Fallout is at this point a six-year-old game, with new releases coming out on a regular basis, it’s sometimes hard to come back to the old hits. Fallout 4 was a much-anticipated game, it brought many changes to the franchise and it was received well generally, but how does it fare now 6 years after release? This is the question we’re going to attempt to answer today and who knows maybe you even start a new playthrough. Let’s see if Fallout 4 is worth playing in 2023.
Fallout 4 is definitely worth playing in 2023. Its open world is still amazing, the combat system still doesn’t feel outdated, and crafting mechanics are considered the best in the genre. Graphics were never the strongest suit of fallout 4 but it’s something easily remedied by adding a few mods. Overall, all these after release, if you’re looking for an open-world sandbox game set in the apocalypse, Fallout 4 is your best bet.
Now that we’ve given you the short answer to the question it’s time to analyze this issue in a bit more detail. If you’re interested in Fallout’s current state and whether it’s worth revisiting, stay with us and keep reading!
Editor’s Note: This review has been updated to reflect the current state of the game, not many things changed in Fallout World since the last time we’ve revisited the game, it’s still worth your attention even in 2023.
Fallout 4 in 2023 still has one of the best open worlds out there
If Bethesda knows how to make one thing, it’s an open-world game. The sheer sizes of their maps are impressive and what you can do in this virtual playground is even more astonishing. Even though the map of Fallout 4 is generally smaller than that of Skyrim, it still offers more locations to explore and visit than most other modern open-world games.
Each location feels handcrafted, and the world is filled with interesting places of interest for you to explore. It doesn’t feel generic and forcefully placed and the immersion is on point. The aspect of settlement building is just icing on the cake, even though you are technically playing in a wasteland, it sure doesn’t feel that way, the world is teeming with life be it friendly or dangerous.
Crafting still feels amazing when compared to newer games
One of the most immersive aspects of the games, and something you can only truly appreciate when you see the bland crafting placed in some newer games. Almost anything in Fallout can be deconstructed and reconstructed again. You can craft your own custom-made weapons and armor. You can craft a variety of items related to settlements to make them even more unique.
When it comes to survival, you can even craft medicine and other survival-related provisions. There’s plenty of junk in the wasteland and what separates Fallout from most other games is the fact that this junk serves its purpose it can be reimagined to create something useful.
Combat doesn’t feel deprecated
Fallout 4 introduced some big changes to the combat system when compared to the previous installments of the game. V.A.T.S. is now considerably harder to navigate as it doesn’t stop time completely and you receive the full damage if you’re hit. You can use covers and critical points are random, you need to work for them.
All this adds to the immersion of the game, and immersion is something that never goes out of fashion. From sounds to animations handling weapons in Fallout 4 is a unique experience and they tried to make it as life-like as possible.
Fallout 4 has companions that I don’t mind taking on missions
The companions are extremely well made. If you feel like they have a life outside of adventuring with you that’s because they do. Every companion character comes with its unique side story, struggles pros, and cons. This is what makes them real 3D persons in this wasteland.
Hearing their random background commentary adds additional immersion to the game, and I don’t mind taking them with me on assignments. The romance aspect was done well and realistically too and few modern games have managed to re-create or even upstage Fallout’s system.
The Graphics have never been Fallout’s strongest suit
I can’t say that graphics are something that Fallout excels at, the game looked, well old, on release. Now several years later the shortcoming of visuals is even more obvious. It’s something we’ve covered extensively in the past and the only way to redeem is to install mods. When you look at it from a graphics aspect, there are far more beautiful games and more optimized games out there.
The textures are blurry and extremely low res, and the game might not be able to hold its ground against the latest technologies like ray tracing, still, I repeat once again, this shortcoming can be improved with mods. And considering the fact that hardware advanced by much since the game was first released, newer hardware can deal with more drastic graphics improvements.
There are plenty of mods available
The modding community never sleeps and as time passes and the game becomes more and more outdated, modders are working tirelessly to keep it in line with modern times. The fact that 6 years have passed since the game was released is a positive thing in this context, this gave plenty of time to modders to improve all aspects of the game that felt lacking, to fix the graphics, and add other quality-of-life improvements to the game.
If you can’t imagine playing a Bethesda game without mods, in that case, I can assure you there has never been a better time to revisit Fallout 4 than 2023.
Conclusion
Fallout 4 is still worth revisiting in 2023, the game is far from outdated and still excels in areas like world-building and crafting that modern game’s still haven’t managed to replicate. Whether you consider Fallout 4 an upgrade or a downgrade when you compare it to previous installments, the fact remains that it’s a masterfully made game that successfully stood the test of time.
