Bethesda Says ‘Fallout 4’ Will Feel Like A Modern Shooter

Fallout 4 has possibly become one of the most hyped games this season since its sudden announcement at E3 just months before release. The E3 previews were literally jaw-dropping, with Fallout’s crafting, open world, and companion mechanics all wowing gamers during the presentation.

https://youtu.be/D5esyZPt5Jo

But what about the action? Fallout 3, while a favorite for many fans of the franchise, did leave something to be desired when it came to combat, especially out in the Capitol Wasteland. Todd Howard, Fallout’s game director, has been quoted in the Express as saying that smoother, better action has been a priority in this game’s development.

“I won’t say anything bad about Fallout 3, but we wanted to not make any excuses for how the action felt in a role-playing game.”

He went on to talk about the three options for gunplay in the new Fallout.

“So the guns feel great. We have aim down sights, you can play in first and third-person, and then we have the V.A.T.S system.”

Which all sounds a bit like Fallout: New Vegas, Obsidian’s last iteration of the franchise which, while it had the fans divided, did in fact offer significantly smoother gunplay. But will Fallout 4 firefights be any better? Sure, New Vegas made it easier to play gunfights like a shooter, but the weapons didn’t feel particularly individualized and AI opponents would converge in weird and mechanical ways and in configurations that were obviously set up for V.A.T.S. showdowns. The sounds and experience for a New Vegas firefight were nowhere near as exciting or satisfying as the V.A.T.S. equivalent, and the rough, disorienting integration of the killcams let players know that the “open” firefighting experience was very much a poor cousin to V.A.T.S.

Well, Bethesda shares a parent company with venerable shooter developer Id Software, makers of such favorites as Doom and Quake. If anyone knows how to make a shooter, it’s Id, and Howard took full advantage of this situation. As well as this, the dev team for Fallout 4 includes some big names from Bungie, who famously shook the shooter world with the Halo franchise. All this is adding up to a potential gunplay experience that should be streets ahead of its predecessors.

“If you were to pick it up and play, it does feel like a modern shooter.”

In fact, the emphasis on shooter mechanics has been so great and so public, some people on the Gamespot forums have been worrying about whether Fallout 4 will be an RPG at all. Of course, it’s impossible to call a game with as many crafting, character building, and exploration elements as Fallout anything but an RPG, but it’s nice to know that they’ve been putting the yards in on making it a better shooter. For a game that is so gun heavy, this kind of effort just makes sense.

In light of Houser’s comments, we’ve included a video of the combat preview so you can assess it for yourself. Okay, and also just because it’s awesome.

https://youtu.be/FNfqQ7iJDg0

Fallout 4 will be released this November and we can barely wait.

[Image via Bethesda]