Today, QuakeCon attendees were treated to a brand new Fallout 4 demo chock full of new information. While there’s no footage of this panel, we’ve rounded up the most interesting details for you.
Thanks to a combination of an IGN liveblog, as well as Twitter updates from PC Gamer and Kotaku friend Dave Oshry, here is everything we’ve learned about Fallout 4 today:
- There will be about a dozen possible companions, including Dogmeat, Mr. Handy, Preston Garvey, and ‘Piper,’ a newly-revealed companion who you can meet in Diamond City.
- Mr. Handy can actually say your name — be it John, or something more ridiculous like “Mr. Fuckface.” He will vocalize it all the same. I can’t wait to see all the offensive and silly names that people come up with! In any case, Mr. Handy is voiced by Stephen Russel, who PC Gamer notes also voiced Garret in Thief. Finally, the inside of Mr. Handy is actually modelled, because I guess Bethesda wants to make sure you can see the details if he’s ever blown up.
- We’ve already gotten a look at Preston Garvey, as he was a character that was added earlier this year to Fallout Shelter. He is the leader of the Commonwealth Minutemen, a group which needs some serious help. Preston Garvey looks like this. [clear]
- Dogmeat is based on a real dog, who is named River. Quakecon folks got to see footage of this dog, but we’ll have to settle for a Tweet.
Additionally, you can command your in-game dog to scout areas for items (fetching, looting, and so on.)
- Piper, the new companion, wears a red leather coat and a newsboy hat.
- You can romance your companions, regardless of whether you play as a male or female. Not clear on whether or not this includes robots like Mr. Handy, but here’s hoping.
- Things that are back: bloody mess perk, Super Duper Mart, computer hacking, lockpicking, the Fat Man, and Behemoth mutants. The demo actually ends with the player shooting an atomic bomb at a Behemoth mutant.
- Book/comic book covers will be more detailed this time around, and you can zoom in and look at them.
- The levelling system works differently now. Perks are tied to SPECIAL stats, and not levels. Having specific high special stats means having good related perks.
- It sounds like factions can war with one another. IGN described a scene where the player watched ghouls attacking raiders, and noted that the player had the option to let it happen without interfering. Awesome. Additionally, they also noted that at one point the Brotherhood of Steel appears and joins the player in a battle against raiders.
Comments
20 responses to “10 Things We Learned About Fallout 4 From QuakeCon 2015”
Good old kotaku with their first rate journalism…of reading the IGN blog and someone’s Twitter
Gamesradar has a much better rundown of what they saw first hand fyi
Do you think that they may not have been able to be there? Credit was given, links to sources were provided. Some people never go to (or even know of) Games Radar, RPS, IGN or other sites, so they might’ve missed it otherwise (because ya’know, some people actually *like* Kotaku).
+1
Hate how every reader thinks they are some next level editor or journalist.
I personally love Kotaku, never missed out on any info and the community is good 🙂 (edit: most of the community :P)
Ehhh, depends on the author. Serrels is allways quality, some other ones are not….
Agree. 99% of the time the ‘not so quality’ stuff is just syndicated trash from Kotaku USA though. I’ve learned not to even bother with a few particular authors; it’s much my same philosophy about reading Andrew Bolt.
“Do you think that they may not have been able to be there? ”
International gaming news site doesn’t attend major gaming convention? Seems like a pretty weak excuse…
Not at all.
Even the IGN readers are complaining about the exclusivity surrounding the panel. Quite clearly only selected people were allowed access to this particular panel and everyone else has to make do with the information trickling down.
It even mentions this info is only possible because of a liveblog, a few tweets and some info passed on by an industry insider, so even those that attended were under strict limitations.
ive gotten all the information i needed here in dot points and i didn’t have to click through 8 pages to read a single article.
Ok, I understand and agree that gender equality stuff is important. The issue I have is the whole “*every* companion is romance-able, regardless of gender” thing.
Now before you hit your downvote button, hear me out. I’m not actually saying that the homosexual part is necessarily the issue, it’s sort of the contrary. I feel like making *all* companions romance-able regardless of gender is a step in the wrong direction.
In my opinion, it should swing the other way, keep homosexual companions a thing 100%, but scale back the options so even heterosexual romances aren’t as encompassing as they have been traditionally.
I think it’d actually be more compelling, and eventually rewarding, to find that some companions, even those of the opposite gender, are simply not into your character.
Your relationship with the companion should grow naturally and may bloom into something quite intimate, but it may not lead to anything more than a trusting and encompassing friendship, despite what you, the player, wants.
The arcs would be so much more interesting having a wide array of characters, with vastly different responses to your advances, from accepting and willing, to apprehensive and insulted ect.
Some may politely ask you to stop, others may be offended, others yet may lead you on, but never really cross the gap, likewise, it’d be interesting to have homosexual characters, not interested in PC characters of the same gender to boot.
it’d make your companions feel more like real people, and less like sex-sandbox items.
A pseudo-example I can think of is Jack from Mass effect, personally, she never really felt like she should have been romancable to me, it felt like the relationship that developed was forced purely to satiate the player.
Heck, even if you did sleep with jack, she always seemed like the type who would have considered it a one off and laughed at your for thinking anything more.
I think Dragon Age: Inquisition did it well. There were all sorts of pre-conditions on romance. Some characters were straight, some gay, and some swung both ways.
You know what’s a little sad?
There are people who stand on the opposite side and get quite vocal when they can’t bang anything that moves.
Last time I saw such anger was Witcher 3, a lot of people got upset when they romanced all the leading females and it didn’t work out with them in the end.
Worst part is many refused to accept their own mistake when the game made it perfectly clear you were dealing with independent and proud characters with complex histories and relationships.
Perhaps the lack of romantic success hit a little too close to home for those people? 😛
Judging from their reactions I wouldn’t be surprised at all lol
This was a well-written piece, nicely done, and I agree with your sentiment.
My exact thoughts
I get the feeling I’m going to be making a few regrettable perk/special choices when starting out.
God, yes, I do every time I start a new Fallout game.
Perks were already related to SPECIAL stats. EG: Lead Belly required Lvl 8 & 5 END.
Are we saying that now you just need 5 END, regardless of level, or am I missing the point of this?
Maybe you can now get whatever perks you want, whenever you want regardless of level, as long as you have the right stats.
That’s the way I read it, but I guess we’ll just have to wait for official clarification.
Lordy lord, introducing romance into this game is just going to add about another 100 hours for me. I wished there was a new video, but all of these are 10/10 exciting. Also, Preston Garvey is a fantastic name.
Dogmeat does look kind of pretty I guess and it may take some time for me to convince him/her that I am Mr Right (what with the language barrier and all) but I reckon that time will be well spent.
and still no confirmation if entering buildings/cities wil be seamless without load screens.