Fallout 4 lead Todd Howard admits the game's dialogue system "didn't work as well"
Let me start off by saying that I love Fallout 4. Despite this, there's no escaping the fact that it's a game with a very different focus to the rest of the series, with more of an emphasis on exploration and gunplay, its dialogue more simplified and with fewer branching pathways, especially when compared to the last game, New Vegas, which offered multiple approaches to each quest, many of them influenced by your character build.
In a video interview with
Gamespot, creative director Todd Howard said Bethesda were just trying something new, but they're aware it "didn't work as well".
"We do like to try new things and we have some successes," Howard says, "I think the shooting in Fallout 4 is really good - I think it plays really well. Obviously the way we did some dialogue stuff, that didn't work as well. But I know the reasons we tried that - to make a nice interactive conversation - but [it was] less successful than some other things in the game.
"For us, we take that feedback. I think long-term."
He went on to expand that they tried offering player choice and impact through the game's ending choices, where players can decide which faction they want to side with. This has been expanded on more in the recently released Far Harbor expansion.
"Then we have an opportunity with something like Far Harbor like: okay, how many different ways can it end - let's give them some more choice," explains Howard. £So it's not just a one-off, meaning Fallout 4 comes out and then we forget about it - it's an ongoing thing. The feedback we get is really, really helpful."
Hopefully this means we get the punchy combat and the freedom of choice in future Bethesda RPGs.
