#toomuchcivilization

I understand the critics of the last installments that there was too much "grey" and "brown"...i get it (altough i thought new vegas had the perfect mix) - but seeing all these rebuilt cities and settlements that look very modern and civilized SPOILER(they even got a newspaper?!)SPOILER... I am just wondering with all this modern/normal/civilized living, is there enough wasteland and fallout left in the game to make it really feel like a postapocalypitc abandoned place?

At least for me, this lonely, abandoned and "died world" esthetics are really important i think to create this wasteland mad max feeling? Im wondering if it will lessen the experience if there is too much civilization and fallout becomes more like "another" action adventure...?

Its been 200 years since the nukes dropped, what ya expect?

Anyway even if there is civilization, it's most likely going to be in the same vein as 3, a few dots of it in a otherwise ruined land.

All of the settlements we've seen so far still look like scrap metal attached to repurposed ruins, so I'm not sure what you mean. The color scheme is better, which is a welcome change (and matches the color scheme of the original games), but the game definitely still looks apocalyptic to me.

I think Fallout has always been post-post-apocalyptic. Civilization has abounded since the first installment.

Edit - That being said, I do hope there is plenty of wasteland to explore, and I'm certain that hope will be realized. Even most of the city appears to be uncivilized.

Not all of the wasteland looks the same. Have you seen this screenshot?

http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/377160/ss_5e2d136759e0ff4e0d74940fffc9c64e8cdcd833.1920x1080.jpg?t=1445548514

Is that post-apocalyptic enough for you?

If anything, I thought New Vegas was far from a wasteland. If anything, it gave me a Red Dead Redemption meets Star Trek type of vibe. With Honest Hearts giving it the Native American touch. I think there will be plenty of post apocalyptic places in Fallout 4. The main attractions being The Glowing Sea and Ground Zero, the places where the bombs dropped and source of radiation storms.

The entire Fallout series, from Fallout 1 through New Vegas (with the notable exception of Fallout 3, which had one of the dumber setting re-writes ever) has always been a post-post apocalypse setting, not a post-apocalypse setting. It's a series about the civilizations that arose from the ashes, not about the ashes themselves.

It's good to see Bethesda taking the game back closer to its roots.

The thing about that is that it was Washington D.C. as the US capitol it was target #1 for everyone once the war started. It makes some sense that it was hit harder than anywhere else.

That said, the colors in F4 look much better. Even if that pale green was apropreit for D.C. it was boring to see for the amount of time spent in a gamesas game.

It being hit harder doesn't explain things like 'people not cleaning up their living spaces' or 'there still being edible food in the supermarket shelves'.

Also since this game has been developed -finally- for the newest generation of systems which are far more capable than the PS3 and XB1 were of course, we can have more npcs and objects on the screen so the chances are good that cities and battles can be bigger and more grand. A lot of what was depicted in the past two Fallout games had to do with hardware limitations, and having more people would make sense since people clearly haven't lost the ability to procreate.

Well, the world was pretty much devastated.. especially the u.s. and there's really not that many people left. Each vault was made to house about 1000 people and only a handful of those vaults were at full capacity. Then there's the fact that only a fraction of the vaults actually opened when they were supposed to. 10 years after the war. They are people living in and around garbage. Building up from that can be rather difficult. I mean, places like this exist in the world right now..

http://www.enterrasolutions.com/media/Slum.jpg

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1618400!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_970/world-housing.jpg

As for how food stuffs survive after 200 years? Preservatives! Fallout 4 is based on an alternate timeline in which everything we believed would happen in the future from the 1950's came true. We basically figured out how to make food so well preserved that it never goes bad.

There is still stuff from WWII that is edible. Also bacteria doesn't handle radiation much better than people do.

Yes... yes it is.

I thought Fallout 3's devastation worked well enough. The Capital Wasteland couldn't rebuild to the same extent as the West Coast, the Mojave, or presumably the Commonwealth, since the water supply was so irradiated and the Super Mutants were so rampant. The premise holds up, and the Capital Wasteland isn't even the worst off - they showed us worse in the Pitt.

I like the more civilised elements of Fallout 4, its seems to blend well with the more 'wasteland' type areas we've seen in screenshots.

The Great War happened over 200 years ago, so it's nice to see some advanced civilisations.

From the first screenshots I was quite a bit appalled about the more colouful scheme, since Europeans generally favour a more gritty look in movies and so forth I guess, but now I do not really mind. It is a new installment, and in the end the blue and yellow tint in the previous games was a bit over the top as well.

Plus there are different sets of terrain as well, so different styles and art design. It will work out alright. The atmosphere is something I am the least worried about in Fallout 4.

It's not the fact that the food isn't spoiled, it's the fact that the food isn't eaten that's the problem.

Agreed. You get the impression in FO3 that most of the people living in the Capital Wasteland, except for a few in Megaton, came there long after the bombs fell. They have tried to rebuild, look at the pipe works at Jefferson Memorial(PP). The Super Mutants was a big problem for this area not returning from the ashes. Radiation, as found in FONV(where the bombs hit) and Van Buren, can still be a problem this long after the war.

Considering that there are far too many hazards in the Wasteland, it is obvious why the food hasn't been eaten. Agriculture is far safer than encountering a Deathclaw while heading to the Super-Duper Mart. It is better for Wastelanders to eat home-grown Mutfruit and Brahmin Steaks and let adventurers eat 200 year old food.

And you, sir, just hit the nail in the head.

I really do hope Beth can capture feeling of the old Fallouts. New Vegas managed to do this but it was made by Obsidian which has a number of creators of the original Fallouts. Beth's first attempt, Fallout 3, was a horrible attempt of Fallout. It's a great game, definitely not denying that one, but it's not Fallout.

This.

http://www.gamebanshee.com/interviews/105885-fallout-new-vegas-and-dlc-post-mortem-interview-part-two.html

Lets be honest this is Boston, Massachusetts. One of the most technically advanced and developed places in America. 200 years of people working to build settlements is definetly possible. There is more color, but things had color before and most of the buildings are just scrap from before, or still standing. I think it looks perfect and still has enough mutants and zombies and feeling of death. I am from Mass but im not being biased. With a place like the Institute, clearly theres a lot of technical advancements. Even the creators said its such a tech savvy place.

I feel I remember reading that water won't stay radiated nearly that long, anyone else ever heard that or care to chime in ?

10 years after the war I would imagine nothing but rubble and scavengers... 200 years after I would expect well-established communities and civilizations.

Human being are both smart and reselient; 200 years would be plenty of time to rebuild and even thrive in some cases.

If you want nothing but dirt and sand watch the Mad max movie

I think fallout 4 will be a perfect balance of cities as well as ruined wasteland.