 Okay, everyone, before we get to it, I want to let you know that I'm in the process of recording a much longer than I thought video analyzing a single quest line from the Witcher 3. After getting myself pretty hyped reading about Cyberpunk 2077 during E3, I started playing the Witcher again and the writing in the Bloody Baron quest line was so good I had to do a video on it. I've also got a video in the works about a few cool little games I got during the Steam Summer Sale, and I've got stuff on Dead Space 2, Borderlands 2, and Mass Effect rolling around the old brain. I'm also going to do a Destiny 2 video about only heroic strikes and how terrible they are. But today, let's talk about Fallout 76 real fast. The game that looks like a Fallout game and which Bethesda keeps saying is a Fallout game, except when they point out just how much it's really not a Fallout game. And as always, if you like what I have to say or how I sound saying it, like, comment, yadda yadda yadda. So, out of all the E3 hype stuff, I found Bethesda's presentation the best and also the weirdest. Prey DLC, one of the best games the last couple years, and Rage 2 both look great. But after that, everything that was shown was either something that's almost certainly coming out in the next generation, like Elder Scrolls 6 or Starfield, both of which only have logos at the time, apparently, or they come with some pretty big caveats. Like, they showed an Elder Scrolls game that's on mobile devices. Now, on one hand, mobile games are shit. And why would I play a game on my phone when I can play a game on my PC or my console? I mean, at work, I'm usually working, and while I'm commuting, I'm driving, and I don't really wait on lines because I hate lines. But then on the other hand, I think it would be really great if better games started to be made on mobile again. There are millions of people who play mostly mobile games, and the quality of the average game in the App Store is shit. So yeah, that's pretty cool. There's a new Wolfenstein game. And while both of the new Wolfensteins had really, really great stories, they also had pretty average gameplay, with the first one being better than the second one, in my opinion. There was the new Doom game, which is probably still a couple of years out, considering they didn't show anything of it, meaning that, at the very best, we'll see gameplay at next year's E3 and have it released sometime at the end of 2019 or in early 2020. And then, of course, there's a new Fallout game. Yes! Is it developed by Obsidian? Cuz that would be fucking- Oh. Oh. Oh, it's an online multiplayer survival game? So when I first read the leaks about what this game was, I became immediately skeptical. Then Todd Howard started talking about how it's totally a Fallout game, with a story and everything. But then I heard there were no NPCs. But then we heard there'd be quests. But then we heard there'd be very little dialogue. And on and on and on. So at the end of the day, I still don't really know what this game is. And that leaves me pretty anxious that this isn't going to be what I want out of a Bethesda Fallout game. I mean, if it was, wouldn't they have just made it clear what the game is? So let's do a little thought experiment here, OK? When you think of a Bethesda Fallout game, what are the important systems that make a Fallout game a Fallout game? If you're anything like me, you'll have a short list in your head right now, a large open world, a heavy focus on exploration, hundreds of NPCs to talk to, lots of side quests, lots of dialogue options and conversations, a story that requires you to pick a faction. You'll probably think of the VAT system, of great environmental storytelling, RPG progression systems, companions. Way, way, way down the list will you probably start thinking about FPS combat. You certainly aren't thinking about online multiplayer combat. Even in Fallout 4, where the series had its best FPS gunplay ever, it still only rose to the level of decent. And from everything we've heard, this game will not have NPCs. It won't have a central focus on story. It won't have dozens of narrative side quests. It won't have factions to rely with or oppose. It won't have companions. It won't have dialogue. It won't have the VAT system. Is that still even a Fallout game? What I'm getting at here is, when I think of a Fallout game, quests, story and conversation are foundational elements of the game. When I told my wife about Fallout 76 and I said, well, it's not going to have any conversations, she said, isn't that what the whole game is? Hell, you can create entire builds based around charisma and speech if you want. When I want to play Fallout, that's what I'm thinking about. I'm thinking about the dozens and dozens of interesting little side quests and characters. The lack of a good dialogue system was one of the great disappointments of Fallout 4. But the solution to that was a better dialogue system, not a Fallout without it. Does anybody play Fallout mainly for the combat? If this game was just Fallout 5 with the ability to play with other players, I would be fine with that. But I'm not convinced that this is going to provide anything like the experience I expect from Bethesda Fallout game, or any of Bethesda's big RPG games. Now it's true that the moment-to-moment gameplay loop of Fallout 76 may be quite similar. A big part of Fallout's appeal is certainly wandering the wasteland, exploring and finding interesting little things. And certainly the text and audio logs are always a big part of the game's appeal. But meeting characters is at least as important as reading text logs and completing interesting quests for interesting characters is half of what drives the player exploration. I'm just not sure how much I'd really be driven to explore a Fallout world without a compelling main quest to push me through it. And a Fallout game without NPCs or dialogue or companions or a focus on interesting stories sounds like a game with at least half of its appeal missing. There are an awful lot of multiplayer games in the market and almost all of them have rock solid combat as their main feature. Fallout has never been more than a passable FPS. In fact, I went back recently and started playing through Fallout 4 again and the combat has not aged well. At the time, I think everyone was pleasantly surprised at how the FPS mechanics were much improved from previous games. But that's just grating on a curve, man. Is the combat in Fallout 4 better than 3 in New Vegas? Oh my god, yes, it is so much fucking better. But still, it's actually pretty shit and the early game weapons are nearly unusable, requiring constant vats to be successful. By the end of the game, you've gotten enough good weapons that the FPS combat becomes fine. But this isn't just a single-player game. It's apparently a multiplayer FPS game with no vats at all. This sounds like a recipe for frustration to me. If I'm stuck with low-level weapons and another player has much better weapons, that is not a balanced multiplayer experience. Anyone who has played a lot of multiplayer shooters knows that balance is crucial. You have to feel like when you are killed, it was a result of your skill or your strategy, not because this guy spent time grinding to get a 10-time better weapon. Now, as always, much will depend on the matchmaking that Fallout 76 uses. But even there, has Bethesda ever had to make a matchmaking system? I can't imagine how the FPS combat in Fallout 4 would be a fun multiplayer experience. But my anxiety about this game goes beyond just the fact that I'm not sure I'm interested in what this game has to offer. You see, it makes me kind of sad that instead of using the engine and assets to get another real Fallout game out or to have someone like Obsidian or another developer make another Fallout game, they decided to make this. For all of their faults, like broken quests and bugs and ridiculous loading times and floaty combat and unsatisfying endings for the main quest, even with all of that, Bethesda Fallout games are still some of the best games released. The care the developer puts into grading their worlds makes the games a pleasure to explore. And the world is always filled with interesting characters and quests. But now I'm worried, kind of like how Elder Scrolls 6 was pushed back probably years because of the relative success of Elder Scrolls Online. I'm worried that if this game is a success too, there will be much less incentive to get to work on a new real Fallout game. Bethesda's Fallout games are notorious for being played for years by players. There are tons of YouTube channels that still exist mainly to play and talk about Fallout 3, Fallout 4, Skyrim and New Vegas. So Bethesda can put less effort into making a Fallout game by having much less writing, animation and voice acting to do while simultaneously being able to monetize the game for years after release. It seems like a real possibility that this game will mean Fallout 5 comes much later than it otherwise would have. If people like this game, if they play it and dump money into it, that sends a message to Bethesda. It says they can make the same amount of money off of a Fallout game with much less work and investment required. They don't even have to start developing the next one until this one isn't selling any more power armor skins. Bethesda, rightly, takes a long time to make their big games. It looks like Elder Scrolls will skip an entire generation. And if this game succeeds, it's quite likely that Fallout 5 will be a very long time away. Now all that said, I'm going to buy and play the game out of curiosity if nothing else. And maybe I'll like it, but honestly, I have never really understood the people who said a Fallout MMO was something they wanted or a multiplayer Fallout game. Fallout is a big, messy, single player RPG. The loneliness of being in the world is half of the appeal. It's a game that revolves in great part around talking to NPCs and completing interesting story missions. I have never turned on a Bethesda game, really any Bethesda game ever because it was all that fun to shoot things in them. So a Fallout game that has no NPCs, no stories, and has the possibility of other players coming along and killing me while I'm enjoying exploring the world, it just doesn't sound fun to me. And worst of all, it has the possibility of changing the way Bethesda thinks about Fallout. If this succeeds, does that mean we get a multiplayer Elder Scrolls? Bethesda is one of the last developers that is fully committed to deep, large, single player games. It feels like this could be the start of Bethesda losing a little bit of what makes them special. And that makes me nervous. Hopefully they proved me wrong. All right, bye. See you soon.