What if Fallout 4 was not called Fallout 4 and not made by Bethesda?

R

randomnerd123

First time out of the vault
I suddenly wondered, what if Fallout 4 didn't have the fallout name (and was called, for example, Post Apocalyptic PewPew Adventure) and was made by some relatively unknown new developer that went a bit wild with the marketing budget.

The game would be almost exactly the same, words and visuals related to fallout would change into something similar to prevent copyright issues (e.g. Power armour = Super Armour, Brotherhood of Steel = Sisterhood of Iron). The marketing would remain the same (same promises of mods on consoles and such). Basically the same game except different developer, different name.

If this was the case, how would everyone, including critics, fallout 3 fans, and fans of the originals (like most of us) perceive the game?
 
Critics would bash it as a borderlands clone but It'd pick up a fair amount of players regardless of reviews.
Fallout fans wouldn't really react to it, aside from noting that it's a post-apocalyptic game, really we'd look at it shrug our collective shoulders and say "meh". Bethesda fans would probably have a similar reaction, though they might complain about it being a ripoff that wasn't nearly as good as Fallout 3 (ironically), but I doubt they'd really discuss it that much.
Hypothetical non-Fallout Fallout 4 might sell alright but I don't think it's the type of foundation you want to use for a franchise, so no sequels.
 
From my perspective the game would not appeal to me very much. Granted the "setting" is interesting but I tend to not enjoy games that have Skinner boxes designed into them.

It would just be another crap FPS that is forgotten in time.
 
Absolute rubbish, laddie.

I cringe even at playing Wasteland 2 and seeing the similarities between Wasteland and Fallout, despite knowing the former came before the later.

"Guardians of the Old Order", ffs. It's as if Fallout took things from Wasteland and made them better and with cooler names (admittedly though, anything with the word "Brotherhood" sounds silly in my book).
 
I still wouldn't like it, thanks to the dialogue interface [amongst other things] being an abortion made for console-jockeys sitting 10 feet away from the TV it's designed to be played on.

If they made a version of the game that was properly optimized and formatted for a Personal Computer, then it might actually stand a chance. As it is - the game is a big stinking brown/green console turd.
 
Eh... I kind of wonder this myself.
If the game was COD, I would argue it's an improvement, an open-world COD game sounds pretty sweet in my book.
Due to it being a Fallout game, there's certain qualities that its fanbase expect. Sadly, the biggest thing pulling this game back is the name and the series it belongs to.
If this was some other game, it may not have achieved as much as it did.
If it was made by an indie developer, there may be some kind of courage into it.
But if it was made by a company like Ubisoft or even EA, it would get hate for being a glitchy mess and it probably wouldn't get a sequel.
 
If that was the case I would still think it was a big pile of console turd garbage...it runs like shit on a high end rig, the writing is horrendous, the gameplay consists of killing until you want to ALT + F4 the game because it's so BORING and that's if you didn't fall asleep, last but not least the UI is bad..like really fucking bad like how the pipboy screen only fills the middle of your monitor or how only a couple things from a list are displayed at a time then the quick loot I mean Jesus Christ what a trainwreck.
 
Izak said:
Critics would bash it as a borderlands clone but It'd pick up a fair amount of players regardless of reviews.
Fallout fans wouldn't really react to it, aside from noting that it's a post-apocalyptic game, really we'd look at it shrug our collective shoulders and say "meh". Bethesda fans would probably have a similar reaction, though they might complain about it being a ripoff that wasn't nearly as good as Fallout 3 (ironically), but I doubt they'd really discuss it that much.
Hypothetical non-Fallout Fallout 4 might sell alright but I don't think it's the type of foundation you want to use for a franchise, so no sequels.
Click to expand...

Never understood people thinking fallout 3 was good either. Fallout 3 is better than 4, But that isn't saying much. Like saying the shit you took last night was better than the one you took this morning.
 
Knight In Leather Armor said:
Nobody would care about it and it would probably get horrible reviews.
Click to expand...
It's Bethesda, and Game Reviewers have to use up all there advertising space. Odds are they would give it a 10/10, just because of all the "benefits" rating a massive corporation well comes with.
 
randomnerd123 said:
snip
Click to expand...

Ah yes, text dump time. Please disregard immediately if an originals fan, you'll find naught of interest.

No, to me it wouldn't be that bad if it wasn't a Fallout game. You're not going to find much opinions like mines here because this is a forum for cRPG fans and without the association with Fallout, an open-world FPS would be of little interest to everyone here. It would probably get two or three mentions on that "What game are you playing right now?" posts, and nothing more. Keep in mind that I'm not a devout fan of cRPGs and therefore will not have the popular opinion here.

From the least biased perspective possible, I guess it would garner moderate interest with its integration of settlement building into sandbox gunplay, but its lack of co-op or any multiplayer means it would fall out of popularity and relevance as fast as Rage did. The competition, in this case the Borderlands series and all its clones, only manages to keep the repetitive design entertaining because of its humour and its multiplayer (which gives a game a very long shelf life).

If this theoretical exactly-like-Fallout-4-but-not-Fallout-4 shooter would be identical in every way to Fallout 4, then the lack of good writing or any multiplayer feature would kill the game pretty quickly. Make no mistake - it's not a bad game at the core, but it sold because of its marketing, not because of innovation. The massive force behind the Fallout brand and plastering it everywhere after Fallout 3's success mirrors the path Activision took with Call of Duty.

Then we step into modding territory, which is harder to discuss, because it's very dependant on who exactly is handling the game. If this theoretical game handles modding the same way we've seen Fallout 4 handle modding so far, it would be dead in the water. If it was handled by a competent developer that cares for the fanbase, then I suppose the modding would keep the game afloat for much longer, but like I said, no co-op and no extreme marketing campaign means that it wouldn't be nearly as big of a phenomenon as Fallout 4 currently is. Maybe replace "phenomenon" with "clusterfuck".

So in summary, it would be decent, but practically unheard of. If anything, the character creator, settlement building and moddability (if that's a word) combined could possibly keep it interesting, but frankly I doubt it. Anything its competitors haven't done, MMOs and those DayZ survival clones that litter Steam Early Access did it long better. Mods would be the game's sole trump card. If it's played wrong, it will be treated just as Rage and Dead Island did - above average, good future potential, but brought down by its flaws.

Mods and marketing keeps Bethesda up high. If at any point they drop the ball on either of that, well...
 
randomnerd123 said:
I suddenly wondered, what if Fallout 4 didn't have the fallout name (and was called, for example, Post Apocalyptic PewPew Adventure) and was made by some relatively unknown new developer that went a bit wild with the marketing budget.

The game would be almost exactly the same, words and visuals related to fallout would change into something similar to prevent copyright issues (e.g. Power armour = Super Armour, Brotherhood of Steel = Sisterhood of Iron). The marketing would remain the same (same promises of mods on consoles and such). Basically the same game except different developer, different name.

If this was the case, how would everyone, including critics, fallout 3 fans, and fans of the originals (like most of us) perceive the game?
Click to expand...

It would still be featureless, ugly, empty sandbox, filled with plot and basic logic holes, fetch quests, repetition etc.
In fact it would even help people see how shit this game is if Bethesda name/Fallout brand wasn't tied into it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top