Fallout 4 - Wrap-Up (50 hours)

Fallout 4 has definitely got its hooks into me. It is, at heart, the same basic game that Bethesda has been releasing for years, but that game is so absurdly strong ("put a world in a box, and let the player explore it") that I'm not sure I could ever get bored with it. In the past, the end of my time with Fallout 3 or Skyrim (or even Oblivion) has always been the result of me being distracted by the new, exciting thing, or simple fatigue at the sheer scope of the games (and even then, usually at the 80+ hour mark - for the console version of Fallout: New Vegas, I had a single character that broke 150 hours, made after I'd already bought and played two different versions of the game).

Nothing of substance has changed this time. I beat the game with a character, had something like 35 hours into it, and decided to start over from scratch with a new character to try out a different build. Between the two of them, I'd be very surprised if I've seen half the map (even early into my second character's career, I've been discovering new things), and I've barely scratched the surface of the settlement management system.

Let me take a moment to highlight that last statement - Fallout 4 has a settlement management system. You have to coordinate infrastructure. Infrastructure!

It would be hyperbole to say that I need never play another video game after this, but if I had to pick one, it's starting to look like a really good candidate (I can't wait to see the DLC).

And that is the very reason I must stop. I could spend weeks or months playing Fallout 4 and be satisfied by the experience, but I still have 100 games left in my Steam library and if I want to get through them all, I have to keep moving. If it feels like severing a relationship too soon, well that's just this project in a nutshell.

My intent is to keep playing Fallout 4 off and on, during my free time, while simultaneously blogging about different games, but only time will tell if that's even possible. I tend to hyper-focus on one thing at a time, so it's likely that I'll wind up shelving Fallout and then forgetting about it for the next year and a half.

It's kind of depressing to think about, but on the upside, that will give me the opportunity to start the game over from the beginning once more.