ING "Opinion; Fallout 4 should be the last Fallout"

The Dutch Ghost

The Dutch Ghost

Grouchy old man of NMA
Moderator
* not sure if this has a page dedicated to it already

Hello all,

I just came across this... well I wouldn't call it a gem as I think it is more a like... eh best not to describe that as I don't want people to loose their appetite or make their last meal come back up again.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/12/07/fallout-4-should-be-the-last-fallout

Apparently Jared Petty think there should not be another Fallout game, that I agree with him in so far that there should never be another Fallout game again made by Bethesda.
But then he goes off in either a drug fuelled or mentally deranged illusion on how the Bethesda designers just have creative juices dripping off them and that they should not be confined to a single setting, how much opportunities it may present for games, but rather that they should be free to explore other settings such as those made by themselves.

By this point I pretty much wonder what the hell this guy is on as so far I have found nothing of the so called creativity he has been blabbering about other than what Bethesda designers copied from the previous games and took from a plenthora of post apocalyptic media, and not to mention various other science fiction settings such as the Blader Runner movie. At no point I actually felt that these people had come up with an original idea of their own.

I don't hold this against Bethesda as I know it is difficult to come up with something new. Believe me, I have felt that frustration and it is one of the things that eats at me as I so much wish to have a creative original thought that lights the way for others.
Better copied than badly imagined ey?

But to set the designers of Bethesda loose so that they can come up with their own stuff? I think that is sort of like sending them in a canoe up shit creek without a paddle as I have very much doubt that most of the 'geniuses' are able to come up with a creative franchise of their own that is going to make Bethesda millions.
We already saw how they turned the Elder Scrolls into stock fantasy tropes in their last games.

And comparing these guys with Bioware? Even that giant wasn't above raiding various fantasy creations for their Dragon Age games and various science fiction settings, books, comics, and so on in order to create the chimera that is Mass Effect.
I hardly call them a bastion of creativity but they sure now how to sell 'nerd' stuff to the more regular gamer who would shy from anything called 'hard' unless it means 'hard porno' (in a way Bioware games are like porno, not in the context of providing sexual gratification but rather providing both of these genres in such a way but without the weight or content)

I definitely agree with Jared that we really need some new franchises to tickle our imagination but I would hardly considered popular media and market influenced boys and girls from Bethesda to be pioneers that can take creativity to new heights.

It reminds me of that old proverb "You can't spell Ignorant without IGN"
 
Last edited:
Roleplaying games have a long and proud history of adapting whatever other bits of fiction that the people who are writing it find neat. I mean, D&D is the way it is because Gary Gygax and his Lake Geneva wargaming buddies really liked Tolkien and Vance. Shadowrun is the way it is because the people who made it really liked William Gibson and Dungeons and Dragons. So that a roleplaying game isn't the most original thing in the world is hardly a great indictment. These things almost always start out as derivative of something else.

Regarding whether Bethesda should start making a third type of game really comes down to economics. Single player AAA RPGs are probably the second most expensive type of game to make, and they don't exactly do huge business. I mean, a large part of the reason EA ended up owning Bioware was that Jade Empire kind of flopped commercially (and ironically that one was pretty original by roleplaying game standards). Since Zenimax seems even less interested in pushing artistic or creative boundaries than even EA is, it's pretty unlikely they'd decide to stop making Elder Scrolls and Fallout games as long as they're really popular.

So the only really likely way you'd get Bethesda Game Studios working on something else without Fo5 or TESVI flopping, is if they were to expand. I'm not sure that they really want to get bigger, everything I've heard Todd Howard say suggests that they're happy with how big BGS is and they don't want to get bigger, but they could in theory establish a sister studio that initially exists to simply assist the big studio as needed, and eventually let them do more and more work on their own, and eventually hand off one of the big franchises to them and do something new at BGS Alpha. My model for this is Bioware Montreal, which was founded in 2009 for just technical stuff for Mass Effect 2, produced the entire multiplayer mode for Mass Effect 3 and did one of the DLC packs on their own, and is now making the next Mass Effect game on their own. Meanwhile, at Bioware Edmonton David Gaider stepped down as the head writer for Dragon Age in order to work on a new IP they haven't announced yet. So Bioware will probably do Dragon Age & [New Thing] games out of Edmonton and Mass Effect games out of Montreal. No reason BGS couldn't form a BGS 2 and do Elder Scrolls and [New Thing] games at BGS 1 and leave BGS 2 to work on Fallout, or something like this.

But the video game industry is never going to let an IP end even when it reaches a logical narrative stopping point, until it stops being a big enough money-maker.
 
Last edited:
Just like OP questions the sanity of the IGN article, I question the sanity of anyone taking IGN seriously.

Did we already forget how their screenshots of Metal Gear Solid Phantom Pain made the console version look better than the PC version? Or all the other stuff?
 
Kind of Off Topic but, recently Steam updated their client so that users in Colombia would see the games listed in our currency, this resulted in some games actually becoming cheaper.... with the exception of Fallout 4 which became 15 dollars more expensive.... Both MGS5 and Withcer 3 are currently at 35 dollars, but Fallout 4 is still 75 dollars... It and the new Doom game are the most expensive items on the client, they are more expensive than games that haven't even come out, hell paying to get your game onto Greenlight is cheaper than buying FO4.... I don't know if it's steam fucking up or Bethesda flipping us off, but the sentiment is mutual. Fuck You Bethesda, I am glad I bought your shitty Borderlands clone with a Coupon.
 
Well, it is said you should end on a high note, and Beth designers were clearly high.
 
Bethesda doesn't seem to have a creative bone in their body with the way they made that Frankenstein of a game. Skyrim also lacked creativity so the chances of seeing a good new game series from them is a pipe dream.
They're making millions off this cash cow they're riding and it's only going to get worse from here, I wish they would come out and say "We would like to apologize for this monumental dog turd known as Fallout 4 and we also apologize to anyone falling asleep at their desks because our game is boring.".
 
MercenarySnake said:
Bethesda doesn't seem to have a creative bone in their body with the way they made that Frankenstein of a game. Skyrim also lacked creativity so the chances of seeing a good new game series from them is a pipe dream.
They're making millions off this cash cow they're riding and it's only going to get worse from here, I wish they would come out and say "We would like to apologize for this monumental dog turd known as Fallout 4 and we also apologize to anyone falling asleep at their desks because our game is boring.".
Click to expand...

Nah, they would more likely say sorry for not producing Fallout 5 then saying sorry over Fallout 4.
 
But then he goes off in either a drug fuelled or mentally deranged illusion on how the Bethesda designers just have creative juices dripping off them and that they should not be confined to a single setting, how much opportunities it may present for games, but rather that they should be free to explore other settings such as those made by themselves.
Click to expand...
Hah! Yeah ... if only ... they had one :wink:

No seriously though! I would be REALLY interested to see a setting completely done by Emil and Todd. No use of resources and concepts that other people came up with (Elder Scrolls), or adapting an already existing setting to their forumula (Fallout).

I would be genuely curious to see what they could come up with if they had a complete freedom in making what ever they want. Would it be actually something really unique and creative? Or just Fallout Scrolls, the same open-world-shooter-style game but with a different story thrown at it.

You can say about Obsidian what ever you want, but they have shown a very high degree of diversity in their portofolio, and most often with very different gameplay ideas thrown in. Kotor 2, Neverwinter Nights 2, New Vegas, Alpha Protocoll, Pillars of Eternity and now Armored Warefare.

With the current leadership at Bethesda I feel they are as far as creativity and games goes, a one-trick-pony. They can create always only one kind of game, no matter if fantasy, sci-fi, shooter.
 
Crni Vuk said:
But then he goes off in either a drug fuelled or mentally deranged illusion on how the Bethesda designers just have creative juices dripping off them and that they should not be confined to a single setting, how much opportunities it may present for games, but rather that they should be free to explore other settings such as those made by themselves.
Click to expand...
Hah! Yeah ... if only ... they had one :wink:

No seriously though! I would be REALLY interested to see a setting completely done by Emil and Todd. No use of resources and concepts that other people came up with (Elder Scrolls), or adapting an already existing setting to their forumula (Fallout).

I would be genuely curious to see what they could come up with if they had a complete freedom in making what ever they want. Would it be actually something really unique and creative? Or just Fallout Scrolls, the same open-world-shooter-style game but with a different story thrown at it.

You can say about Obsidian what ever you want, but they have shown a very high degree of diversity in their portofolio, and most often with very different gameplay ideas thrown in. Kotor 2, Neverwinter Nights 2, New Vegas, Alpha Protocoll, Pillars of Eternity and now Armored Warefare.

With the current leadership at Bethesda I feel they are as far as creativity and games goes, a one-trick-pony. They can create always only one kind of game, no matter if fantasy, sci-fi, shooter.
Click to expand...

Zenimax subsidiaries are mostly first-person specialists. See id Software and Arkane Studios for reference. The difference is that unlike their friends within Zenimax, Bethesda can't actually make a functional combat system. Fallout 4 is getting close, but not close enough.

Spacemunkey said:
LOL, "Bethesda has treated their property lovingly, refusing to abuse and squander what THEY built." That guy was hard to understand with Bethesda's nuts on his chin.
Click to expand...

Well, they do. They built a culture of repetitive, open-world games with poor quality control and unbalanced gameplay. They refuse to squander that, since it remained consistent between Fallout 3, Skyrim and Fallout 4. So it's technically true, yes?

Walpknut said:
I just hope the Videogame crash comes sooner.
Click to expand...

Wh-what video game crash? :confused:
 
ZigzagPX4 said:
Wh-what video game crash? :confused:
Click to expand...

Probably just the inevitable realization that the AAA video game industry as it exists now and has existed for about a decade, is unsustainable in the long run. I mean, AAA's major selling point is being on the cutting edge in terms of technology, so that means that games cost more and more to make, but yet they aren't charging any more for games than they used to (though things like DLC schedules help), the average consumer of video games is becoming more price sensitive, and the audience for games that requires hundreds of dollars of specialized hardware isn't really expanding much if at all.

So eventually something's got to give. Hopefully what's going to happen is that the games industry learns a lesson from Hollywood, where there certainly are tentpole blockbusters, but things like horror movies and romcoms are produced relatively cheaply and make money despite having audiences more limited than "everybody." The industry really needs to regrow a sort of "middle tier" of games that was largely squeezed out throughout the 7th console generation. If they can do that, there's hope for the industry long term. But I mean, THQ already ceased to exist, and Konami opted out of game development completely, so the crash is sort of ongoing.
 
ZigzagPX4 said:
Walpknut said:
I just hope the Videogame crash comes sooner.
Click to expand...

Wh-what video game crash? :confused:
Click to expand...

He might refer to something similar to this:
The video game crash of 1983, known as Atari shock in Japan,[SUP][1][/SUP] was a massive recession of the video game industry that occurred from 1983 to 1985. Revenues had peaked at around $3.2 billion in 1983,[SUP][2][/SUP] then fell to around $100 million by 1985 (a drop of almost 97 percent). The crash was a serious event that brought an abrupt end to what is considered the second generation of console video gaming in North America.
(...)
There were several reasons for the crash, but the main cause was saturation of the market. The full effects of the industry crash would not be felt until 1985
Click to expand...

While I have serious doubts that we will experience the same kind of crash like in 1983/85, I would not be surprised if we see something like a soft crash. In the sense that maybe a couple of really big companies go down, like EA or Ubisoft. Looking at the AAA market today, it is largely stagnant, and saturated with entertainment. However, this is also true for the movie industry which shares many of the similar problems as games do. While game developers and publishers found new ways to monetize games, trough DLCs for example, others with monthly suscribtions, download platforms (Steam, Ubi-luncher), they might still hit a peak at some point. We have to wait and see I guess. I mean any kind of prediction should be always taken with a grain of salt. People are claiming that PC gaming, video gaming, console gaming etc. are crashing for the last 15 years. So far, it didn't really happen. But it is a very fast-paced industry - sadly - which makes it difficult for those that want to get in to the gaming industry.
 
Last edited:
Huh, I disagree. It feels like the game industry is finally gravitating towards a stable point. Even EA is toning it down with their practices. I don't see a crash coming anytime soon, unless the entire global economy crashes first, in which case games become the least of my worries. I have no qualms about companies like EA and Ubisoft, because they're always going to exist.

Maybe the grounds for the game industry changes, and the whole concept of DLCs and pre-orders and the such might finally be thrown to the side eventually, but I don't think a crash needs to occur for that to happen. Either way, a lot of good games (IMO) came out in 2015, so I hope the standards remain going on up.

I'm actually also pursuing a career in the game industry, so any sort of big change going on is probably going to inconvienience me at some point in the future.

Back to the point - I would actually like to see what Bethesda can do without the input of Emil Pagliarulo. I would say that his writing isn't all that great and could be what's holding the products back. Maybe Todd Howard should hold back too and have someone else direct the development for once. I don't have any disapproval for Todd, but variety is a good way of allowing us to see where the root of the problem is.

Nevertheless I do want to see Bethesda's full potential. Maybe it will finally allow us to see whether they're really being limited by having to aim for mass appeal and corporate decisions or if they're really just majorly bad developers and designers at the core. I really hope it's the former, and that I'm not being optimistically delusional in thinking that Bethesda can only go up from here.
 
MercenarySnake said:
Bethesda doesn't seem to have a creative bone in their body with the way they made that Frankenstein of a game. Skyrim also lacked creativity so the chances of seeing a good new game series from them is a pipe dream.
They're making millions off this cash cow they're riding and it's only going to get worse from here, I wish they would come out and say "We would like to apologize for this monumental dog turd known as Fallout 4 and we also apologize to anyone falling asleep at their desks because our game is boring.".
Click to expand...
I think some of the people who work there have skill, but the people in charge are soulless corporate idiots. Who want the blandest, most inoffensive product they can get. So they dumb the whole game down to the lowest common denominator. It doesn't help their writers are only a step above a retarded child in terms of skill.
 
Last edited:
So many companies are considering 1 millon copies sold as a failure, videogame budgets keep inflating, marketing has become too much of a priority, the inflated budgets actually make creativity harder because they need to play safer, there has been lots of consumer pushback; specialy on steam, consoles force developers to focus on outdate technology, many big companies have actually closed down. It just feels like they are heading head first into another crash to me.
 
Can't wait till it happens. Perhaps gaming will come out the better, with more innovative gaming companies pushing through.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top