Fallout 4

Fallout 4 is a sprawling post-apocalyptic RPG from Bethesda Game Studios that takes players to a devastated Boston two hundred years after nuclear war, where the sole survivor from Vault 111 searches for a kidnapped son after witnessing the murder of a spouse. The series offered for the first time a sophisticated settlement-building system, where the player constructs entire functioning communities of survivors from scavenged junk, complete with farms, defensive fortifications, and shops, which became one of the most discussed and time-consuming systems in the entire game.

The combat system integrated shooter elements with the classic bullet-time V.A.T.S. system, allowing time to slow down for precise targeting of enemies' specific body parts, while extensive crafting allowed nearly every weapon and piece of armor to be modified using dozens of components. Collecting seeming junk gained new meaning, since disassembled adhesives and cables became materials for upgrades. Power armor also became a standalone vehicle powered by fusion cores, which the character climbs into and which significantly changes the pace of combat.

The open world of the Commonwealth is dotted with hundreds of locations, from abandoned cities through military bases to bizarre side quests, with the player's guides ranging from robots and mutants to their own dog, Dogmeat. The choice between factions like the Brotherhood of Steel or the Institute then determines the story's ending and is mutually exclusive. Bethesda also supported the game with the Automatron, Vault-Tec Workshop, Far Harbor, and Nuka-World expansions, of which Far Harbor rivaled a smaller standalone game in scope. Fallout 4 on Xbox One was among the best-selling and longest-played titles of the entire generation despite the technical imperfections of the Creation engine. The game also supported mods directly in the console environment, a significant novelty for the Xbox One platform at the time, letting players install community content without needing to own a PC.