Emil Pagliarulo has taken advantage of the attention the Fallout TV show has brought to reveal a little lore titbit about Fallout 4. According to him, who was the lead designer & lead writer on Fallout 4, the male Sole Survivor also known by the default name of Nate is one of the soldiers in the intro video of Fallout 1. You know the part where two soldiers in power armour have a bound Canadian and one of them shoots him. Nate is the soldier that doesn't shoot the guy.
Not surprising for anyone who isn't a compete moron people immediately realised that makes Nate a war criminal. Rounding up people, bounding them and then having your buddy summarily executed them is a war crime. So when people pointed out the very obvious to him he walked it all back somewhat a few hours later. While also not seemly not understanding why pointlessly making a player character in your game a war criminal isn't smart or cool.
Of course this all stems from Fallout 4's terrible idea to mix freeform character creation with very fixed backgrounds. In Fallout 3 the initial main quest was looking for your parent. In Fallout 4 I guess they thought they were the cleverest people in the world when they reversed it to have a you as a parent looking for your child.
The result of that was Fallout 4 had to start you off with a kid. And to do that they did it bluntly, straight married couple with a newborn. Not straight, don't like marriage and/or don't like having kids? Too bad that's the setup. For a character you are suppose to create yourself often based on yourself. And then to makes things worse Nate is always a soldier and Nora, the female Sole Survivor, is always a lawyer. Having a couple of backgrounds is cool, a way to select select something different for your character and maybe some skills are different and there are unique dialogue options. Problem is there are only 2 and you are locked in by gender. Want to be a male lawyer or a female soldier? Too bad Bethesda has taken that choice from you.
Now having a set character in a RPG isn't wrong. But the ones that do tend to critically interact with the character's set history. For all the setup Fallout 4 does all your main character can do for most of the game is just have a dialogue option asking people if they have seen a baby. Basically limiting the the possibilities of a freeform roleplay character with none of the benefits of a set character.
Anyway long post that went sideways short the word of person in charge of current Fallout lore says the male player character in Fallout 4 is a war criminal.
Not surprising for anyone who isn't a compete moron people immediately realised that makes Nate a war criminal. Rounding up people, bounding them and then having your buddy summarily executed them is a war crime. So when people pointed out the very obvious to him he walked it all back somewhat a few hours later. While also not seemly not understanding why pointlessly making a player character in your game a war criminal isn't smart or cool.
Of course this all stems from Fallout 4's terrible idea to mix freeform character creation with very fixed backgrounds. In Fallout 3 the initial main quest was looking for your parent. In Fallout 4 I guess they thought they were the cleverest people in the world when they reversed it to have a you as a parent looking for your child.
The result of that was Fallout 4 had to start you off with a kid. And to do that they did it bluntly, straight married couple with a newborn. Not straight, don't like marriage and/or don't like having kids? Too bad that's the setup. For a character you are suppose to create yourself often based on yourself. And then to makes things worse Nate is always a soldier and Nora, the female Sole Survivor, is always a lawyer. Having a couple of backgrounds is cool, a way to select select something different for your character and maybe some skills are different and there are unique dialogue options. Problem is there are only 2 and you are locked in by gender. Want to be a male lawyer or a female soldier? Too bad Bethesda has taken that choice from you.
Now having a set character in a RPG isn't wrong. But the ones that do tend to critically interact with the character's set history. For all the setup Fallout 4 does all your main character can do for most of the game is just have a dialogue option asking people if they have seen a baby. Basically limiting the the possibilities of a freeform roleplay character with none of the benefits of a set character.
Anyway long post that went sideways short the word of person in charge of current Fallout lore says the male player character in Fallout 4 is a war criminal.
