Sorry, I thought it was MachineGames, my mistake.
Regardless, I think the video's points stand. The issue is that we're approaching FO4, and to a significant extent FO3, as RPGs and not games that have just...a different feel entirely from the nature of the RPG. To me, FO:NV is the only game that operates like FO3 or FO4 that is genuinely an RPG. FO:NV has genuine consequences, it has genuine player choice, factions that actually matter, and the ability to impose a particular personality or world-view on a character that we decide the physical and personality characteristics of.
Sure, FO3 has some of these elements, but it doesn't pull these things off well. FO4 doesn't really even have these elements at all, and when it does those elements feel...forced. Awkward. FO4 doesn't have genuine player choice, and nothing epitomizes that more than the ending and, no, I don't mean the slideshow. The actual ending quest of FO4 boils down to two separate quests, really, with very little variation between the different variants provided by each faction. Ultimately, for all of us here at NMA, this provides an inadequate experience because we want the RPG. We expect Fallout the RPG, because we've played FO1 or FO2, or FO:NV.
The issue is, the other portion of the community for FO4 that is more captured by the gunplay, is also dissatisfied because they aren't getting a genuinely complete experience. FO4 has these masterfully arranged combat arenas, but there's no real way to interact with them, no way to change the game so that the player feels empowered by the ability to access the entirety of them and turn those elements into a player advantage instead of a player hindrance. To make matters worse, in my opinion, changing this lack of completeness on the FPS side of things is significantly more trivial than fixing the RPG side of things. The real issue is making the FPS game of Fallout and the RPG game of Fallout mesh, and in some ways I think Anderson solves a few of the problems, but it really comes down to the fact that Bethesda's own lack of ability becomes more and more apparent with each new title that they release.
I've often said this about Bethesda, and I'll stand by it until Bethesda truly rectifies this issue, but Bethesda handles factions in-general incorrectly. They provide the character with all this agency and freedom to access any faction anywhere, but when the player finally reaches the top ranks of the faction, there's nothing there. No benefit. No real power. You're still Joe Blow from Chorrol, but now you can call yourself the Harbinger of the Companions after 4 quests and a few radiants. A lot of this is also general laziness on the part of Bethesda. In Oblivion, each faction has a rather lengthy quest chain, each with it's own story, some are good, some are hilariously weak, but for better or worse they have soul. They have a story. Skyrim's factions don't, and neither do FO4s. FO4 has less sidequests than FO3 did. Do you realize how insane that is? FO3's already kinda sparse on the side-quest front, but they hacked it even further down in 4, further alienating the RPG crowd.
Anyways, now I'm writing a gorram thesis, so I should probably end it there, but I think the solution is kinda clear on what Bethesda needs to do.
