + major anarchist revolution than a nuclear apocalypse game. This is not a fallout game, and rather its using original fallout assets and thats about it.

 

[ssg]

When first images and trailer came and some leaked footage. I thought art style looked little off from what previous Fallout games had had. It felt like they went full on 50's Scifi look.

When I got to play the game, I realized they had done it actually and I love it. I love how cities, buildings, vending machines and especially factories look. More colorful 50's style works really well.

I am huge fan of FO1 and 2. I loved how the wasteland was barren, bleak, depressing. FO3 and NW pretty much had the same style. I think FO4 art style makes the game feel fresh. 50's style and playful colors make it feel more lighthearted and maybe even a little goofy. I don't mind it, but I know many people like serious look, hardcore gameplay and realism. FO1 and FO2 might have more serious art style, but screenwriting has always been full of humor and sillines.

Overall, I feel new art style complements general feeling of Fallout world.

 

[retardette]

To be honest I would much rather have seen the models of Fallout 1 and 2 turned into full 3D (robots, mutants, critters, etc)

As much as I bash Bethesda for their choices, as a designer I have to say what you ask for, wish for (and probably a lot of us do including myself) is very difficult to achieve. If you start with design from scratch, the most important part is consistency in what you come up with. Now every team or individual has their own "dialect" coming with it and if they know what they're doing it will have consistency. In that case it is obviously depatured from the original Fallout games because it is a whole different team of designers. It is possible to take certain elements from the originals and adapt them, but to completely translate them with a whole new squad of people is unlikely to happen, not necessarily because the argument is "we want it different" but because the people involved/hired just speak a different visual dialect. The 1:1 transformation is usually best possible if something was created upon a modular and rational approach. Example: people use the typeface Helvetica a lot because it was designed to have this trait, it is easy to handle even for a layman, it comes with limitations anyhow because it lacks of a good legibility for example, still: the visual language it comes with can easily be adapted. With F1 and F2 the art style, design etc. pp. is so specific that I don't see a good chance for that happening even if wanted by another team that have their own restrictions within in their new visual system. Sucks but that's how it is

 

[Gizmojunk]

Hello all,

I have been playing Fallout 4 for a couple of days now, but for some reason I am constantly 'thrown off' by the style of this game.
With style I don't mean the detail of the graphics but rather the designs that have been chosen for things like machines, weapons, robots, etc.
Some of these really don't have a Fallout 'feel' and for me seem have more in common with Rage for the lack of a better comparison.

I liked the designs in Fallout 1 and 2, I liked some and tolerated other designs in Fallout New Vegas. But Fallout 4? There is just something wrong about its looks.
So far I actually do like some of the synth design even though they clash with the Fallout lore to a degree, but I don't really like some of the new additional robots like those pre war androids or what the security robots have become now.

To be honest I would much rather have seen the models of Fallout 1 and 2 turned into full 3D (robots, mutants, critters, etc), and if Bethesda wanted to expand the number of robots I would rather have seen them throw in the robots from Fallout Tactics and the Vault Tec robots from FOBOS (the game may suck but the ingame robots looked okay), and then perhaps the Synth designs.

Do others here also feel that the designs of many ingame objects, creatures, etc also don't feel very Fallout?

It is that Bethesda has [detrimentally] tried to simplify the setting down to an elevator pitch & hook. Under their influence, the Fallout setting is no longer the 50's idea of the future, but has become a skewed future idea of the 50's. They don't care; what they're after is to have their fans saying, "I get it", rather than "What is this $#!^" ~even if they have to warp the hell out of it to make it happen. Small wonder there were pro game reviewers that thought FO3 was set in an alternate 1950's.

They've discarded the premise of a 2077 age with 50's aesthetic design (that could include cell phones and ogg music players), for a 2077+ where the only thing that changed was the Science of energy and firearms. It's sad really; but it's ultimately a marketing ploy. It's easier than explaining that the society's fear and obsession with the atom bomb manifest their fears as reality (as happened in Necropolis... and should have only happened in Necropolis, as a fluke of the war; leaving the ghouls as a disconcerting living relic of the great war; and the only ones that remembered the Earth before it.... The last of which were dying off in Fallout 2; along with the Super Mutants.)

I remember the interview with Tim Cain, where he thought it was stretched to include the [local] mutants on the East coast, and said that he would have done something completely different [instead of recycling Fallout 1 & 2 plots as FO3].

 

[Mr Enclave]

Hello all,
They've discarded the premise of a 2077 age with 50's aesthetic design (that could include cell phones and ogg music players), for a 2077+ where the only thing that changed was the Science of energy and firearms. It's sad really; but it's ultimately a marketing ploy. It's easier than explaining that the society's fear and obsession with the atom bomb manifest their fears as reality (as happened in Necropolis... and should have only happened in Necropolis, as a fluke of the war; leaving the ghouls as disconcerting a living relic of the great war.)

I think that's a bit more subjective really. Fallout 1 and 2 both open with songs that were made 130 years before the start of the war. Personally the one thing I will ever give Bethesda is that they have a really good aesthetic design for most things (I think they've made a lot of the weapons look really shitty this time though, the Ripper looks like something a scav made and not an actually US Army weapon) especially with regard to the buildings and such.

 

[Gizmojunk]

I think that's a bit more subjective really. Fallout 1 and 2 both open with songs that were made 130 years before the start of the war. Personally the one thing I will ever give Bethesda is that they have a really good aesthetic design for most things (I think they've made a lot of the weapons look really shitty this time though, the Ripper looks like something a scav made and not an actually US Army weapon) especially with regard to the buildings and such.

Those allude to the "golden age"; and interestingly... were not 50's songs. Fallout used ambient tracks [indicative of new cultures] for its in-game atmosphere. If you look close... Several of the principle NPCs had a very un-50's cultural appearance.

Spoiler

**I loved their work on the landscape; it was Spot on IMO ~but depicted Fallout's world just after the war... rather than just after Fallout 2.

**Nice avatar!

 

[Doctor 0]

Can nukes melt steel beams?

 

[Gizmojunk]

A nuke underground can vaporize all the ground, to leave a 300' [glass coated] cavern.

The biggest nuke ever exploded is supposed to be the Tsar; totally destroyed everything for 22 miles.
The fireball was 2 miles wide. [read from the wiki]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwlNPhn64TA


The nukes in Fallout are supposed to have been a bit on the weak side; but the premise is that everything was wiped out; no societies left.

 

[ssg]

I think that's a bit more subjective really. Fallout 1 and 2 both open with songs that were made 130 years before the start of the war. Personally the one thing I will ever give Bethesda is that they have a really good aesthetic design for most things (I think they've made a lot of the weapons look really shitty this time though, the Ripper looks like something a scav made and not an actually US Army weapon) especially with regard to the buildings and such.

Those allude to the "golden age"; and interestingly... were not 50's songs. Fallout used ambient tracks [indicative of new cultures] for its in-game atmosphere. If you look close... Several of the principle NPCs had a very un-50's cultural appearance.

Original 2 Fallouts had weird mix of punk culture and 50's in art design. Humans, character, buildings and weapons were often made with punk style. Cars, appliances(fridges, toasters), robots, aliens, technology and many props where 50's style.

It was Fallout 3 that really pushed Fallout series towards 50's scifi theme more. I don't mind it. I really never have liked Mad Max style punk apocalypse. 50's style is way more unique and fresh.

 

[Askorti]

I liked the more varied setting, you had things from the 50's, all the way to the early 80's. Now everything is just the same. Lets remember that this is an alternate universe, so it shouldn't have just stopped developing in the 50's. I don't think any single cultural era could've lasted over a 100 years.

 

[Hassknecht]

I think that's a bit more subjective really. Fallout 1 and 2 both open with songs that were made 130 years before the start of the war. Personally the one thing I will ever give Bethesda is that they have a really good aesthetic design for most things (I think they've made a lot of the weapons look really shitty this time though, the Ripper looks like something a scav made and not an actually US Army weapon) especially with regard to the buildings and such.

Those allude to the "golden age"; and interestingly... were not 50's songs. Fallout used ambient tracks [indicative of new cultures] for its in-game atmosphere. If you look close... Several of the principle NPCs had a very un-50's cultural appearance.

Spoiler

**I loved their work on the landscape; it was Spot on IMO ~but depicted Fallout's world just after the war... rather than just after Fallout 2.

**Nice avatar!

To me it was always what would happen if The Road Warrior happened in the Fifties' World Of Tomorrow.

 

[Crni Vuk]

Can nukes melt steel beams?

Given enough heat/force even non-nuclear explosions can do that. Everything can vaporate.

 

[Dr Fallout]

I don't get any kind of feeling other then Bethesda's fallout.

 

[Gizmojunk]

It was Fallout 3 that really pushed Fallout series towards 50's scifi theme more. I don't mind it. I really never have liked Mad Max style punk apocalypse. 50's style is way more unique and fresh.

I mind it because it's retconning the entire series past, and yet is presented as an evolution of it... That's like what happened to Highlander movie franchise, where the sequel basically rettconed the immortals into having been aliens... and what used to be a kind of magic [IP], disintegrated into crap right before one's eyes.

... And didn't similar happen to Star Wars, with the advent of the Midichlorian nonsense?

___________

The Fallout setting was a one-shot campaign, later ~stretched into into two; and then pulled all out of shape by every subsequent sequel and spin-off released.

It has suffered badly from the 'Copy of a Copy' effect, and has degenerated to its current state; and with all sorts of lore compromises tacked on for developer convenience. [IE. keeping the ghouls and Enclave; and FEV ~and its mutant progenies. All of whom behave more like impersonating dopplegangers, than the originals.]

Playing Bethesda's addition to the series [FO3; I don't have FO4, but I bet it's the same] feels almost like playing a first person sci-fi homage to the Modron Maze in Planescape:Torment...