Fallout 5 is clearly a long, long ways off. There’s a very real possibility that the game isn’t going to be for at least another decade if not more- and yet, even so, with all the excitement surrounding the Fallout franchise right now, we can’t help but look to its future and wonder about what its next mainline instalment will bring. 2015’s Fallout 4 got a lot of things right, from its combat and its open world to some genuinely excellent side quests and more, but at the same time, there were some notable areas where it stumbled in noticeable ways- areas where its successor will ideally need to make some marked improvements. Here, we’re going to talk about a few ways we’re hoping to see Fallout 5 improve over Fallout 4.
PROTAGONIST
This was one of the biggest ways Fallout 4 deviated from the established Bethesda formula. Having a voiced protagonist was a big deal for the game, and though you could see why Bethesda made that decision in favour of more immersive storytelling, the trade-offs were just too many and too significant. One of the biggest ones was that the protagonist felt too much like a defined personality. From Mass Effect to The Witcher, there have, of course, been plenty of RPGs focused on player choice that have made that kind of a protagonist work really well, but Bethesda Game Studios titles just aren’t meant to be those kinds of games. Having a voiceless, blank slate protagonist allows players to be whoever and whatever they want to be in the vast worlds with infinite choices that BGS crafts, and hopefully, Fallout 5 will head back in that direction. Given that Starfield already did that last year, we’re optimistic that the next Fallout game will follow suit.
DIALOGUE SYSTEM
Another area where Fallout 4 received plenty of legitimate criticism was its dialogue system. Picking dialogue options from a literal list of choices has long been Bethesda’s MO, and though the developer tried something different with Fallout 4’s Mass Effect-style dialogue wheel, the experiment didn’t work out. Dialogue options ended up feeling significantly more restrictive and limited than what BGS games have always been known for, and things such as speech checks were massively de-emphasized. Thankfully, BGS’ activities since then strongly indicate that Fallout 5 will revert to having a traditional list-style dialogue system, with Fallout 76’s expansions and Starfield both having done that already.
PROGRESSION MECHANICS
Though Fallout 4 is undoubtedly a hugely captivating open world experience, there are many who will tell you that as an RPG, it feels like a letdown in a lot of ways. Those criticisms aren’t without merit. The biggest culprit here was the new perks system, which replaced skills with perks, making options in build variety and skill checks feel much more limited and pared back. Where most BGS RPGs are known for providing an almost immersive sim-style of mechanical freedom, Fallout 4’s progression systems made it feel noticeably more guided in that regard. Thankfully, if Starfield is any indication, Bethesda has clearly taken that criticism into account, which hopefully means Fallout 5 will be a much more robust as an RPG.
CHOICE AND CONSEQUENCE MECHANICS
This is an area where Bethesda Game Studios’ titles very rarely hit the way many may want them to. Though player choice and story branches are obviously embedded into the core of every BGS RPG, actual consequences for the choices you make are usually minimal, if not even nonexistent. Your actions in side quests very rarely impact other quests or main stories in any meaningful way, and the stories doesn’t seem to acknowledge your exploits in realistic ways- like, say, you being able to rise through the ranks of two rival factions that are otherwise at each other’s throats. We’re honestly doubtful that Bethesda will ever place that kind of an emphasis on choice and consequence mechanics – their games just aren’t meant to be those kinds of experiences – but we’d sure love to see our decisions carrying a bit more weight in Fallout 5.
MAIN STORY
Playing a Bethesda RPG purely for its main story almost feels like an alien concept at this point. Optional content and messing about in the emergent sandboxes is where these games shine the brightest. That was very much true in Fallout 4 as well- though the gulf between its main story and its optional content was perhaps a bit too wide. Though not terrible by any means, Fallout 4’s main story was definitely one of its weaker parts, and significantly less captivating than many of its optional questlines. While we’re not expecting Fallout 5’s main story to be on the same level as the genre’s best offerings, we do still hope that it makes significant improvements over its predecessor.
SEAMLESS WORLD
It’s a bit exasperating that in 2024, we’re still waiting for Bethesda Game Studios to finally make a seamless open world. There was no shortage of instanced areas scattered throughout the map in Fallout 4, from cities to dungeons and more, while Starfield compounded those issues significantly by cramming space travel (which you do a lot of) full of loading screens. Over the years, there’s been no shortage of massive, systemically dense open world titles that were completely seamless – Red Dead Redemption 2 being perhaps the most prominent example – and our hope is that by the time we get to Fallout 5, BGS will have finally figured out how to do that as well. Of course, given the fact that Fallout 5 is probably multiple generations of humanity away, there’s a decent chance that that ends up happening. Fingers crossed.
SETTLEMENT BUILDING
Settlement building was the big new thing that Bethesda introduced in Fallout 4 (or one of them, at any rate), and it’s something that the studio has stuck with in Fallout 76 and Starfield as well. There’s a good chance then that Fallout 5 will feature settlement building mechanics as well- but if it does, we really hope they’re much less of an emphasis than they were in its predecessor. While building and improving settlements in Fallout 4 could be fun in short doses, the amount of focus that doing so could often take away from other parts of the experience definitely dragged down the game as a whole.
COMBAT
Combat has never really been Bethesda Game Studios’ forte, but credit where credit is due- Fallout 4 was easily one of the studio’s better outings in that area. Then again, a lot of that was down to the VATS system, and even though the core shooting mechanics felt much tighter than they did in Fallout 3, they still had plenty of noticeable jank. Melee combat, meanwhile, felt even floatier, as it often does in BGS RPGs. Hopefully, Fallout 5 will continue to make improvements on this front. The shooting in Starfield was genuinely good, so there’s reason to be optimistic, at least.
WEAPONS AND WEAPON MODS
One of the ways that Fallout 5 could make marked improvements to its combat is by introducing a greater variety of weapons and weapon mods. Though Fallout 4’s weapon modding system had its strengths, it wasn’t robust enough to be able to hide the fact that there were a surprisingly low number of base weapon types, while there’s a case to be made that there weren’t enough individual mods to tinker around with either. Fallout’s post-apocalyptic setting is one that lends itself incredibly well to widely varied and imaginative weapons, and hopefully we’ll see much more of that in Fallout 5.
TECHNICAL STABILITY
We’re hoping to see this in all Bethesda Game Studios games in the future, whether that’s Fallout 5 or The Elder Scrolls 6. Technical issues, crashes, bugs, and what have you have long been the bane of BGS RPGs, and though it would be unfair to say that BGS hasn’t been trying to make continued improvements with each new game it puts out, those improvements haven’t come at a fast enough rate. At times, in fact, there have even been significant steps backwards, like the launch of Fallout 76. By the time we’re getting ready for Fallout 5, will the studio finally have managed to rein in those technical issues? It’s hard to say, especially given BGS’ track record, but that’s certainly what we’re hoping for.
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