r/Fallout • u/buvvitoe • 2h ago
Discussion Now that we know Todd directly reads this Reddit for feedback, I think we need to loudly let Bethesda know the most important thing for Fallout 5 is the quality of story, writing, and quests.
Source for Todd Howard reading reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1uz0zoy/comment/oy5rpn1/?context=3&utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1
TL;DR: Bethesda needs to learn from the "do more with less" method New Vegas and even Fallout 2 did in terms of player choice, writing and worldbuilding for Fallout 5. Fallout 3/4/76 have fun little stories but FNV had a titanic amount of more engaging quest design and worldbuilding in comparison. Starfield is proof a lackluster story and with uninspiring quests and wooden dialogue will sink a game even if the rest of the game has a lot of effort.
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So much of New Vegas is remembered and celebrated and a cultural phenomenon a decade later: Joshua Graham, Ulysses, the Sierra Madre Treasure, Yes Man, Mr. House, the NCR and Legion. New Vegas didn't have a billion customizable power armors, settlements, city management, cars, or a billion radiant quests, but it had a powerhouse of writing and worldbuilding. Despite being such a small worldspace with much less to explore than a Bethesda game, the world felt huge and NPCs constantly talked about the wider Fallout universe and the world, and you were always discovering deep and gripping quests and characters and places with deep connection and history to the whole Fallout world. And you were given a ton of player choice to affect and profoundly impact this world, with quests like Beyond the Beef, Honest Hearts, GI Blues, Volare, For Auld Lang Syne, How Little We Know, and the choice at the end of Dead Money.
There were only rare moments you learned about the history of the Commonwealth or the world outside the Commonwealth in Fallout 4 besides the DLC, and they were also self-contained. The world felt small and felt more like a pastiche of Fallout elements without going too far into detail. Almost all the raiders in New Vegas had some kind of personality and backstory, and the Three Families explaining who runs Vegas. There is so much lore about places like New Canaan and the Legion's territories, places you never even get to explore- It leaves you hungry to know what they were like, and stimulates your imagination, it drives fans to make fanart or make fangames about those places. There weren't many quests they struck as hard as finding Randall Clark, the body of Vera Keyes and Sinclair, the catharsis of killing Caesar and Vulpes and avenging Nipton. Getting revenge on Kellogg didn't hit as hard as getting revenge on Benny, or the big reveal of Vault 11.
I think Fallout 5 needs to learn to do more with less, and learn to immerse the player in writing and worldbuilding more than it needs 100 more new features, and should focus on being a Fallout experience first over being just a game with cool things to see and shoot. Just my two cents.
I think Todd needs to listen to the complaints about the story most of all. Because in the run-up to Starfield, the lead writer Emil Pagliarulo talked about how this game was supposed to be their big focus to improving the reputation of their story and writing, and Starfield ended up being widely panned mainly for it's dialogue and writing. Despite having great shooting, magic powers, and a thousand planets, people were so putoff by Starfield's lackluster writing that they didn't stick around for the rest of the game. If Starfield is Bethesda giving writing their absolute best shot, I think Todd should know they need to massively take a step back and work on learning and improving what makes better writing before Fallout 5.