What was the point of Fallout 4's story?

MutatedPanda

MutatedPanda

It Wandered In From the Wastes
Seriously, I am utterly confused on this. What exactly was the point of Fallout 4's story, or at least, what did it accomplish? I've only played through the Brotherhood of Steel ending, and it seems like all you did was get rid of a few synths and kill a bunch scientists that could of helped people. Sure, the "threat" of the Institute is gone, but what does that matter when the Commonwealth is still littered with other enemies who also want to take over the wasteland?
At least in Fallout 3, the idea of bringing clean water to the wasteland and defeating the Enclave felt like there was actually something to accomplish. Honestly, I'd rather have just done another "find the waterchip" story instead of the god-awful "kill some bad guys" story Fallout 4 presented.
 
They wanted to copy games that focus on a premade character with a story, in this case to attempt to tug at your heartstrings with the son you forget about while killing things and picking up every bit of garbage you can.
That's my guess, they wanted to get people emotionally invested as you can see with all the dialogue options you choose from during the main questline. Too bad the only time you see your son is when he looks like a baby doll from uncanny valley.
In other words, the story is about killing random mooks to reach your son while joining any of the available factions that don't matter to result in an ending that doesn't matter.
 
MercenarySnake said:
They wanted to copy games that focus on a premade character with a story, in this case to attempt to tug at your heartstrings with the son you forget about while killing things and picking up every bit of garbage you can.
That's my guess, they wanted to get people emotionally invested as you can see with all the dialogue options you choose from during the main questline. Too bad the only time you see your son is when he looks like a baby doll from uncanny valley.
In other words, the story is about killing random mooks to reach your son while joining any of the available factions that don't matter to result in an ending that doesn't matter.
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Oh yea, I forgot that you had to find your son in this. Still, like you said, it's essentially just a Shooting Gallery.
 
MutatedPanda said:
Oh yea, I forgot that you had to find your son in this. Still, like you said, it's essentially just a Shooting Gallery.
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Heh heh you forgot about your son as well? I was too busy trying to craft one shitty weapon into a less shitty version of itself and building mountains of trash to call a town.
 
I lean toward the institute ending being the cannon... It simply makes the most sense.


From my 'benevolent' institute ending:
  • they want to bring peace to the wasteland
  • they want to ensure the safety of the inhabitants
  • they kick out the BoS and basically tell them to never come back
  • they do away with the quasi xenophobic (robo-phobic ?) Railroad

In terms of 'good' outcomes for the wastes I like this ending the best, also it gives rise for the institute to become a major power in the future.
 
Marionettetc said:
Fallout 4's story isn't any more or less vapid than 3's.

Riddle me this OP, how old were you when you played Fallout 3?
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I was around 13. I'm not saying the story was played out well, I'm just saying that it was at least a little more interesting that Fallout 4's story.
 
Bethesda's take on "war never changes" is that no matter what anyone does, the world stays the same, and that's how it always will be. That's why they never showcase societal progression in their games. It is also why none of the endings had consequences.

I can see how someone could intrepret "war never changes" that way, but I don't think that's exactly what Fallout is about. I mean, sure, there's still war, suffering, death, but "war never changes" is not equal to "nothing ever changes".
 
The thing I have been thinking about is "what would have happened in the setting had the events driven by the player in the game simply not occurred."

Like in Fallout 1, the Master's army would have taken over a good portion of California.
In Fallout 2, Arroyo dies out and the Enclave poisons a whole lot of people.
In New Vegas, the second battle for Hoover Dam results in a probable Legion victory (after all, the Legion won't let Benny into the Securitron vault, since he doesn't impress Caesar.)
In Fallout 3, the Enclave turns on the water purifier instead of Dad, and maybe some people get sick as a result (though Eden and Autumn were working at cross-purposes here.)
In Fallout 4 if Nate/Nora simply never woke up from cryogenic stasis, what happens really?
 
PossibleCabbage said:
The thing I have been thinking about is "what would have happened in the setting had the events driven by the player in the game simply not occurred."

Like in Fallout 1, the Master's army would have taken over a good portion of California.
In Fallout 2, Arroyo dies out and the Enclave poisons a whole lot of people.
In New Vegas, the second battle for Hoover Dam results in a probable Legion victory (after all, the Legion won't let Benny into the Securitron vault, since he doesn't impress Caesar.)
In Fallout 3, the Enclave turns on the water purifier instead of Dad, and maybe some people get sick as a result (though Eden and Autumn were working at cross-purposes here.)
In Fallout 4 if Nate/Nora simply never woke up from cryogenic stasis, what happens really?
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It just means that all factions got to live instead of just one(well the Minutemen too) and...yeah that's all I got.
 
PossibleCabbage said:
So this is the Fallout game where the best result for the world is that you decline to play it?
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That's the only conclusion I can come to, it results in mass slaughter and if Nate/Nora is a psychopath then they can nuke Boston because...reasons.
In the other games you could help Shady Sands with their agriculture, rid of the Regulators from Adytum as well as fix the hydroponic farms.
In Fallout 4 you shoot things and that's it.
 
PossibleCabbage said:
In Fallout 4 if Nate/Nora simply never woke up from cryogenic stasis, what happens really?
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The institute does whatever they were going to do, for whatever reasons. BOS has a signal they cant keep track of and the RR has no idea how to get into the institute, but even if they did, none of them would go near a courser.
 
According to Deacon (I know, unreliable source), the Institute tried to take over the entire Commonwealth once. It's not mentioned anywhere else but his dialogue, but that implies that the Institute, no matter how safe or sheltered, feels threatened by the surface world. I suppose that if the Survivor never woke up, the Institute would've used Kellogg to complete what we experienced as the Institute questline.

Installing the fusion reactor would've allowed them to increase synth production, and in the end conquer the entire of the Commonwealth. Considering they were unreachable and have the ability to teleport their armies anywhere, they would slowly but surely dismantle the Brotherhood.

But the Institute doesn't care about the surface, so it's likely that for very stupid unspecified reasons, they'll regress back into their little underground "paradise" and ignore the fact that they've left the entire surface an unpopulated wasteland, even more so than when it first started.

So the Institute, based on strong assumptions from every fact I could get from the game, would've probably screwed the surface over eventually if not for the Survivor's influence. Father dies from cancer, and the rest of the paranoid division heads wouldn't want to risk their work, so they take out the entire surface at no loss to themselves.

Every other ending, from what I assume, allows the Commonwealth to continue as it is, but with Institute paranoia gone, people would actually begin spreading and rebuilding rather than fearing synths coming from around the corner or stabbing them in the back. Minutemen/Railroad would leave the Commonwealth a more independent region, while the BoS would've put it under its control, like with DC. That means they gain two regions as their territory, and are able to consolidate their power.

Basically, M and R endings end the paranoia and allow the start of the rebuild. B ending adds one more region to the Brotherhood's command. I ending leaves everything as is. Survivor doesn't wake up leaves the Commonwealth unpopulated and destroyed.
 
ZigzagPX4 said:
According to Deacon (I know, unreliable source), the Institute tried to take over the entire Commonwealth once. It's not mentioned anywhere else but his dialogue, but that implies that the Institute, no matter how safe or sheltered, feels threatened by the surface world. I suppose that if the Survivor never woke up, the Institute would've used Kellogg to complete what we experienced as the Institute questline.

Installing the fusion reactor would've allowed them to increase synth production, and in the end conquer the entire of the Commonwealth. Considering they were unreachable and have the ability to teleport their armies anywhere, they would slowly but surely dismantle the Brotherhood.

But the Institute doesn't care about the surface, so it's likely that for very stupid unspecified reasons, they'll regress back into their little underground "paradise" and ignore the fact that they've left the entire surface an unpopulated wasteland, even more so than when it first started.

So the Institute, based on strong assumptions from every fact I could get from the game, would've probably screwed the surface over eventually if not for the Survivor's influence. Father dies from cancer, and the rest of the paranoid division heads wouldn't want to risk their work, so they take out the entire surface at no loss to themselves.

Every other ending, from what I assume, allows the Commonwealth to continue as it is, but with Institute paranoia gone, people would actually begin spreading and rebuilding rather than fearing synths coming from around the corner or stabbing them in the back. Minutemen/Railroad would leave the Commonwealth a more independent region, while the BoS would've put it under its control, like with DC. That means they gain two regions as their territory, and are able to consolidate their power.

Basically, M and R endings end the paranoia and allow the start of the rebuild. B ending adds one more region to the Brotherhood's command. I ending leaves everything as is. Survivor doesn't wake up leaves the Commonwealth unpopulated and destroyed.
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Wait...the Commonwealth was actually populated? When did this happen?
 
MutatedPanda said:
Well, to be fair it's mostly Raiders and Fancy Raiders (Gunners).
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Fancy Raiders is still Raiders.

I mean, that Bethesda is too lazy to flesh out the tribal identities of their human cannon fodder is sort of irrelevant. Raiders are simply any group of wastelanders that engage in pillaging as a means to support themselves. The Jackals, Vipers, Khans (all Khans), Bishop's Mercenaries, those Yakuza folks in Fallout 2, the Fiends, those greasers in the New Vegas Sewers, Maude's Muggers, the White Legs, and the Dead Horses are all raiders. Bethesda is for the most part not interested in them beyond "something to shoot that shoots back" though.
 
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