Fallout: New Vegas is often touted as the best Fallout title in the franchise, but Fallout 5 could potentially outdo the title. However, that won’t be an easy task. Fallout: New Vegas is loved by the community, even with its many bugs, because of how well its story holds up.
Fallout: New Vegas’ main questline is one of the most memorable in the series because of how well it makes use of the faction system as well as its emphasis on player choice. Granted, Fallout and Fallout 2 also allowed for plenty of player freedom, but their gameplay simply isn’t as accessible as that of New Vegas. Clunky as New Vegas might be as a shooter, it’s still far easier to get into than the old games’ isometric-view turn-based mechanics. Further, in deciding which modern Fallout game has the best story, New Vegas often tops Fallout 3 and Fallout 4. That then begs the question of what Fallout 5 needs to do to improve on New Vegas’ formula.
Fallout 5 Shouldn’t Have Game-breaking Bugs
Getting rid of game-breaking bugs is a given. Fallout: New Vegas may garner plenty of praise for its narrative elements, but it’s also known for its troublesome bugs. These range from the usual freezes and crashes to irritating quest bugs that halt progress until the player pulls out some console commands. Of course, this has everything to do with its short development timeframe of 18 months, which explains the state of the game upon release.
Still, when Bethesda inevitably releases Fallout 5 years from now, it should have minimal bugs – and certainly no game-breaking ones. At this point, Bethesda fans are accustomed to minor glitches. After all, the modders can easily patch them. However, Bethesda should stop relying so heavily on its modding community and should instead aim to release a game in its most polished, hopefully bugless state. That would easily make Fallout 5 somewhat better than Fallout: New Vegas, but it’s not enough to replace the reigning title.
Taking Inspiration from Fallout 4
Fallout: New Vegas isn’t the best in terms of gunplay and overall combat. Even player traversal can become quite the chore since the game doesn’t have a sprint button (though there’s a great Fallout: New Vegas mod for that). In this regard, Fallout 4 easily trumps its predecessor. So, if Fallout 5 wants to improve, it should take note of what Fallout 4 did right.
First and foremost, combat. While Fallout 4 isn’t exactly an amazing shooter, it certainly improved the gunplay of Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Notably, the older games didn’t give players the option to aim down the gunsights and third-person shooting was inaccurate due to bad programming. Fallout 4 fixed these issues and also made shooting feel smoother in general. Additionally, the newer game’s enemy attack patterns were more varied, making for more interesting combat.
Aside from combat mechanics, Fallout 4 also made plenty of improvements to the franchise’s open worlds. Visually, Fallout 4 was more vibrant and varied, plus the map featured more verticality. The different terrains and structures allowed for more enjoyable exploration. Thus, Fallout 5 should definitely emulate Fallout 4’s combat and game environments, improving on them to help the next installment stand up to modern games.
That said, Fallout 5 shouldn’t implement everything from Fallout 4 – at least not entirely. The minimalist dialogue system, for example, drew plenty of flak from players, especially considering that the franchise is known for its RPG elements. In this case, it might be better for Fallout 5 to copy a dialogue system like Skyrim’s. The overall settlement system also fell flat, but that was mostly because of Preston’s never-ending stream of radiant quests. Regardless, it may be best to leave that behind as well.
Implement More Role-playing Elements in Fallout 5
Finally, it isn’t a Fallout game without the role-playing, and Fallout: New Vegas is a masterclass in making players feel like their choices matter. Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 may have had relatively decent stories, but their quest lines simply didn’t offer as much player freedom as New Vegas. Given this, Fallout 5 needs to up the role-playing factor if it wishes to trump Fallout: New Vegas.
Both Fallout 4 and New Vegas had players choose to ally with one faction. However, Fallout 4 was a letdown to many because its multiple faction-based endings didn’t really amount to much difference in the end. Perhaps the only exception is The Institute, but its lack of a clear goal took away from the faction’s believability. But for the most part, siding with the Brotherhood of Steel, the Minutemen, or the Railroad led to the same ending – destroying The Institute – just with different flavors, so to speak.
In contrast, Fallout: New Vegas featured multiple concurrent “endings” for the most notable factions and NPCs of the game. This includes the main faction that the Courier sides with in the main quest, as well as endings for Rex, the Boomers, and more. These endgame conclusions are determined by the player’s fame or infamy with corresponding factions. This means that all the Courier’s actions – whether it’s killing a random NPC affiliated with a faction or completing a seemingly minor quest – do affect the ending to some extent.
It goes without saying that Fallout 5 should emulate New Vegas’ quest design rather than Fallout 4’s. Unfortunately, Fallout 4 often only gives the illusion of player choice. The game’s main endings and even minor speech checks scattered throughout the dialogue are guilty of this, as they just lead to the same conclusion. It’s honestly a missed opportunity for a narrative that started as strongly as Fallout 4’s.
But aside from that, the upcoming title should allow the player to complete quests in different ways. For instance, to progress in a quest line, the game should always let the player either talk their way out of a difficult situation or just let the guns do the work. This further emphasizes the presence of player freedom in the game. It also makes the player’s investments in certain stats and skills mean more.
Overall, if Fallout 5 wants to improve on New Vegas, it needs to focus on the points stated above. However, the most crucial factor is arguably the game’s role-playing elements. At the end of the day, the Fallout franchise is known for its role-playing games, so Fallout 5 needs to beat New Vegas at what it did best.
Fallout 5 has been announced.