Thanks to the Amazon Prime Fallout series, there’s been a sudden flare-up of renewed interest in the franchise, which has already led to a significant uptick in player activity for several previously released games. Bethesda, meanwhile, is looking to strike while the iron is hot, with the long-awaited Next-Gen Update for Fallout 4 set to launch on April 25, finally bringing native versions of the game to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S with several enhancements and additions.
While plenty of older fans will, of course, be taking this opportunity to revisit the game, it’s likely that many new players will also be jumping into Fallout 4 for the first time when its upcoming update hits. If you’re in that group, here, we’ve prepared a primer on everything that you should know about Bethesda’s post-apocalyptic RPG and its Next-Gen Update.
STORY DETAILS
Fallout 4 is set in the year 2287, 210 years after the world was destroyed in a global nuclear war, and takes players to the post-nuclear remains of the city of Boston and its surrounding areas, collectively referred to as the Commonwealth. You play as the nameless protagonist known only as the Sole Survivor. After being cryogenically frozen in Vault 111 on the day the bombs fell in 2077, a fallout shelter built by the corporation Vault-Tec, the Sole Survivor is awoken only once during a long slumber, and during their brief reentry into the world, they witness their spouse being shot and their son being kidnapped, following which they’re put back into cryosleep. When they awaken for good, it’s the year 2287, after which you begin your journey to avenge your spouse’s murder and rescue your son.
FACTIONS
The factions occupying the world are always a crucial component in Bethesda’s RPGs, and there are plenty such groups that you’ll be crossing paths with in Fallout 4. One of them is the Institute, a secret science society that has achieved stunning technological feats, from figuring out teleportation to creating artificial humans known as Synths. Then there’s the Brotherhood of Steel, a faction very familiar to Fallout fans, which is overzealous both, in its attempts to find and preserve pre-war technology, and stand against the creation of Synths by the Institute. Meanwhile, the Railroad is another secret organization that is dead set on freeing all Synths from the control of the Institute. Finally, the Minutemen are a volunteer militia who have made it their mission to protect the Commenwealth from raiders and other seedy elements.
COMPANIONS
Like factions, companions are also a key component of all BGS RPGs, and there’s no shortage of those in Fallout 4 either. There are, in fact, a total of 13 that you can find and recruit- though you can only travel with one at a time, while a large number of them are also entirely missable. There’s your loyal canina buddy Dogmeat, robot butler Codsworth, synth detective Nick Valentine, Railroad agent Deacon, Minutemen leader Preston Garvey, and more.
PROGRESSION
Fallout 4 received plenty of acclaim when it first launched in 2015, but there’s a sizeable portion of the series’ fanbase that considers it a step back from previous instalments when it comes to its role-playing mechanics. As an RPG, Fallout 4 is much more pared back than its predecessors, and that shows in its progression mechanics. Though the SPECIAL system returns, past games’ systems for skills and perks are streamlined into a unlock and upgrade abilities from a pool of over 270, which are unlocked based on which SPECIAL stats you’re investing in and which abilities you’re upgrading.
DIALOGUE WHEEL
Another area where many consider Fallout 4 to be a downgrade from its predecessors is the way it handles dialogue choices. Unlike the list-based options of its predecessors, Fallout 4 once again streamlines things by introducing a dialogue wheel that functions similar to BioWare RPGs. That means that, unlike the vast majority of Bethesda RPGs, the protagonist is fully voiced- which is good. At the same time, however, your dialogue options are much more limited, which means the story isn’t nearly as branching as past Fallout games, with choice-and-consequence mechanics feeling much more muted.
EXPANSIONS
In the months following Fallout 4’s launch in 2015, Bethesda released several pieces of DLC, of which two were full-fledged expansions. The first of these was Far Harbor, which takes players to the titular seaside community after they’re hired by the Valentine Detective Agency to investigate the disappearance of a girl. Then there’s Nuka World, set in the Nuka Cola themed amusement park, where you lock horns with a number of raider gangs that have taken over the location. Other DLC packs like Automatron and Vault-Tec Workshop also added chunks of new content to the game, but were smaller additions than the aforementioned expansions.
LENGTH
Typically enough for a Bethesda RPG, Fallout 4 is a big game. Sticking to its main story, you can get to the credits in about 30 hours, but depending on how deeply you engage with its many, many optional offerings, you can extend your playtime to anywhere between 50 hours to as high as a couple of hundred, if not even more, especially with there being no level cap, mods providing endless new content to dive into, and the Survival Mode providing bountiful post-game challenges. On top of that, the Far Harbor and Nuka World expansions can each last anywhere between 10 to 25 hours (again, depending on how strictly you’re sticking to the critical path).
NEXT-GEN UPDATE
With core details about Fallout 4 itself out of the way, what can we expect from its upcoming Next-Gen Update? Launching on April 25 after a surprisingly long wait (which also entailed a delay from 2023 into this year), the update’s primary purpose is to bring native versions of Fallout 4 to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, with the game currently only being playable on those consoles through backward compatibility with PS4 and Xbox One respectively. In its native PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions, Fallout 4 will feature Graphics and Performance Modes for players to choose between, which will entail support for 60 FPS and increased resolutions. Exactly how significant those increases will be and what the precise targets will be for each mode hasn’t yet been confirmed. What has been confirmed, however, is that those who already own the game on PS4 and Xbox One will get the update for free.
PC UPDATE
PC players won’t be left in the dust when Fallout 4’s Next-Gen Update launches. On April 25, the game will be receiving an update on PC as well, the highlight of which will be added support for widescreen and ultra widescreen resolutions. Beyond that, PC players can also expect several quest updates, fixes related to the Creation Club, and more.
OTHER CHANGES
April 25’s updates will bring a handful of other, relatively less headline-grabbing changes to Fallout 4 as well. For starters, on PC, the game’s Steam, Microsoft Store, and GOG versions will receive a number of fixes related to bugs, mods, and stability issues, while an issue that has frequently prevented Japanese and Chinese language players from accessing mods due to Bethesda.net login issues will also be addressed. Additonally, the game will also receive a number of stability, login, quest, and bug fixes not only on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, but also on PS4 and Xbox One.
ENCLAVE REMNANTS QUEST
With the upcoming update, Bethesda is also taking the opportunity to integrate new content into Fallout 4 that was previously only available through Creation Club purchases. Chief among them will be a quest involving the Enclave, a faction that series fans will be very familiar with. Titled Echoes of the Past, the quest tasks players with stopping the Enclave from “spreading their dangerous ideology and gaining a foothold in the Commonwealth”.
NEW ITEMS
Several new Creation Club items are also being added into Fallout 4 with its upcoming update for players on all platforms to acquire and make use of, many of them themed around the aforementioned Enclave. That includes several workshop items, cosmetics such as the Enclave Colonel uniform and Enclave skins for weapons and armour, and weapons such as the Tesla Cannon, the Hellfire Power Armor, the X-02 Power Armor, and the Heavy Incinerator.
MORE NEW ITEMS
A couple of weapon packs that were previously only available via the Creation Club are also being added into the game itself with its upcoming update. Firstly, there’s the Makeshift Weapons Pack, which, true to its name, includes weapons that have been cobbled together whatever one can scrounge from your everyday post-nuclear surroundings, yielding a variety of results, from the relatively mundane like a nail gun to the much more unconventional like a baseball launcher- which, as its name suggests, is essentially a grenade launcher that launches baseballs at enemies instead of baseballs. The other new pack is dubbed Halloween Workshop, which includes 38 Hallowoon themed decorations that you can use in your created settlements, including witches, cauldrons, and ghouls, among other things.
STEAM DECK SUPPORT
Bethsda Game Studios’ RPGs lend themselves incredibly well to being played on the go. Fallout 4 has, of course, already been playable on the Steam Deck for a while, and all things considered, it actually runs quite well on Valve’s portable device. It does have some rough edges here and there, however, which means it doesn’t yet have that “Steam Deck Verified” tag. That will be changing on April 25, because with its upcoming update, Fallout 4 will be adding full optimization for the device.
EPIC GAMES STORE
Already available on PC through Steam, the Microsoft Store, and GOG, Fallout 4 will soon add another digital storefront to its list. Bethesda has announced that starting April 25, prospective PC players will also be able to purchase Fallout 4 through the Epic Games Store should they wish to do so.
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