The dog is a dog.

The Sole Survivor is the player character in Fallout 4. At the beginning of the game, in 2077, they are living peacefully with their spouse and newborn son, Shaun. It is speculated that they are a soldier, as in the E3 presentation they appear to be preparing for the "Veteran's Ball". When the alarms ring out for nuclear attack, they go with their family to Vault 111. After 200 years, they emerge from the Vault as the Sole Survivor.

As with previous Fallout games, the player has full customisation ability over the Sole Survivor. They can select gender, race, body type, and the facial customisation system has been completely overhauled to replace the sliders with a cursor to mould the face to the player's liking.





For the first time in a main Fallout game, the protagonist is fully voice acted, with the male Survivor being voiced by Brian T. Delaney and the female survivor being voiced by Courtnay Taylor.

Vault 111



Vault 111 is one of the Vaults to be featured in Fallout 4. The Sole Survivor enters Vault 111 at the beginning of the game, after watching the first bombs fall. At some point over the next 200 years, all residents except the Sole Survivor die due to circumstances not yet known, and the Sole Survivor leaves the vault after this time. It's speculated that the Vault has a cryosleep pod, however this is not confirmed. The Vault is different from other Vault in that it uses an elevator in addition to the standard Vault door.






Boston



Boston and its surrounding areas are the setting for Fallout 4. It is a part of the Commonwealth, and home to the Institute, an organization that possesses advanced technology including androids. The Institute were briefly mentioned in the Fallout 3 quest 'The Replicated Man', which involved an escaped android. Robert House, a major character in Fallout: New Vegas, attended the institute when he was younger. It is actually what remains of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr Zimmer, in Fallout 3, described the Commonwealth as being "a war-ravaged quagmire of violence and despair," and it is assumed that this includes Boston, as it is apparent from footage of the game. Many landmarks of Boston are expected to appear in the game, including the Paul Revere Monument, the USS Constitution, the Massachusetts State House and Fenway Park.

Diamond City



Diamond City is a post-war settlement built within and around what remains of Fenway Park. First seen in the announcement trailer, it appears to be one of the main hubs in Fallout 4, being home to several merchants. Apparently, the city has a shortage of supplies, and so the Sole Survivor enters disguised as a trader with enough supplies to sustain the population.

Dialogue
The dialogue system is a complete departure from previous Bethesda games. Introduced in Fallout 4 is what is being called a "dynamic dialogue system", similar to what is seen in Mass Effect or Telltale games. Players are given four dialogue options which lead to a fully voiced response from the protagonist. Players can leave a conversation at any time.

Combat
Admitting the gunplay in Fallout 3 was "mehhh", Bethesda claim to have completely overhauled the combat system. Enemies are now more responsive to your hits; for example, a shot in the leg will cause the enemy to stumble or a shot in the head will blind them. VATS has also seen some changes, the most notable one being that it no longer completely stops time but instead slows it down. Players also have the option to execute a "critical hit" if they have enough action points.

Power Armour is now a full-on suit rather than just being an inventory item. Upon entering, players are given a different HUD and a heavy weapon. Gameplay demonstrations have also shown jetpacks to be available for power armour.

Crafting
Fallout 4 features an enhanced crafting system which essentially allows the player to create any weapon they desire. Demonstrations have shown that parts of completely different guns can be put together to create a wide range of weapons. In addition to weapons, players can also customise their armour, as well as a suit of power armour. Rather than simply having a head piece and body piece like in other Bethesda games, players can now equip customise more specific areas of the body.

Settlement Building
Fallout 4 offers the opportunity to build settlements in pre-defined locations. They must collect resources to be able to build and have a lot of choice in what they do. Players can also set up defence systems and have caravans travel between settlements. However, settlements can be prone to raider attacks and other events. Within the settlements, players can manage crops and run electricity lines to power different facilities.

Skills
Skills have also seen a major change from the system used in Fallout 3 and New Vegas. Now, skills will be based off of the SPECIAL system. At the start of the game, as usual, the player will distribute a certain number of points between each of the seven statistics. The difference is that now, there are perks tied to each SPECIAL stat, which are upgraded or unlocked when the player levels up. Each SPECIAL stat will have 10 perks, giving at least 70 base perks in the game. However, as the player progresses, newer upgrades will unlock, and it is said that there are many things to unlock. It is also confirmed that there is no level cap.

Companions
A feature shown at E3 was the ability to give commands to companions in a similar way to Skyrim. The demo showed the player telling Dogmeat to fetch something for him. Bethesda have confirmed that there are around a dozen companions in the game, and the player can form relationships with them that may even lead to romance. Known protagonists include: Dogmeat, the Sole Survivor's Mr Handy, Codsworth, Preston Garvey and Piper.

PC Specs

Minimum
Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit OS required)
Intel Core i5-2300 2.8 GHz/AMD Phenom II X4 945 3.0 GHz or equivalent
8 GB RAM
30 GB free HDD space
NVIDIA GTX 550 Ti 2GB/AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB or equivalent

Recommended
Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit OS required)
Intel Core i7 4790 3.6 GHz/AMD FX-9590 4.7 GHz or equivalent
8 GB RAM
30 GB free HDD space
NVIDIA GTX 780 3GB/AMD Radeon R9 290X 4GB or equivalent