I remember the first time I saw Power Armour, back in Fallout 2. Frank Horrigan, the game’s villain, mowed down a group of innocents right in front of my eyes. It was horrifying, but the message was clear: you don’t mess with Frank.
Frank is a badass. And if you cross him? He WILL fuck you up. A lot of that menacing aura came from Frank’s combat abilities, sure. Honestly, though, most of my fear of Frank Horrigan stemmed from his Power Armour. You never actually saw Frank’s face during Fallout 2. You only saw his armour, metallic and unfeeling. Fallout 2, which was my introduction to the series, cemented Power Armour as this symbol of strength, something which you could only get once you were strong enough. True to form, in most Fallout titles, Power Armour is something you get well into the games. You had to earn Power Armour, and once you did, Power Armour turned you into an unstoppable force, capable of changing the entire world around you.
Fallout 4 changes all that. Power Armour is still a force to be reckoned with, don’t get me wrong, but the game gives you a suit really early — maybe a couple of hours into your wasteland adventure, if that. At first, this design decision disgusted me. Wasn’t it kind of overindulgent to just give the player Power Armour and a mini gun so quickly? Why spoil the juicy build-up to the armour that prior games had established already? Travesty!
Still, I took the armour back with me to Red Rocket. I docked it into its crafting tower. I left it there, unsure of what to do with something so tremendous. I went off into the wasteland, and gathered supplies: a few pieces of my armour were broken, and more importantly, I didn’t have enough Fusion Cores to power the suit in the first place. Once I was stocked up, I came back and started fixing the thing, here and there.
I altered the build. I added features. I made the whole thing better, stronger, more durable.
And then I took it with me on a mission into one of Fallout 4’s most dangerous territories: the Glowing Sea. A place so irradiated and terrifying, there was no real way to get through it without the Power Armour.
I won’t get into the nitty gritty details of that story mission, which took me beyond the bounds of the main map. I’ll just say this: lumbering through that desolate wasteland in my Power Armour was something unlike anything I’ve ever experienced in a Fallout game before.
It now actually feels like you’re in Power Armour, because the suit is heavy, and every step has some heft to it. You’re not so much wearing the armour, as you are driving it. The fancy HUD you get while in the armour really reinforces that idea, too:
Anyway…that Glowing Sea mission made me feel like I was walking through a hostile alien planet, full of monsters that could easily destroy me. The only thing keeping me alive through that whole thing, the only thing stopping the radiation from killing me in my tracks, was my trusty suit of Power Armour. Looking back on how I survived that ordeal, I still feel feel awe at the whole thing — I can’t help but wonder if astronauts feel the same way about their suits, too. Every so often I’ll even go back to Red Rocket, just to stare at my suit. I’ll think to myself: hey, I made this thing. This hunk of metal is mine; I built it like this.
In a way, Fallout 4 makes Power Armour feel more like a vintage car than a piece of armour. I’m reminded of an uncle I grew up with, who had this rare BMW that he’d constantly tweak and modify in his garage. He loved that thing to death, but would only take it out on weekends and special occasions. The car was too precious to risk ruining it through constant usage. In the same way, I don’t take my Power Armour out with me on every mission. I also have to look far and wide in special shops, hoping to find the right parts for it. And I’ve spent more time than I care to admit thinking over my Power Suit’s paint job.
What I didn’t understand at the start of Fallout 4 was this: there were only so many times Fallout could position Power Armour as exotic reward that players got near the end of the game. By now, many of us have suited up in Power Armour, and used it to become a threat that would make even Frank Horrigan himself feel like a pansy. The only way Bethesda could keep things interesting with Power Armour was to reinvent it, to change our relationship to it. And that’s exactly what they have done in Fallout 4.
Comments
18 responses to “Fallout 4’s Power Armour Is Better Than Ever”
Agree with this sentiment totally. I was really surprised they gave you the armour so early, but the way it’s tied to fuel is a good way of limiting it.
And the feeling of being in the suit that’s heavy and destructive and resilient is quite well designed – something akin to the loaders from Gears of War 3 or something. But better.
And the analogy of cars is deliberate too. In the game, you can collect car magazines, which give you special paint jobs you can apply to your armour which grant stat bonuses.
Oh reallly? Well suddenly I feel like I have missed a few important things in the Corvega Assembly plant. Thanks for the heads up!
Interesting too how you can end up owning multiple suits of armour, I currently own FIVE of them :O
I didnt take the armor to red rocket when it ran out of power is there a way to get it back?
It should appear on your map as a little mask icon.
Oh good to know!
as far as I know you can still Fast Travel with a depleted Fusion Core also.
I don’t think you can actually. I could be wrong though.
It can be stolen. Just a heads up.
As much as I despise the direction this franchise has taken and shared the writer’s disgust of not having the power armor as a sort of carrot on a stick, this article does make an interesting point.
I think by giving the player that exposure to the power armour so early, it’s basically giving them a taste of the carrot. And then by denying effective use through limited access to fusion cells, it forces the player to go out without the armour first to earn their stripes. Then once the players foraged enough then the reward is the armour.
I haven’t played it yet but yes, the basic mechanism is probably the same. Judging from the article it’s well done, I think.
At what point did you start despising the direction? Just wondering
Announcement of Oblivion first person engine for Fallout 3.
Maaaan… this is a wicked change imo. I love this concept! Can’t wait to play it!
Knowing that fusion cores are finite made the power armour so much more interesting.
I love the sense of power you get stepping into it, the way it opens and wraps around your body makes you feel like iron man. The red flame paint job i added also helps with that, now i just need to get that jetpack………..
I rationalise the early inclusion given the military presence at the vault and the fact that the male character is a trained soldier.
To quote the wiki: “The armor usually carries enough fuel to last for one hundred years.” (implying 100 years of USE, imo)
So the core will deplete after about a few minutes of sprinting in-game, or maybe 15-20 minutes of use. Once that’s happened you can’t run and you have to endure a constant beeping.
As someone who brought into the whole ‘post-apocalyptic paladin’ fantasy, having to constantly scavenge fusion cores (actually intended to be a mindbogglingly sophisticated piece of tech, much more so that the suit itself, not the kind of thing you find powering a museum) to actually wear my chosen armour is pretty tiring, so here’s how get as many as you want.
Hit tilde ‘~’ to bring up the console
type: player.additem 00075fe4 x
first number is the code for fusion cores and x is the number you want to add to your inventory, they change out automatically so once done you shouldn’t have to worry about power at all, they also don’t weigh anything, carry as many as you want.
All the panels still need to be repaired manually.
I really enjoyed getting it so early.
***EARLY GAME SPOILERS***
You’re terribly underpowered and under equipped that early in the game. The game gives you the power armour, tells you that you’re highly resistant to radiation, physical damage, are super strong, and are immune to fall damage. Then it tells you to jump off a building and carve through a mob of raiders and a deathclaw. Next, you walk back to your base in the armour feeling literally bulletproof, and then find out that despite being incredibly powerful, it needs care.
***END SPOILERS***
You need to power it, repair it, deal with all kinds of upkeep and customisation. It gives the same kind of feeling that the titans did in Titanfall. In the right hands the power armour is incredibly powerful, but you can’t abuse it, or it’ll be destroyed before you know it.
It’s not just armour anymore. It’s a resource, a hobby, a weapon, and a status symbol. The new Power armour is so damn great.