As expected, the centrepiece of Bethesda’s E3 press conference was the recently revealed Fallout 4, and the company offered up plenty of info on the various ways players will be able to wish away the hours in the irradiated wasteland of Boston.
A major focus in the game is crafting and customisation, an element that was present in Fallout 3, but has been drastically expanded in the sequel. As well as modding your weapons and armour, you’ll actually be able to build your own little post-apocalyptic haven in the wilderness.
Almost every item in the game, from rubber tires to actual buildings, can be scrapped into constituent resources. These can then be used to craft a huge range of structures and items, from bookcases to bobbleheads to dog kennels for your trusty canine pal Dogmeat, As you can see from the video above, and the weapon customisation snippet below, the overall effect is surprisingly close to a sandbox survival game you might find in the depths of the Steam library.
There will be several empty regions in the game world in which you can build your own shanty-town, set up its defences, and invite civilians from across the wasteland to settle, including traders carrying rare items. Your turrets and minefield will protect against roving bands of bandits, and you can even set up Brahmin trading caravans between your various frontier outposts. Bethesda stresses that this is all optional, so if you’d rather just explore the wilderness, blowing up giant insects, getting your limbs blown off and drinking water out of rusty toilets, that’s totally fine.
The icing on the cake is that we won’t have to wait all that long to get our hands on all this. Bethesda’s executive producer Todd Howard revealed at the show that Fallout 4 will be released on PC and next-gen consoles November 10, 2015. Excited?
