I hadn't really any hopes for FO4 when they announced it (or even way before that), besides the fact that Bethesda would take some of the good things about their environmental design from FO3 and combine it with the quality of story and quest elements from New Vegas. That hope was obviously futile since we all know what came out of Beth in the end. I still think the visual elements and environment would offer a base for a good game in FO4. It's just that Bethesda has refined the art of soullessness into almost perfection with FO4.
The only redeeming thing with that game was Far Harbor. There was an inkling of the atmosphere of despair and decay that you'd expect in a post-apocalyptic world. But even Far Harbor contained Bethesda's cardinal sin of completely messing up most of the enemy factions. I don't understand what their formula is to create such utterly meaningless bandit encounters. It's a world ruled by marauding gangs and none of them have an ounce of personality put in them. I understand having feral ghouls as generic bullet fodder but principal element of an postapocalyptic mankind should be little more refined. As a semi-intact city Boston should've had named gangs with named bosses and defined turfs as their domain. The urban area of Boston was rather well crafted visually but the content itself was hollow and unengaging.
Nuka World, which I regretfully admit purchasing - an act of which I'm ready to be publicly quarter'd and drawn, was an epitome of this kind of pathological incompetence in world building more and more typical for Bethesda. A post-apocalyptic city built in an amusement park run by marauding gangs is pretty neat idea and bursting with potential. But execution wasn't even half-assed. It's like they made 15% of the content they we're aiming for and slapped a ridiculously high price tag on that mess. I really feel bad for the competent artists working for Bethesda. To put all that work in the assets and sound design to be completely shat on by the talentless writing and game design.
The only redeeming thing with that game was Far Harbor. There was an inkling of the atmosphere of despair and decay that you'd expect in a post-apocalyptic world. But even Far Harbor contained Bethesda's cardinal sin of completely messing up most of the enemy factions. I don't understand what their formula is to create such utterly meaningless bandit encounters. It's a world ruled by marauding gangs and none of them have an ounce of personality put in them. I understand having feral ghouls as generic bullet fodder but principal element of an postapocalyptic mankind should be little more refined. As a semi-intact city Boston should've had named gangs with named bosses and defined turfs as their domain. The urban area of Boston was rather well crafted visually but the content itself was hollow and unengaging.
Nuka World, which I regretfully admit purchasing - an act of which I'm ready to be publicly quarter'd and drawn, was an epitome of this kind of pathological incompetence in world building more and more typical for Bethesda. A post-apocalyptic city built in an amusement park run by marauding gangs is pretty neat idea and bursting with potential. But execution wasn't even half-assed. It's like they made 15% of the content they we're aiming for and slapped a ridiculously high price tag on that mess. I really feel bad for the competent artists working for Bethesda. To put all that work in the assets and sound design to be completely shat on by the talentless writing and game design.