Fallout 4
Fallout 4 is a 2015 action role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. It is the fourth main game in the Fallout series and was released worldwide on November 10, 2015, for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One, with versions for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S released on April 25, 2024. The open world is set within a post-apocalyptic environment that encompasses the American city of Boston and the surrounding Massachusetts region, known in-game as "the Commonwealth".
The main story takes place in the year 2287, 10 years after the events of Fallout 3 and 210 years after a nuclear holocaust known as the "Great War". The player assumes control of a character simply referred to as the "Sole Survivor", who emerges from a long-term cryogenic stasis in Vault 111, an underground nuclear fallout shelter. After witnessing the murder of their spouse and the kidnapping of their son Shaun, the Sole Survivor ventures out into the Commonwealth to search for their missing child.
The player explores the game's dilapidated world, completes quests, assists factions, and acquires experience points to level up and increase the abilities of their character. New features to the series include the ability to develop and manage settlements and an extensive crafting system where materials scavenged from the environment can be used to craft explosives, upgrade weapons and armor, and construct, furnish, and improve settlements. It is the first game in the series to feature a fully voiced protagonist.
Fallout 4 received positive reviews from critics; many praised the world depth, player freedom, overall amount of content, crafting, story, characters, and soundtrack. Criticism was mainly directed at the game's simplified role-playing elements compared to its predecessors and technical issues. It shipped 12 million units to retailers, which generated US within the first 24 hours of its launch. It received numerous accolades from various gaming publications and award events, including the respective awards for Game of the Year and Best Game at the D.I.C.E. Awards and British Academy Games Awards. Bethesda released six downloadable content add-ons, including the expansions Far Harbor and Nuka-World. A version bundling the base game, its downloadable content and all previously released Creation Club content, called the Fallout 4: Anniversary Edition, was released on November 10, 2025 for all platforms, and is set to be followed by a Nintendo Switch 2 version in 2026.
Gameplay
Fallout 4 is an action role-playing game set in an open world environment. Gameplay is similar to that of Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, the two previous primary iterations in the series. However, unlike the previous two titles, the gun gameplay was handled by id Software. Returning features include a camera that can switch between a first-person and third-person perspective. Fallout 4 introduces features including a layered armor system, base-building, a dialogue system featuring 111,000 lines of dialogue, and a crafting system which implements every object in the game that the player can loot. Enemies such as Mole Rats, Raiders, Rad Roaches, Super Mutants, Deathclaws, and Feral Ghouls return along with the companion Dogmeat.The player can freely roam in the game's world and leave a conversation at any time. If the player has discovered a certain location they may fast travel to it, unless playing on "Survival Difficulty", in which fast traveling is disabled. Weapons can be customized; the game includes over 50 guns, which can be crafted with a variety of modifications, such as receivers, barrel types, and laser focuses, with over 700 modifications available. Power Armor such as the T45 power armor was redesigned to be more like a vehicle than a suit of armor. It must be powered with battery-like "fusion cores" to operate most efficiently. Power Armor can be modified, allowing the player to add items such as a jet pack or select separate types of armor plating for each part of the suit.
A new feature of the series is the ability to craft and deconstruct settlements and buildings. The player can select and break down many in-game objects and structures, and use the resultant raw materials to freely build their own structures. The towns can be powered with working electricity, using a power line system. Merchants and non-player characters can inhabit the player's settlements, for which the player must provide sustenance by growing food in makeshift patches and building water pumps. The player can build defenses around their settlements, such as turrets, traps and bombs, to defend against random attacks. Alongside this, the settlements have a meter to measure happiness which can be increased by meeting settlement requirements as well as providing options for settlers including a "Barber Chair" and a "Trading Stand".
The Pip-Boy, a personal computing device strapped to the player character's wrist, allows the player to access a menu with statistics, maps, data, and items the player has acquired. The player can find game cartridges, called Holotapes, which can be played on the Pip-Boy or a terminal. A new feature for the Pip-Boy interface is a downloadable application for iOS, Android, and Windows smartphones and tablets. This optional app allows players to access the Pip-Boy interface on a separate screen, and play the collected game cartridges when not playing the main game.
Another returning gameplay feature is the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System. While using V.A.T.S., real-time combat is slowed down, and action is played out from varying camera angles in a computer graphics version of "bullet time". Various actions, including firing shots in V.A.T.S., expend the Sole Survivor's supply of Action Points, limiting what the player can do in a certain period. While in V.A.T.S., the player can target individual body parts with attacks to inflict specific injuries; headshots can be used for quick kills or to blind, legs can be targeted to slow enemy movement, and opponents can be disarmed by shooting at their weapons. Unlike previous games, in which the player had a random chance to inflict a critical hit, they are now performed manually through V.A.T.S. Attacking with V.A.T.S will drain AP with V.A.T.S being impossible if AP is insufficient. The amount of AP drain by each weapon use in V.A.T.S depends on the weapon used and its modifications.
At the beginning of the game, players are given points to spend on a character progression system called S.P.E.C.I.A.L. The system represents seven statistics, namely strength, perception, endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility, and luck. When the player earns enough experience points to gain a level, they unlock an ability. When the player allocates more points to a statistic, more abilities can be unlocked. These perks can be upgraded to improve the protagonist's efficiency and to further unlock abilities. There are about 275 perks available for the player to unlock. There is a soft level cap of 65535 and the game does not end once the main story is complete.
The player may travel with only one companion at a time, although other characters accompany the player in certain quests. These companions can interact with the environment on the player character's behalf. For example, if the player character does not have the required skills to hack a terminal or pick a lock, they can order the companion to do it for them. Any companion present besides Dogmeat will react to certain player actions in one of four ways, which either raises or lowers their "affinity". Raising a companion's affinity to 1,000 points will result in them "idolizing" the player and granting a specific perk. Partnership with companions is also possible at higher affinities. The companion will leave the player's service permanently if their affinity drops low enough, and some actions can turn them hostile on sight.
Plot
Setting
Fallout 4 takes place in the year 2287, 10 years after the events of Fallout 3 and 210 years after the Sino-American War, a war between the United States and China over natural resources, which ended via a nuclear holocaust called the Great War. The setting is post-apocalyptic, covering a region that includes Boston and other parts of New England known as "the Commonwealth". Unlike the previous titles, Fallout 4s story begins on the day the bombs dropped: October 23, 2077.The game takes place in an alternate version of history that features 1940s and 1950s American aesthetics, such as diners and drive-in theaters, while design and technologies advance in the directions imagined during the era. The resulting universe is thus a retro-futuristic one, where society has evolved enough to produce laser weapons, manipulate genes, and create nearly-autonomous artificial intelligence, all within the confines of 1950s' technology, such as the widespread use of atomic power and vacuum tubes, as well as having the integrated circuitry of the digital age. The architecture, advertisements, and general living styles are depicted to be largely unchanged since the 1950s, while including futuristic products such as robotic rocking horses for children and high-tech fallout shelters known as Vaults. Post-war societal currency is based on bottle caps, often simply called "caps".
There are four main factions that the player can choose to support throughout the story: the Institute, a secretive technocratic hegemony society stemming from the former Commonwealth Institute of Technology that specializes in the creation of artificial humanoids called "synths"; the Brotherhood of Steel, a quasi-religious paramilitary aiming to regulate the usage of advanced technology; the Minutemen, a militia dedicated to protecting settlements that require help; and the Railroad, an underground organization desiring to rescue synths from the Institute.