War never changes, but will Bethesda?

After a month, and 100+ hours, of Fallout 4 ... well, it's okay, I guess.

I kid. Fallout 4 continues Bethesda's traditions of loading a ton of content into a robust open world, and of propping it up with a rich set of progression and customization mechanics. But it also continues their traditions of shoddy technical workmanship, and of investing in sometimes-baffling design ambitions while neglecting core game systems.

Although I've overall enjoyed my time with the game, the majority of this post will be a scathing critique of its flaws (as is tradition).

The game's opening hours are pretty "meh" -- not just because the introductory sequence is boring and slow, but - largely - because it prioritizes showing-off the new base-building features. And these features are ... rough. The interface feels like something a modder might have slapped together, or like a placeholder that's still waiting for a UI design pass.

The input bindings for "workshop mode" are a to-don't list of user experience gaffes. Holding the "V" key enters the mode, while pressing it changes the camera perspective instead; except when you're too far away from a workshop, in which case holding the key does the same thing as pressing it. Once in workshop mode, some keys like Tab and Escape get re-bound to navigate building menus (replacing their typical uses of Pip-boy and Pause menus, respectively) - oh, and there are fuckloads of building options, making it impossible to find anything specific without an online guide - but, when you're looking at an already-placed structure, then the Tab key is overloaded to send it into storage.

That's right -- you can't use Tab to go backward in the workshop menu until you move the camera such that you're no longer looking at a placed structure or item. If it were me, I'd call that a bug.

This is but one example of the over-overloaded base-building interface mess, and the payoff at the end of this learning curve isn't really worthwhile. Placing structures "neatly" is a fiddly exercise in frustration, so making anything aesthetically-satisfying is an inordinate amount of work. The overwhelming majority of building options have no gameplay effect whatsoever; I never placed any furniture except beds, and storage containers. Managing raw material inventory between multiple settlements is a ridiculous chore, even with the Supply Lines skill, which is locked behind an optional perk! And if you do decide to care about your settlers and their depressing living conditions, you'd better be prepared to frequently drop what you're doing and fast-travel to a settlement that's come "under attack."

Hearthfire's purely dialog-selection-based construction options were more satisfying than this under-baked, underwhelming feature set. And while I appreciate the premise of "rebuilding" the wasteland, Fallout 4's workshops are a poor execution of that idea; it doesn't feel like I'm restoring the Commonwealth as much as it feels like I'm playing a shitty hacked-together version of The Sims.

Base-building also highlights how underdeveloped this game's inventory-management tools are. And I mean ... trying to organize your stuff in Skyrim was already pretty goddamn awful, but some of that felt like "my fault" for my pack-rat, virtual-hoarder playstyle. Bafflingly, Fallout 4 introduces no mechanical or design changes to solve this problem; instead, it incentivizes hoarding by making settlement upgrades cost "junk." Oh, and not just settlement upgrades -- weapon and armor crafting also requires junk, including a few resources that are consistently hard-to-find (looking at you, adhesive).

So to invest in the game's crafting systems, you'll need to meticulously explore and loot dungeons for crafting materials, consume a significant amount of your precious carrying capacity with literal junk, and make frequent pit-stops back to base for unloading said junk. This routine makes the Strong Back level 4 perk the most valuable character upgrade in the game.

It also emphasizes how bad Fallout 4's loading times are. And no, I don't mean that you need a fast install disk; I mean that you need a fast install disk and a fan-made mod to fix the game. It would appear that Fallout 4 ties various engine systems to its frame rate, and assumes that only a certain portion of each "tick" can be used for asset loading; hence, when it locks the frame rate at 60 fps, the game unintentionally hobbles itself during loading screens. The non-loading portions of each "tick" take zero time, but it still needs to wait for the next frame before more assets can be loaded.

A thorough engine fix would be job-ifying asset loading and other systemic tasks (like physics and AI), so that the whole frame could be filled with asset-loading work when other systems aren't needed. An "okay" fix would merely disable load-time restrictions during loading transitions. The quick, hacky fix would be to just turn off V-Sync during loading; that's what the fan-made mod does, and it's something that I'd estimate a halfway-decent systems developer should be able to do in the real engine in like... ten minutes.

More than four years after its release, Fallout 4 still hasn't fixed this, and its loading times are an order of magnitude higher on solid state disks than they should be because of the frame rate. It's astonishing.

The game's tech isn't exactly bulletproof in other areas, either. I might generously offer that the number of crashes-to-desktop I encountered in Fallout 4 was at least not more than the number of crashes I remember hitting in Skyrim.

So the UI is dogshit and the engine is held together with wet tape. "It's a Bethesda game, what'd you expect?" I can hear you asking in a spiteful Boston accent. (Oh yeah, and despite the voice actors' accents, I can still identify many of them from their previous characters in Whiterun and Windhelm -- again, classic Bethesda.) Well, as baffled as I am by the UI, and as incensed as I am by the engine tech, it's Fallout 4's lackluster narrative quests that disappointed me the most.

When I remember my Skyrim playthroughs, I fondly recall helping defend the College of Winterhold from magic sprites; being targeted by, infiltrating, and effectively cleansing the Dark Brotherhood; turning the Theives' Guild into a first-world power; and fighting the Stormcloaks' war for them by slaughtering those jackass Imperials. The strong personalities of each faction made their sidequests compelling, and it was especially satisfying to lead (or conquer) as many of them as possible, more so than following the comparatively-simple path of the main dragon-yelling story quests.

It's not surprising that Bethesda saw this reaction to the main quests, and asked itself: how can side-factions become more involved in the central story? But the answer they've proposed in Fallout 4 doesn't seem right. Much of each faction's identity is rooted in hating the other factions -- and while it's cool that endgame missions have you destroying a faction's rivals, this necessarily excludes you from experiencing the other factions' endgame missions and content.

These mutually-exclusive quests can also make for a confusing, and highly error-prone, path to the endgame. Each group plots against the others, but sometimes you can slyly play multiple sides, while at other times simply acceping a quest causes another faction to instantly cut ties with you. Faction relations were especially arcane in my allegiance with the Railroad, which requires that you maintain deep cover within the Institute; so betraying the Institute at the "wrong" moment fails the questlines from both factions.

And even when focusing on anyone one faction, it's like... they don't have very much character to them.

• The Minutemen want to "help" the Commonwealth rebuild, but doesn't really do anything to accomplish that, and their quests feel more like tutorials than world-building.
• The Railroad wants to "help" synths by freeing them from the Institute, but until you show up, is practically impotent; after their introductory follow-the-clues quest, nothing they do is all that interesting.
• The Brotherhood of Steel wants to "help" humans retake the wasteland, but their goals devolve into a flat stereotype of blind racism, albeit a well-armed one.
• The Institute wants to "help" the future of humanity, and at least feels distinct from the other factions in how aloof and detached they are; but that aloofness also means that they never satisfyingly explore the ethical questions around synths' free will, the plight of surface-dwellers, or even their habit of kidnapping people to use as test subjects.

I came away from each faction's NPCs feeling like their goals were basic, lacking nuance; and their quests gradually morphed those goals into "defeat the other factions." Which may be a fascinating moral-grey-area point about xenophobia and personal freedom, but... it's not very creative.

Alright. Phew! I think that more-or-less covers my airing of grievances toward Fallout 4.

And it's shitty of me to abridge the positive side of this post, I know; but the fact is, most of the things that Fallout 4 got right are things that Skyrim also got right. Building up your character is mostly satisfying, once you've figured out some survival and combat strategies that work. Reading in-game lore is usually a treat, especially when terminal entries build a multi-faceted story around pre-war characters or events.

Like in Skyrim, some of Fallout 4's best moments have subtle and surprising beginnings -- like the treasure hunt at Jamaica Plain, which might be the most memorable quest of my whole playthrough. Environmental, ambient storytelling is one of Bethesda's greatest strengths, and Fallout 4 proves that they haven't lost their knack for it.

It does, though, call into question what I can expect from the next Elder Scrolls game's key narratives. And if they cram this disastrous inventory UI down my throat again... well, maybe someone will fix it in a mod.

Look: Fallout 4 isn't a bad game. I don't regret spending a hundred hours in it, and I definitely got a significant amount of solid entertainment out of those hours. But the next time a Bethesda game makes me choose which milquetoast faction to ally myself with, I might just pick "none."

Better than: Assassin's Creed Revelations
Not as good as: Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, naturally The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
And despite all my whining: I'm still looking forward to discovering new stories in the Far Harbor and Nuka World DLCs.

Progress: Helped the Railroad nuke the Institute.