Fallout 4 Negative Reviews: What’s up With That?

Fallout 4 was a much-anticipated game. With the first announcement, fans of the franchise were eagerly awaiting to see what the new and updated wasteland would bring. Soon after the launch, the hype drastically died down, and what was left were negative reviews. Going by reviews alone, you would probably be discouraged from buying the game when it was released. Having said that, let’s take a look at what the biggest issues were that fans were having with the game and what was the cause of all the negative reviews that Fallout 4 got.

Fallout 4 had subpar graphics 

Much of the criticism Fallout 4 received was oriented toward its subpar graphics. The low-resolution textures gave it a somewhat blurry and fuzzy appearance, and no amount of optimizing could fix this. The game itself could have been more optimized, and every graphics-improving mod hit the performance of the game overall pretty hard. It wasn’t something that people expected, and it wasn’t something that could be fixed overnight. The fault lies in the outdated engine.

The animations could have been better as well. Fallout 4 was most commonly compared to Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt, but to be fair, while Witcher 3 is a partially open-world game, it still doesn’t give you the freedom as Fallout 4 does. You can’t expect every single thing in the environment to be dynamic and basically have the ability to be deconstructed while keeping the cutting-edge visuals that most smaller and less immersive games can offer. 

With every Bethesda game, you can expect a lot of bugs on release, but after you fall “through” the world six times in a row while approaching the same checkpoint vital for the quest, it’s not funny anymore. The memes do only so much to alleviate the frustration of not being able to advance through the game because of the game-breaking glitch. 

While the technical limitations of the engine can explain bugs, graphics, and poor animations, the poor delivery, and quality of the story cannot be, and that’s something that fans were disappointed with as well. 

The story was underwhelming, and the choices were limited 

From the moment you step into the Commonwealth, you realize that everybody is at each other’s throats. But somehow, the institute is the worst of them all. You get the enemy served on a platter, and your choices don’t mean anything. The twist in the end that your son is in the evil faction that everybody in the Commonwealth has something against was, at least from my point of view, laughably bad.

And have I mentioned that your choices don’t actually mean anything? Even if you side with the most neutral faction, it’s still going to turn violent near the end. The companions are great. I love them. I like how varied they are, and there’s someone for each type of player. But the main story doesn’t give you the fulfillment that we would have hoped for. 

New mechanics made to the game were underwhelming

Fallout’s trademark VATS combat system was redesigned, and the whole “slowing-time” thing felt choppy. Fallout’s combat is, at the end of the day, a game of stats and who can absorb more damage without any real strategy to it. The hit detection systems could have been made better as well. 

When it comes to building mechanics that the game was oriented around, it definitely wasn’t as interesting as most people thought it would be. You have plenty of potential settlements at your disposal, but only some locations are viable and worth investing in. The building mode itself was poorly executed, with lousy controls and obvious clipping issues. It’s not something that mods can’t improve, but still, it feels lazily done, and I feel like they could have invested more into the biggest innovation in the series so far. 

The map is a bit too dense at times 

I get what the point of the map was in Fallout 4. It’s supposed to be a small, albeit incredibly detailed area. But it somewhat felt a bit too repetitive for my tastes. It seemed like there was an encounter or something to discover every few seconds, and it was difficult to navigate through the densely populated world without getting sidetracked constantly. Fallout 4 has a map that’s smaller than Skyrim’s, and yet it somehow managed to cram more things into it. Sometimes you just need a break. 

Were the bad reviews justified? 

Despite all the negative things about Fallout 4, I don’t think such utterly disastrous reviews were justified. At the end of the day, Fallout 4 is a really great game. It just wasn’t something that fans were expecting. The game was overhyped and riding a nostalgia train, and when reality hits, that seldom ends up good. Fallout 4 is still a pretty decent game that was eventually improved with DLCs and fan-made mods, of course.

I recommend you give it a try. Even though some glaring issues like graphics, bugs, and animations are completely objective, the rest is kind of subjective since some people liked the story, liked the map, and enjoyed building settlements. It comes down to personal taste, and the fact is, few loud voices online can make or break a game when it comes to reviews and overall perception of the game.

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