The only Bethesda game I played extensively on release was Skyrim. Despite completely side-stepping one of the best parts of the game, I enjoyed my time in the colder part of Tamriel. However, even with over 50 hours devoted to the game, I couldn’t help but wonder if I should have waited for the inevitable onslaught of modifications to make my journey all the better.
To say we’ve had a few discussions regarding the negatives of pre-orders in the past is an understatement. And with a spate of big titles coming out of the forge with major defects, the desire to put one’s money down months before a game’s release — or even at launch — has dulled significantly.
While I have no doubt Bethesda has spent a lot of time getting Fallout 4 right, it will have bugs. Quests will break. Save games will be corrupted. It might be worthwhile holding off for a bit to have an untarnished play-through, with the added benefit of having mods available to enhance your experience. You might even get the game cheaper.
On the downside, by delaying gratification, you up your chances of seeing spoilers. Having little to offer when chatting with mates about the game. Being forced to take a real holiday with your annual leave.
Oh, and not playing it. That’s a big one.
There is a way to get the best of both worlds, if you like coming back to your games. You can finish Fallout 4, take a break for a few months, then come back with a new character with patches, mods and a fresh playstyle in tow.
Honestly — I’m on the fence about which path to take. I’m not the sort of person to replay sprawling open-world RPGs and I’m busy enough as it is working on my own game that time is in short supply, so perhaps waiting is the best decision for me.
Still, I’d like to hear what your plans are: wait, or play?
Comments
66 responses to “Fallout 4: Play On Release Or Wait For Patches And Mods?”
What people say: Wait!
What people will 100% do: PLAY PLAY PLAY!!!!!
Memories of the MW2 boycott on steam… XD
i didnt. i stuck to the boycott, hell i didnt even pirate it or any of the others that came after it
On topic though, ive got the preload complete and already preorder legion as well. but also from what ive seen of the streams and videos and from people actually playing the game, it appears that bethesda have finally released a relativily bug free game
One person sticking to it doesn’t change the fact most ended up playing anyhow 😛 lol
but i was always lead to believe that one person can make a difference!
Oh boy do I have a whole world of disappointment to show you…
LOL!!!!!
Dont worry, with the right meme and some exaggerated facts about cancer you can do anything
But only if you get 100k likes or updoots!
Stuck with it here as well. Haven’t played a cod game since world at war. Admittedly that’s mostly because of how bad world at war was.
Can you say you stuck to the boycott if you didn’t know about it and just didn’t care to buy it?
Summed me up perfectly. I know I should wait, but no chance that I’m going to lol
I’m going to play it when it comes out and then replay it with mods etc when all the DLC is released.
That is the best way to do it.
Absolutely. You have to play through vanilla at least once. I played ARK through legit on vanilla and it made playing with mods more significant comparing it to the struggle of vanilla ark. Fo4 will be the same.
Exactly what I intend to do. As I have done since Morrowind.
Yep. Best way with the most fun and value for money.
^^ This right here. Play the vanilla to your hearts content, then once you fully understand the game use mods to tailor the experience your way to compliment your play style or to add new content. If you mod straight away you can lose or completely miss content due to someone else’s choices.
Day 1, Hour 1.
Honestly, despite all the bugs supposedly plaguing Bethesda titles, I can’t remember a single time my experience has been ruined by them. Come to think of it, I can’t even remember running in to any at all.
The only Bethesda bug I can recall was from Skyrim where the game would crash during the opening sequence, because of a particular audio setting in windows. It was squashed within hours of the game unlocking on steam, so really only those who stayed up after midnight on the night it released were exposed to it.
I remember thinking at the time that it was off to a great start. Crashing before character creation.
I would instead say that Beth’s games were glitchy; dead enemies flying through the sky, passing through walls, etc. I’m not bothered by that too much though, mostly I find it funny.
I hear so much complaining about how buggy Bethesda games are… But I’ve never experienced a game killing issue, and I couldn’t say I know anyone who has.
There have absolutely been bugs, glitches or issues of varying sorts here and there, but nothing that has ever stopped me playing and enjoying their games.
Skyrim was pretty broken on PS3, constantly had to restart it to fix the horrible lag that inevitably occurred after an hour or so of playing. I think they eventually patched it but that was after months of the issue, long after I’d given up on it.
Well that does suck then. Just to be clear I wasn’t discounting the fact that people definitely had issues, just that I’d never experienced them myself or known anyone who had.
But on a similar note unfortunately, if reports are true the PS4 version of Fallout 4 isn’t haven’t the greatest of times with framerates.
Yeh it was pretty frustrating at the time not being able to finish it. But then I picked it up cheaply on PC last year and sunk a heap of hours into it so no great loss. I believe the same memory issued effected Fallout 3 on PS3 as well. The Gamebryo engine just wasn’t really cut out for those type of games.
Bethesda usually sure do love them some Australian Tax… so Wait with a capital dub.
you can get it cheap from greenmangaming.com and gamingdragons.com for pc digital download. you dont have to buy through steam
I bought my copies from JB Hi-Fi for $59AUD 🙂
Pretty sure that price is still there.
Indeed it is, ta.
get games go has no australia tax on it, steam key.
You can get it cheap now! $59 at jb, what more do you want?
A sandwich?
So I resigned my current job and decided to look for a job… early next year. Summer holiday! Last day of work is on Tuesday. I didn’t even pick that, it just worked out to be the end date of a project. Must be fate. Fallout 4 should be downloaded and ready by the time I roll home that day.
So I’ll be playing on release. A lot. 😀
I’ve never played Fallout 3, so now I’m playing and modding Fallout 3.
I can wait.
I’m going to do both, but even still, I won’t be playing Fallout 4 on day 1.
Mostly because my copy probably won’t arrive until a few days later, but that was taken into account when I ordered it. The other reason is that it gives me a few days for any bugs to be squashed, or at least identified.
As for Modding, let me just say that I’m currently playing Morrowind 13 years after it was released, and with all my mods installed, it’s as gorgeous as vanilla Skyrim.
pirating then buying when it’s modded to perfection.
Why not buy on day one if you intend to later?
cheaper later on and will prolly include all dlc’s 😀
Will play it day one but will be looking really forward to the weightless mod. I just never have enough weight for these kinda games when I horde every single item.
There are console commands for all PC Bethesda games, or cheat codes if you will. I’m sure Fallout 4 will be no different.
In Skyrim for instance, hitting the ’tilde’ key then entering “player.setav carryweight 9999” will set you to carry 9999 kgs, pounds whatever the measurement is.
Loot everything!
Oh yeah loot everything!
I agree. I’m all for a grittier and more realistic experience but to me, carrying capacity is one of those dull, meaningless chores that adds nothing to the game. Carrying capacity and mines (yes, the explosive variety) are two things I’d be happy to be completely rid of. Who actually thinks mines are a fun game mechanic anyway? Outside of Minesweeper that is.
Mines = cash, sell them.
Perks for Fallout 4 will let you even fast travel while carrying too much. I always get attached to my loots and get encumbered, so I will do this.
But encumbered will make you unable to run which is a problem too. Weight weight begone!
My dog is licking the couch, I imagine that is what you would also be doing after making this comment
An A +++++ game is being releases and you ask if people will wait? No! Bad person
I’m waiting until I finish building my new PC……it Will be the first thing I play on it I think.
Play. If its that good it’ll be worth playing over again with mods.
Day 1. Played Fallout 3 on a 360 that never connected to the internet. Never patched it. No dramas at all.
Cannot. Friggin. Wait.
I can wait… Unless Bethesda sends me a review copy, then I’m forced to play on bug filled day one
Por que no los dos?
Depends on the company – GOTY or complete Edition
Though 2 months ago show i hadn’t learned the lesson yet quite when i bought The Crew
Both really. I come back to Bethesda game for years.
Yeah i bought it, not gonna get season pass tho cause you can just pirate the dlcs easily 🙂
Just pay, you scumbag. It’s only $30~.
Don’t pirate, dicklord.
I will be waiting, considering my PC won’t arrive before Tuesday 🙁
After being completely burned with Fallout 3 (i’ve never been able to get it to run for longer than 10 mins without a ctd), i’ll wait until after the first batch of inevitable patches have come out. I’m too old and cynical to buy any game at launch, let alone preorder one.
Pre-ordered. Hard copies from JB Hi-Fi thanks to Kotaku’s tipoff. These are the first hard copies I’ve ever bought since Battlefield 2. Yeah, it has been a long time.
Getting it Xmas day, so I’m gonna have to wait at least 40ish days after launch anyway.
I have to catch up on all the other games that have come out before i can get a new one!…
Starting with Oblivion, I have always experienced Bethesda games first on console with the vanilla experience, bugs and all. I put 150 hours plus into each Bethesda title unmodded and I have a blast. I buy all the DLC on console and play through those too.
Then a couple years later I buy the GOTY edition with all the DLC for cheap on PC. I’ve already had the base experience and modders have had a good long time to build up a great library for me to enjoy.
It seems a little sad to me that your first experience with the game could be a modded one. Aside from things like UI optimised better for PC and unofficial patches to help make things smoother of course. Everyone should play the game their way of course but I think experiencing Bethesda’s work pure the first time around is best. You get to appreciate their work fully, and then the modders’ work fully.
I’ll wait for reviews to hear how buggy it is. If it’s tolerable (Bloodborne loading times, etc), then I don’t mind putting my cash down. If it’s atrocious (Unity, Arkham Knight), I likely won’t bother until it’s on a good sale, if at all.
I’ll have to consider upgrading my card. It’s a 660ti and its showing its age. Unfortunately it was originally a stopgap purchase, and anything I buy will be another stopgap purchase in its place while I wait for the next gen nvidia cards.
Do whatever you want, there’s no right answer, despite the implication that everything you do (including playing a videogame) should be objectively justifiable to your peers.
Why not do both? I find with Bethesda games like Elder Scrolls and Fallout, I play them at least 3-4 times through. Usually first time pretty vanilla then more and more mods as time goes on. It’s half the fun!
Day one 12.01 i will be logging on. Vanilla is fun and just like destiny even game developers forget things so glitches can work in our favour. Lets see if FO4 has an armour glitch of some sort or dropping and picking up loot for selling like dying light.
Yeh.. I’ll play it as much as I can on release.. and then, as usually happens with FO, I’ll finish the game, put it down for about 2 or so years and then after upgrading my PC, I’ll get every imaginable mod (good ones of course!), patch and DLC, then play the game again.
Day 1 for me. Couldn’t wait, even if I wanted too. Love this game too much