Why do Super Mutants, Ghouls, and Humans look better in Fallout 1 than Fallout 4?

[Irwin John Finster]

Fallout 1 was made in 1997 when people were still bragging about their 200 mb of RAM or whatever it was back then. Fallout 4 was released in 2015. So why exactly do the Super Mutants, Ghouls, and even the Humans you talk to in Fallout 1 look more detailed, more interesting, and simply better than their counterparts in Fallout 4?

For example, Set from Necropolis is a Ghoul. You can't even tell what those leatherfaces with black eyes are in Fallout 4, but apparently that's Bethesda's take on ghouls now. Set was a hideous monstrosity with visible muscles and tendons and his face was downright terrifying. On the other hand, Fallout 4 ghouls are simply leathery-skinned people with black eyes.

Same goes for the Super Mutants. Compare Lou Tenant or his subordinates, who have a lot of detail with their various accessories down to their hideous teeth, with Strong in Fallout 4 who is just a giant green man like The Hulk.

Then look at some humans you talk to. In Fallout 4, they really do look like actual mannequins, which is fitting since the Commonwealth is inexplicably littered with mannequins. When it rains, it looks like they took some oil and poured it over a mannequin. They have robotic animations and bad voice acting. Compared with the Brotherhood of Steel guy who tries to send you to the Glow in Fallout 1. His animations aren't great but even in 1997 it looks way better than the weird out of sync robots in Fallout 4.

So why exactly did this game take 7 years to make? Literally everything down to the characters' faces has been dumbed down with less content. I guess it was all that Workshop crafting DLC cash grab stuff that was probably deliberately cut from the base game and repackaged as 50% of the Season Pass price.

 

[R.Graves]

First and foremost is because it's your opinion that they look better. But the originals used pre rendered images which have a tendency to look amazing. The ghouls have underwent a redesign. A shitty redesign imo. I really hate what Bethesda has done to ghouls. Of all the horrible retarded shit Beth has done to fallout the ghouls have gotten the worst of it imo.

 

[0wing]

Well, super mutants are definitely an improvement over Fallout 3.

 

[SuperMutantGirl]

It does bring up a weird point. It's not like they couldn't make ghouls the shambling monstrosities they were made to be, the game is rated M for the bare minimum of reasons,

And I always wondered about SM's myself, being a big fan of the idea, it saddened me that all SMs are identical twins, just with different clothes. I wanna see more of the cyborg eye, lip suspenders, and random staples and wires. Beth I guess just sucks at making anything unique. They make great casual games that take a good chunk of your day if you're not careful. Shame they cant make a great game that takes that chunk wither you like it or not...

 

[Irwin John Finster]

It does bring up a weird point. It's not like they couldn't make ghouls the shambling monstrosities they were made to be, the game is rated M for the bare minimum of reasons,

And I always wondered about SM's myself, being a big fan of the idea, it saddened me that all SMs are identical twins, just with different clothes. I wanna see more of the cyborg eye, lip suspenders, and random staples and wires.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. Everything has been made as generic as possible, as though they were afraid the horrifying appearance of ghouls and Super Mutants would be too much for their target audience with Fallout 4.

 

[SuperMutantGirl]

Well considering their new target audience is the tween playing Minecraft, maybe they were scared their parents would see the half decomposed man-thing and not buy lil Toddy his umpteenth M-rated game so he'll shut up and so she could go into her bedroom and drink her mistakes away?

 

[CerberusGate]

When did this: (I picked the kid from Kid in the Fridge for maximum rage inducement)

and this:

become better alternatives to replace these?

(Kudos to Obsidian for giving Marcus a character model similar to his original talking head in New Vegas)

Fallout 4's designs were generic as hell when compared to the classic talking heads (and even FO3 tried to keep the decayed look for ghouls). Someone in the QA department at Bethesda was probably out sick if they though generic orcs and zombies would be enough to substitute the established Super Mutants and ghouls of actual Fallout.

 

[DR_LaZer]

You wanna know why the GHOULS look terrible? Hell, why every single human like race in Fallout 4 looks terrible? I'll tell you why. They make a character, then make them bald and give them bacon skin. I'm not even joking. I've done this to the player character. They just change the skin for ghouls.

Same goes for the super mutants. Granted, their model had to be a bit tweaked because of their extra size. But you can change your character to register as a super mutant. Everything is made out of Lego. You take a human base, size it up and boom you got a super mutant.

Nothing is ever special. It's all the same pre-made trash. They stop at the point where it starts looking like a ghoul, instead of something looking completely like a ghoul. No character ever has special clothes. The lady at the children of atom in the glowing sea and the lady who has no legs at the BOS base look exactly the same! Every character is made in the character creator, and every location is made in the settlement builder!

 

[SarahGremlins]

Because Fallout 1 was made by a small team to appeal to a niche audience, while Fallout 4 is just a barebones, sanitized amalgamation of popular gaming trends set in a generic post apocalyptic world. Fallout 1's setting was detailed and well crafted, while in Fallout 4, players themselves are encouraged to design the world and the people in it through "settlement building". This is the reason why it feels so empty.

There is no way that 4 was in active development for 7 years. It's still not even a half finished game, much less a good one.

So yeah, I don't think the two games are really comparable.

 

[Mr muggyman 3000]

I hate the way the new ghouls look. They look more like skinned fetuses then rotting lumps of flesh. I do like the new mirelurk designs though

 

[Radiosity]

I hate the way the new ghouls look. They look more like skinned fetuses then rotting lumps of flesh. I do like the new mirelurk designs though

Basically, anything that isn't human tends to get a pretty good or even great design. Beth is terrible at humans, but pretty good at stuff like robots.

 

[Mr muggyman 3000]

Basically, anything that isn't human tends to get a pretty good or even great design. Beth is terrible at humans, but pretty good at stuff like robots.

Maybe the reason why Beth can't do humans(or dialogue) is because they are robots incapable of processing creativity , emotions, and basic human anatomy. And are only capable of doing what their are programmed to do, which is to make shitty game for casuals

 

[MercenarySnake]

I much prefer the Fallout 1 and 2 designs of super mutants instead of this inbred..whatever the hell that thing they're trying to pass off as a super mutant is.

Again I prefer the Fallout 1 and 2 ghoul designs. This looks like a human shaped raisin with black beads for eyes. Actually kind of reminds me of a scarecrow.

 

[Neane93]

Basically, anything that isn't human tends to get a pretty good or even great design.

Since we're talking about the old games vs new games I kinda like the lizard design that the deathclaws had in the older ones

Spoiler

When you see this thing coming at you, you know that you will have death via its claws. Hence its name lol.

This thing, well let's see there are giant horns, sharp claws, and a strong tail. Might as well call it a dragon since the only thing missing is the wings. Even 3 and New Vegas had a strong statement of the claws

 

[MercenarySnake]

Since we're talking about the old games vs new games I kinda like the lizard design that the deathclaws had in the older ones

Spoiler

When you see this thing coming at you, you know that you will have death via its claws. Hence its name lol.

This thing, well let's see there are giant horns, sharp claws, and a strong tail. Might as well call it a dragon since the only thing missing is the wings. Even 3 and New Vegas had a strong statement of the claws

Fallout 4 deathclaw looks kind of like 'Zilla from that bad Godzilla movie.

 

[Radiosity]

Maybe the reason why Beth can't do humans(or dialogue) is because they are robots incapable of processing creativity , emotions, and basic human anatomy. And are only capable of doing what their are programmed to do, which is to make shitty game for casuals

Yep, that's pretty much the theory I subscribe to. They clearly don't understand actual people at all.

Since we're talking about the old games vs new games I kinda like the lizard design that the deathclaws had in the older ones

Spoiler

When you see this thing coming at you, you know that you will have death via its claws. Hence its name lol.

This thing, well let's see there are giant horns, sharp claws, and a strong tail. Might as well call it a dragon since the only thing missing is the wings. Even 3 and New Vegas had a strong statement of the claws

Ugh, yeah. It reminds me of MrBTongue's video on Diablo 3 where he talks about the Butcher encounter in the original versus in 3, Bethesda seems to have a similar problem; trying too hard to be badass or edgy or whatever, and failing hard.

 

[0wing]

Spoiler: F3vsF4 design rant with pics

Actually, while super mutants in Fallout 3 were total failure, non feral ghouls were more like well, people damaged by radiation. Suprisingly better texture detail in F3 is also should be noted.

While super mutants... Well, whatever anyone will say, THIS

looks more a man drown in the FEV vats than THIS

^this is fucking yellow body-builder, which is immersion break right from the start.

What about Fallout 1 though... You don't much of either ghouls or SMs aside from a few talking heads. It's all prerendered pictures and it makes sense to give them as much detail as possible. Which doesn't excuse bethesda from being lazy in 2008~2015 but should also be noted.

 

[Black Angel]

I'd argue they look even more a generic orcs that way. Super Mutants in Fallout 3 were already criticized for being generic orcs. Fallout 4 just double down on that, and there's just not much to be seen in that model to tell they were product of vats-dipping. I mean, look at that

Maybe it's just me, maybe it's due to the dumb dialogue system being made in the format of a cut-scene instead of the way it was of being able to focus solely on the face of someone you're talking to (hence the angle you're looking at), but the talking heads of FO1&2 really didn't show the Super Mutants as orcs, while Fallout 4 just gave me the orcs-impression even more than Fallout 3. From what you described, the SM in FO4 managed to get the textures/skin somewhat right with those cracks on the skin, but the proportion of the head to the body and their posture in FO4 really ruins it for me.

 

[0wing]

Well, I've failed to say that at least they are progressing in SMs' design. Why the head is so small and inproportional? Well, the answer is told above. They just don't want work enough with humanoid NPCs since the basis is established. And because of this I fear we'll never get past F4's mutants.

 

[Borov]

They made ghouls look like shriveled old men and super mutants into buffed-fucking-orcs. The originals were terrifying in the sense that when I first saw them i shit my pants.

Necropolis in general is a scary place.