The Fallout 4 Trailer: In Depth

Nothing was as powerful to me as the first time you left Vault 101 in Fallout 3; a post-nuclear open world full of interesting characters to meet, secrets to find, and terrible creatures to run away from (especially that first time you encounter a Deathclaw). It was the first time that I was actually enthralled by an RPG on consoles and played for over 100 hours.  Everything about it just clicked for me. Watching the new Fallout 4 trailer made all of those same emotions come rushing back.

The trailer starts with the quintessential 50’s Era music that eerily plays throughout the Fallout world singing “it’s all over” and a zoom out of an old television on standby. The room is clearly post-nuclear, with everything in disarray and crumbling, but flashes back and forth between pre and post nuclear shots of the home. It was a great way to introduce the new game as the last Fallout installment released in 2010 and not everyone may know the premise. A dog enters the house (post-nuclear shot) which clearly used to live there (dog food bowl in the kitchen) and is looking for its family. The feels get released when the dog enters a baby’s room and it flashes between two parents coddling an infant and the dog sniffing the infants bed searching for it. The Fallout series has always done an impeccable job giving you the sense of what happened in the areas you explore prior to the nuclear blast. Many times you have to search the area to find clues if you are interested, but there are always journals, personal effects, or notes from the people that used to live there or the sinister things that were occurring. Also, I truly hope that the dog is a companion choice as my favorite companion was definitely Dogmeat from Fallout 3. As the dog leaves the home it runs through the dilapidated neighborhood and flashes back to right before the blast when everyone was in a panic. Both the dog and the people are running toward the vault. As the people near the vault we see the familiar Brotherhood of Steel guarding the entrance and a billboard that reads “prepare for the future” with our favorite smiling Vault Boy symbol. It appears that the Brotherhood guards are not letting everyone through, most likely only those that have paid to have a place there when the time comes. The trailer then cuts to Vault 111 (very reminiscent of the orignal Vault 101) opening up and , what I assume is your character, leaving the vault for the first time since the blast (first person POV). Looking out over the desolate wasteland there isn’t much to see except for some power lines and a recognizable watertower. If I’m to hazard a guess it is the red watertower in Middlesex Fells Reservation outside of Boston. I could be wrong. The next scene shows an extremely built up area with overpasses and buildings, but it is clearly the Bunker Hill monument. This is the first confirmation that we get that Fallout 4 will take place in and around Boston MA. The next scene shows a futuristic old style ship sitting on some rocks above a destroyed neighborhood that makes me believe that maybe the harbor no longer has water in it. The next scene that flashes is of a sketchy character walking beneath a street lamp followed by more power lines near a hilly/ mountainous area. Then we see a Brotherhood soldier patrolling the wasteland near a destroyed bus. The trailer shows us a few scenes of Brahmen carrying loads of items, a crab like creature and what appears to be an evolved Deathclaw (oh goodie). We see a helicopter landing and a group of ghouls in a supermarket running at you to attack. We’re shown Swatters Custom Baseball bats which is in the town in Fenway Park as you can clearly see the field lights and scoreboard in the background. This should be an interesting place to explore as these large stadiums end up being areas for temporary shelters in times of crisis. A blimp floats over the neighborhood with the Paul Revere monument which appears to be searching for someone or keeping curfew as it has spotlights directed toward the street. A panoramic view shows the Massachusetts statehouse in the foreground and a look over the rooftops of the city. The scene cuts to the dog at the opening of the vault and flashes back to people trying to get into the vault just as the nuclear blast occurs. The trailer cuts to black. We meet the dog again outside a car repair shop as it walks past a machine selling Nuka Cola and a garage with Brotherhood of Steel armor hanging from chains. A close up of the armor shows Nuka Cola parephernalia in the background as well as a wall of guns ( including a plasma rifle and a heavy chain gun) and it looks like the Vault Boy bobble heads are back as well (loved searching for those things). There also appears to be a rack of comic books or manuals (including Grogan) which have given us skill points in the past for reading. The dog leaves the garage to meet his owner (most likely the vault dweller we see leaving earlier in the trailer) carrying a rifle and walking down the road outside the garage. The man pets the dog, showing us that he is wearing a Pip Boy (it’s unclear of which generation as it dosent quite look like a 2500 or a 3000 version) and his Vault 111 jumpsuit. The trailer ends on the dog and man walking out into the world together and we get a flash of Fallout 4 and the details that it will be released on Xbox 1, PS4, and PC with no time frame (although it’s been rumored for 2015).

Bethesda has shown us some of our favorite things about the Fallout series with some exciting and interesting locations to explore this time around in the initial teaser trailer. What will be different? Will the fighting system change (or at least tweak the VATS system)? Will we meet the same groups with which we’ve become so familiar? What other companions will we meet? We’ve been given some answers, but there are a lot more questions. I, for one, can definitely say that it looks like it will be worth the wait.

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