Explore the highs and lows of Fallout 4’s main story in this Fallout 4 review. Discover the game’s stunning graphics, rich mechanics, and dynamic world.

I just finished Fallout 4’s main story.

It is an amazing game with great graphics, tons of game mechanics, and a content-rich world brought to life with dynamic encounters and its NPCs.

However, the main story is middling at best, and its performance is inconsistent.

The game runs fine until you reach Boston, where your frame rate can drop to as low as 20 FPS, depending on your hardware and graphics settings.

While mods can improve performance, you will likely still experience frame drops when exploring Boston.

For the main story, the best part is the plot twist involving Shaun and the Institute. I also liked the characterization of Kellogg and the Father. The former softened as time went by, albeit still being pragmatic, and the latter appears emotionally detached due to his upbringing.

The ending, however, seemed messy. There are two main story endings, but the Faction endings mainly decide the fate of those living in the Commonwealth. If you only focus on the Sole Survivor (your character), the main story ending seems anticlimactic.

However, the Faction endings are just as important as the main story endings. The entire Commonwealth and its future are affected by your chosen Faction. The common dilemma involving these Factions is whether you side with the Institute or not.

Regardless of which Faction you choose, I think Fallout 4 lacked in showing the visible and harsh repercussions of each Faction ending. Even worse, the game is awful at trying to make you care about each Faction’s cause.

Each Faction throws random side missions along with main Faction missions. If you are like me, you sometimes grow tired of seemingly spending hours aimlessly doing Faction missions.

Let us say you get invested in a Faction’s cause.

The game’s main story ending does not show; not even a reference, your chosen Faction. The post-game world also feels very indifferent about your chosen Faction. There are changes, but it does not really feel any different if you choose one Faction over the other.

While I can understand the post-game world having little to no change due to game development limitations, I think a good compromise or remedy for this would be tying it in with the main story ending with more detail.

At the very least, adding visual slides explaining the Commonwealth’s fate with the Faction you chose and how different they are from each other is what I would have loved to see.

Regardless of all my complaints, Fallout 4 is still a fun and excellent game with an immersive world you can spend tons of hours in. I’ve already clocked in almost a hundred hours in the game, and I’ve yet to find everything that there is in the base game, not to mention the DLCs which I believe I haven’t even touched yet.

The DLCs I will be focused on the most are the Automatron, Far Harbor, and Nuka-World. I am expecting great things from these DLCs!

PS

Please keep in mind, my perspective is one who has never really gotten deep into the first and second Fallout entries which were CRPGs. Fallout 3 was something I played but I don’t think I ever finished it. I’m looking forward to playing Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas some time in the future. For now, this will have to do.

As a final note, I occasionally find myself reminiscing the times I watched GenerationHollow’s playthrough of this game. I wish him the best (lol).

Want more than just a Fallout 4 review?

I’ve added this part after some time and have now written about the Fallout 4 DLCs! Check them out here.