Fallout 4
2015 · Bethesda Game Studios
Has it aged?Why ↓
Fallout 4 is a first-person, open-world RPG set in post-nuclear Boston. You emerge from Vault 111 searching for your son, but rummaging through ruined buildings, shooting their occupants and turning scavenged junk into settlements makes a much stronger case for spending hours here than the family emergency does.
From Bethesda Game Studios, the award-winning creators of Starfield and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, comes Fallout 4. A landmark in open-world RPG design and winner of over 200 ‘Best Of’ honors, including the DICE and BAFTA Game of the Year.
The publisher’s description, from its Steam store page.
What it looks like
the trailer, then the store's own shots
The verdict
Play it for scavenging and settlement building, not for freedom in conversation. Finding materials for a generator gives an abandoned building more purpose than another shoot-and-return quest does. Limited dialogue choices keep the roleplaying smaller than the world suggests. The 2016 Far Harbor expansion is the strongest addition: its conflict between townspeople, synths and radiation worshippers gives your decisions something more interesting to settle.
Play it if
You investigate every building on the horizon, read abandoned terminals and bring home enough junk to build a shack, wire its lights and plant food for settlers.
Skip it if
You need conversation to be your main way through trouble, or cannot stand restricted dialogue choices. Combat dominates both quests and exploration; a character built around talking will not turn this into a mostly peaceful adventure.
Common questions
- What makes Far Harbor different from the Commonwealth?
- The 2016 Far Harbor expansion sends you to a fog-covered island to investigate Kasumi's disappearance. Its smaller conflict between Far Harbor's residents, the Acadia synth community and the Children of Atom makes it the story expansion to prioritise.
- Does Automatron let me rebuild Codsworth?
- Yes. The 2016 Automatron expansion adds a settlement robot-building station where you can modify Codsworth and Ada or assemble new robots from parts; its accompanying questline is less compelling than that workshop.
- What should I take into the Glowing Sea?
- Bring a hazmat suit or power armour for the radiation. A hazmat suit greatly reduces radiation damage rather than eliminating it, so avoid the radioactive pools as well.
- Can a Fallout 4 update break my modded save?
- It can disrupt mods and affect saves that depend on them. For the announced 2026 Creations update, Bethesda advised backing up saves and preserving your mod load order before installing it; that warning is not confirmation that every mod will break.
What everyone else said
we link, we don't reprint- Eurogamer4/5
Dan Whitehead
Has it aged?
How does it hold up today? Based on recent reviews, how opinions have changed since launch, player activity and updates.
% positive each month, last 4 years.
Reviews via Steam ↗Peak: 226k in Nov 2015.
Player counts via SteamCharts ↗Better liked than at launch.
Updated within the last year, so still looked after.