Fallout 4 came out on Nov. 10, almost a month ago, if you’re generous about rounding. It’s the highest-profile game launch in a number of years, in terms of hype and attention if not necessarily sales. The whole Internet is freaking out about it, now as much as when it launched. And I—a games reporter, a huge Bethesda lover—just got the game on Friday, Nov. 27, and I haven’t played it yet. Truly this experience deserves a thinkpiece, and here it is.
On Spoilers, Fallout 4, And Release Date Urgency
Movies and video games share a certain urgency about their release dates. You must get them the day they come out, marketing and your friends tell you, or else you’ll miss out… or at least get spoiled. It’s part of a not-particularly-wrongheaded effort on publishers’ parts to make sure everyone buys games right away, at full price, in time for those quarterly sales numbers. And it’s part of an equally reasonable effort on your friends’ parts to be able to talk about the cool games they’re playing, rather than having to coddle you every time you yell “no spoilers” when someone mentions something as innocuous as the Brotherhood of Steel being in Fallout 4.
I don’t need to tell you why I didn’t buy Fallout 4 on its release date, but I will anyway: I was and am spearheading our StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void coverage, and that game also came out on Nov. 10, so I was playing that instead. Also, my birthday was Nov. 27, so I could wait for a few short weeks and save myself $60 plus tax. So it was done. And in the meantime, my friends who bought the game immediately are level 40ish and know all the cool tricks.
But you know what? My Fallout 4 experience is not going to be worse because I waited a few weeks to pick it up. In fact, in a lot of ways my experience will be better. Sure, I’ll miss out on some of the novelty. I know there’s a place called Diamond City, and that there are lots of Super-Mutants, and that you get Power Armor right from the beginning. A lot of these things were already revealed in the game’s marketing, and players tend to focus on the same things.
But I also know some very useful information that will improve my Fallout 4 experience. I know I should put lots of points in Charisma so I can work on settlements early on. I know the crafting system is based on Minecraft and actually pretty cool. I know to put points in strength, because the damn game still has damn encumbrance (remember when Witcher 3 made all the random cruft you’re carrying weightless in an early patch? That was fantastic). Plotwise, I know nothing. I know little enough about the world, and I haven’t even taken all that much care in avoiding spoilers.
No, I won out by waiting for Fallout 4. I’ll go in clearheaded at the hardest difficulty, knowing what I’m getting into in loose terms, without having much spoiled in any real way. And the hype-filled mist around the game has dissipated, so I realize—most importantly of all—that the game isn’t perfect. We hoped it would be, because that’s how these things always work. Instead, it’s just great, and I’m so excited to play it—a vintage game, nearly a full month old.
