The Altered Scrolls, Epilogue: Bethesda’s Freedom

By Rutskarn Posted Saturday Mar 12, 2016

Filed under: Elder Scrolls 44 comments

What is the point of an Elder Scrolls game?

Why did a team of game developers who set out to make a schlocky, plotless combat sim follow a trail of feature-creep-as-inspiration until the result didn’t just clash with their design document–it clashed with the packaging they’d already ordered? What did they suspect that made them take that kind of risk?

Why did Skyrim become not just game of the year, but game of about five straight years in a row?

Why should it come to pass that Nexus has ten mods for a hugely successful open-world game where you play freaking Batman–and forty thousand for a game where you yell at dragons? (Sure, it has a robust toolset–but Fallout 4 doesn’t as of this writing and it’s still got more mods than any non-TES or Fallout game on the market. Having a toolset is no guarantee you’ll get mods, and having no toolset is evidently no guarantee you won’t.)

How does Bethesda do it?

I’ve identified a lot of differences and precious few similarities between the Elder Scrolls games. I’ve accurately stated that their goals, atmospheres, mechanics, and outlines are wildly divergent–that it’s nearly impossible to identify one ideal shared between them. The temptation is to define the central tenet of the franchise as “player freedom,” and plenty of fans are happy to do so…and are inevitably disappointed whenever a player freedom they personally cherished, like the power to kill or fly or build a spell, is trimmed away.

While it’s fair to mourn the loss of those features, it’s also fair to say they weren’t what the games were about–and fair to say that “player freedom” is a nebulous and squishy and impossible target. So what are the Elder Scrolls games about if not freedom?

Well–what kind of freedom? What can’t you do in an Elder Scrolls games?

You can’t be a villain. Occasionally guilds let you murder and steal, but you’re never in league with the real nemeses and on a day-to-day quest-to-quest basis your potential for evil is rarely cultivated. So the games aren’t about total roleplaying freedom, and in fact, roleplaying is often a distant consideration.

Except for one solitary game you’re barred from killing half of the characters in the world–or else you can’t kill them until you’ve wrung them dry of quest potential. So the games aren’t about total interactivity even within the boundaries of the tools provided. It’s not hard to mod the game to make everyone killable. Plenty of people do just that–in fact, plenty of people insist. But that’s their idea of freedom, not Bethesda’s.

And for all its open-world trappings, there’s a lot of roles the game doesn’t bother to simulate. You can’t rule. You can’t sow. You can’t have children that share your flesh and blood. You can’t run a shop or crew a ship. Never once did the developers seek to furnish a simulation of these activities for players–because all of them, bar none, contrast with the one broad freedom these games are really built around. It’s the same freedom Bethesda inexplicably jeopardized with Preston Garvey’s incessant, infamous demands the players babysit settlements in Fallout 4, to universal uproar and contempt. It’s about two privileges above all else:

Go wherever you want, whenever you want. Do only the jobs you want to do when you want to do them.

Anything else is secondary–those two items specifically are Bethesda’s secret recipe. Compare to other open-world games on the market.

In Arkham City, you’re Batman. The city needs you, the people need you, and the game is always waiting for you to choose the next story mission. You’ve got a job and responsibilities. It’s fun because it lets you explore and screw around, but it never lets you shake your responsibilities and you’re mostly exploring the same city–just like in your real life.

In Grand Theft Auto, you’re a criminal. You have a very limited number of missions and jobs available and most of the game’s content is gated off by story progress or how much money you have. It’s fun because it lets you explore and screw around, but your job is always waiting for you once the hangover wears off and you’re mostly just exploring the same city–just like in your real life.

In World of Warcraft, you’ve got a few zones you really ought to stick to if you want to make money without being fatally outclassed. It’s technically absolute freedom restricted severely by what’s reasonable and appropriate–just like in your real life.

In The Elder Scrolls? There’s story missions, if you care. (They went from being the only major questline, to one questline based around forgiving deadlines, to being free of deadlines and totally optional for three entries running.) There’s a big world full of different things to see, all of which can be accessed almost immediately. (Every single game has let you travel to any major city in the game within a few minutes of beginning; rarely have the games punished exploring dangerous zones.) All the demands and obligations and constraints of a modern urban life, preserved reflexively in other open-world games, are absent here. If you want to just roam and ignore your job, you can do that–and it’s the right thing to do. You know it’s the right thing because wandering aimlessly doesn’t close off opportunities–but open them up. There’s no pressure because there’s no punishment, not even boredom.

Some balk when having no pressure means having no consequences, and that can be disappointing, but it is the lack of pressure that is all-important and ultimately sacred. It’s vital that there is no correct way to play, there is no questline that waits impatiently, there is no zone locked away and denied the player for long, and someone making choices with utter caprice is ultimately as well-off as someone who frets and fusses. This is why Bethesda has been experimenting with invincible NPCs and level scaling; though some may find the idea perverse, it’s actually about their prized brand of player freedom. If players need to worry about accidentally killing the wrong person or wandering into the wrong neighborhood their sense of immersion or control over their environment may increase–but at the cost of the all-important catharsis that comes from being unable to make wrong decisions.

Level scaling and invincible NPCs aren’t impediments to Bethesda’s freedom. They’re parts of it–and probably part of why it’s become so accessible, and why it’s parlayed mere accessibility into becoming one of the most popular gaming franchises in the world.

Next time: where the series is going and what that means.

 


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44 thoughts on “The Altered Scrolls, Epilogue: Bethesda’s Freedom

  1. Da Mage says:

    And when Bethesda do want to restrict player movement to have a ‘high level’ area, they make it very clear that it is dangerous. In Morrowind that was the ghostfence, and Skyrim has brutal dwemer dungeons and giant camps. But using NPC dialogue, placing them off the main tracks, and often having a tough mob outside means they can scare off player until they are ready without it feeling ‘cheap’.

    This is something New Vegas got flak for, as it use high level mobs to restrict player movement at the start of the game. Bethesda would never place a deadly mob just outside the starting zone, as they (quite rightly) want the player to go off and explore in any direction.

    1. Abnaxis says:

      I wouldn’t so much say they “caught flak” for how it was done in New Vegas, I would rather say they “engendered controversy.” I actually like the way they used high level mobs in New Vegas better, and I know plenty of other people who preferred it as well. It seemed to polarize the player base, more than anything else.

      1. Incunabulum says:

        I think that ties right into Rutskarn’s observations in this article.

        There were basically two camps playing FNV.

        1. The guys who started with FO3 and expected more FO3 – who expected the ‘go anywhere, do anything, the world revolves around you – nothing that you can actually do will close off anything significant to you’.

        2. The guys who played FO and were disappointed with FO3 *because* the world revolves around you and liked the idea that this was a world which had an identity separate from the player himself – you could go anywhere, but there were areas where tough guys hung out without regard to the player’s capabilities. Nobody was held back because if they were too tough the *player* would be inconvenienced.

        1. stratigo says:

          I started with FO3. I think FNV is a superior game. I have never played the old fallouts and I never intend to, though I do like modern takes on the isometric RPG.

        2. Wide And Nerdy says:

          I played FNV first (though after Skyrim and Oblivion which do have that “no punishment for exploring” design philosophy.) And I wasn’t bothered by the high level monsters.

          First, Obsidian does way better at constructing a main questline. Its a more interesting story that draws you into having a better understanding of how all the moving pieces are fitting together

          And I like the way it lets you jump in and out of the quest. Bethesda lets you do that too but when you jump out, the questline stops. When you want to resume the questline, you go back to the spot you left off and continue. You can do that with Obsidian’s quests too but you can also easily jump in at later points in quests skipping things and doing related plot points in different orders.

          For example, I can follow the prescribed path, town to town to town, quest marker to quest marker to Benny, to Mr House to etc. Or I could make a beeline to Vegas, sneaking past the Deathclaws and Cazadors. Or I can follow the quest line till I’ve rounded the mountains THEN beeline to Vegas. Or I can run into Caesar’s Legion, try to join them, go into the basement as asked and have my first encounter with Mr House there, then go to Vegas to meet him, then go deal with Benny, then join the NCR, then go kill Mr House, then install the Yes Man and make up my mind later about whether I want to side with the NCR.

          And so on and so forth and all of the locations and characters have multiple connections to other locations, and questgivers. You end up stumbling into questlines you didn’t expect. Maybe you go to the Kings because you like them. But if you’re more interested in the followers, they’ll send you to the Kings, and to the Bar where you’ll get a quest that has you encountering old Ben, which is great because they need a gigolo. Then you find out the comedian at the bar isn’t happy in his venue, guess what? The Tops is looking for new talent. Its amazing how many different ways you can stumble through these plot points and it feels like you’re experiencing your own story with clear cause and effect. When I’m doing what I feel like doing, it leads me to all of these interesting stories.

          With Bethesda, you’re doing whatever stuff you feel like and deciding for yourself why your character is doing that set of things in that order (if you’re even trying to play a character). With Obsidian, at least in FNV, if you follow your gut, they’ll make a story out of it for you.

      2. Bropocalypse says:

        I’m in the “for” camp, personally.

        These days, the first thing I do in EVERY game of New Vegas is sneak past the deathclaws and rake in the cash at the casinos, then pour it back into the gunrunners.
        Maybe it’s just crippling familiarity with the pre-vegas roadtrip, but the tension of navigating through the deathclaws coupled with the culpable reward that is New Vegas and its treasures is way more thrilling than killing Vulpes Inculta for the Nth time. At least, not before I’ve bought a grenade rifle.
        And it’s thrilling because I don’t stand a CHANCE against those deathclaws. It’s a huge and frightening risk that requires careful planning and patience(rather than stocking up ammo and stimpacks) paired with an equally sized reward. At some point in these games “difficult” came to mean “requiring more bullets and time to finish.” And the only real reason for that is that clever solutions take effort AND could potentially alienate a portion of the base who just wants to mindlessly shoot things(which, arguably, is a fine thing to want from a video game, but not what I want.)
        I don’t think it would ever happen because it would require more than a modicum of planning and testing from them, but I’d love it if there was more of that in Bethesda’s games. Problems you can’t kill hiding rewards that make the trouble worth it.

        1. Sall Manser says:

          “the tension of navigating through the deathclaws”

          What tension? There is a 100% safe route for level 1 character through the mountains, between mutant outposts. I may try it from time to time, for example to get early loot from science museum and/or Veronica as companion. Other than that I prefer to roam around Goodsprings first and then go to Mojave Outpost to repair my stuff to 100%.

  2. Bryan says:

    It’s weird to think of invincible jerk NPC’s as being a part of freedom, but that does make sense. So do you think the only problem with this design is that they made some of the NP’s jerks like in Riften, or do you think some NPCs shouldn’t spawn until certain parts of the story?

    1. Matt Downie says:

      There are a number of ways they could improve the situation. One would be to make the quest NPCs likable. Another would be to make sure there was always an alternative path; murder the annoying thief and you get a quest to defeat the thieves guild (New Vegas focused on this approach). Another would be that you could beat them into submission instead of beating them to death (“Please, spare me! I’ll do whatever you say!”). Or maybe they could have it so that you beat them into unconsciousness and stand over their body and a message pops up “Administer coup de grace? Warning: this will make the quest ‘Burn three beehives’ impossible to complete” and let you decide for yourself whether you care more about keeping content open or killing someone you dislike.

      1. Lachlan the Mad says:

        I still don’t get what was wrong with “The Thread of Prophecy has been Severed” serving as a non-standard game over.

        1. Incunabulum says:

          Because ‘mainstream gamers’ don’t like that shit. Like, seriously don’t like it. They’re completionists. These are the people that will play a game over and over to get the ‘kill 10,000,000,000 rats’ achievement – and will complain about ‘having’ to do it. They’re the ones that complain about SRR having too much reading and not enough shooting, who play ‘Unrest’ and want to know the ‘correct’ choice in each dialogue. Or fill the forums looking for tips on how to ‘get the good ending’. they want to rise up in every faction, complete every quest, bring peace, love, and joy – or at least unity – to the gameworld and they want to do it in one playthrough and if that’s possible will do every playthrough like that.

          Basically, the mainstream gamer doesn’t *play a character*, they inhabit an avatar and are living out a power fantasy.

          Any game that tells them ‘yeah you screwed up, but you can keep going to see what happens’ is wasting its time – they’ll just run to the forum to complain about it , beg for help, and then get even madder when told to ‘just reload’ – because their only save is either an autosave from right after the ‘mistake’ or 6 hours previously.

          I don’t want to seem like I’m negging these guys (though obviously I hold them in mild contempt because they don’t ‘appreciate games on the same level as I do ;), but they approach these games with a fundamentally different mindset than an RPer.

          1. Decius says:

            Wait, so I’m NOT supposed to be Head of a Great House, leader of all the factions (including Thieves’ and Fighters’, and imperial cult and Temple), Bal Malonger, and have 100 in every attribute (including luck) before delivering the package to Caius?

            1. Incunabulum says:

              Oooh! They should have had you come upon Cais’ dead-from-OD body if you had delayed to long in showing up.

          2. Joe Informatico says:

            I agree with this, and also think these “mainstream completionist gamers” exist in a feedback loop with the developers. The completionists complain when games are “too short” so devs (probably with prompting from marketing) make games with “100+ of hours of content”. The completionists want to get their 100% completion so the devs make sure any character build or any preferred playstyle will not be locked out of any content. And so it goes.

    2. Sall Manser says:

      Making some NPC’s unkillable is the worst part of Skyrim. In Makarath I was doing the detective quest. At some point of the quest, during the night, I went to the temple to discuss my findings only to find corrupted guards waiting for me there, the quest giver dead. “You go to prison”. No way, you scum (being level 40 and all). So I kill them all, and now I decide to deal with Silver-hands directly, if you know what I mean. Nay, they are all unkillable, including their main thug who also happens to be a witness of a fight with guards. Now I have to leave the city killing more and more guards along the way as there is no way to clear the matter because the witness is unkillable. That is as dumb as it gets. You have mechanics where, if you kill all the witnesses the bounty on you is removed, but by accident one of the witnesses is protected by the game and all the freedom is being taken away from you. Can it be any dumber?

  3. Zaxares says:

    Ironically, it’s that very sense of “go anywhere, do anything, the world will be right here waiting when you get back” that resulted in me never liking the ES series. I need a good storyline to hook me in and keep me interested in the events of the game. It’s not that I lack the ability to create goals for myself (I do it all the time in other games, like trying to learn every single spell in the game on my Mage, and happily modding the game to get around any restrictions the game might have on that); it’s just that when presented with the total lack of consequences, I get struck with the inescapable feeling that what I’m doing in the game doesn’t matter. I’m doing stuff in the game purely to do stuff in the game, the equivalent of busywork.

    1. Tizzy says:

      I both love and hate Skyrim for that. I was surprised by how much this freedom appeals to me, still to this day. At the same time, it’s hard not to get bored by it. A logical consequence of their philosophy is that player actions cannot have lasting consequences. Unkillable NPCs are just an instance of that. So, no player-initiated changes to the world so that they don’t have to regret their actions. Of course, this is not noticeable at first, but it’s hard not to be frustrated by this in the long run.

      So I’ll fire up Skyrim excitedly, look desperately for something exciting to do, and then give up within 30 minutes. Just typing this makes me want to do it. I feel dirty.

      1. Matt Downie says:

        I don’t think Skyrim’s particularly guilty of that. For example, you can replace the leaders of many of the cities.

        1. Tizzy says:

          Very good point. But, seriously, how much of an impact does this have?

          By player-initiated change, I meant impactful things like turning a whole town or faction permanently hostile, or destroying or permanently changing a location.

  4. Alrenous says:

    That’s a really good point you have about level scaling.

  5. Phantos says:

    Ruts, the reason Skyrim has more mods than Batman: Arkham City is because Arkham City doesn’t NEED them. It’s actually an engaging product, out of the box. It didn’t require fans having to put in extra work just to make it presentable.

    Now, Arkham KNIGHT on the other hand…

    1. PeteTimesSix says:

      Now, I realise that I am the exception to the rule here, but I have barely over sixty minutes played on Steam for Arkham City because thats how long it took me to get completely bored of it. On the other hand, I had over fifty hours on Skyrim before I started modding it, so… different strokes, I suppose?

      1. Yeah, I don’t buy this either. I played to very high level on several characters before I even went looking for a single mod, and almost none of the mods I installed are to “fix” things that I DIDN’T like–they all ADD MORE of things I DID like.

        The game Bethesda made was perfectly “presentable”. I wouldn’t care to have more of it if it weren’t.

        1. Incunabulum says:

          If you like the combat – its awesome.

          Otherwise, yeah, you’ll walk away quickly.

          I picked up Shadows of Mordor when it went on sale – game and all DLC for 20 bucks, thanks Steam.

          I’ve got a grand total of 9 hours in it. Not even the Orc dominance mini-game (while a great idea that should be used more) is enough to keep my interest.

          1. Some people just seem to enjoy being the gaming version of Wine Snobs.

            I downloaded some of those mods for Skyrim, you know, the “fix the terrible water textures” type of mods. Yeah, they made the water prettier–except for the places with the horrible holes in the textures. :P

            Good job, texture snobs! You made it much classier AND worse at the same time!

    2. Sleeping Dragon says:

      As the other commenters have pointed out it’s largely a matter of taste, Skyrim is presentable and serviceable out of the box and the Batman games will not appeal to everyone. To be honest I don’t think it’s a fair comparison in either direction, just because both games are technically in the same medium does not mean they are the same kind of product.

      It’s a bit like comparing a novel and an RPG sourcebook. Both are in print, both contain narratives, characters and descriptions of a world, but they are a very different type of book. The novel will likely spawn fanfiction and there will be people going through the sourcebook for the narrative bits but because their goals are very different they will have different strengths and weaknesses.

  6. Christopher says:

    The heel turn! It stuns!

    Also I’ve said some of these things for awhile and I always get derided over it.

  7. Steve C says:

    I think you are onto something here. The “player can do no wrong” gameplay is why the old Lucasfilm adventure games were so much better than the old Sierra adventure games. The old Sierra games would only allow you to do things that were right. So in something like Day of the Tentacle you were free to try everything with everything else if you wanted. There were no consequences. In Kings Quest 5, you had to try everything with everything else. Because if you didn’t, you were going to end up in a fail state with no idea why.

    “Player cannot screw up” is very freeing.

    1. Decius says:

      “fail forward”. There’s never a good reason to have a game state that is unwinnable for very long. Once the player does something that makes them lose, make them lose quickly. (This often means being able to go back to a previous area)

      The Longest Journey kept the insane inventory puzzles and restricted movement while also very subtly making sure that you never lacked the ability to get the inventory items needed.

    2. Harold says:

      Of course, the primary difference is that there’s plot and humor to keep you going, though that doesn’t really have that much replay value.

  8. Somniorum says:

    “You can't have children that share your flesh and blood.”

    I am getting an image of Future Rutskarn, looking down at his child, hand on shoulder, saying “you are my child – of my own flesh and blood” directly into their eyes, unblinking.

    1. The Rocketeer says:

      The very same words John Carmack said to Rutskarn when the ritual was completed.

      1. Corsair says:

        Holy crap, now that I think about it the resemblance is uncanny.

  9. MadTinkerer says:

    “It's the same freedom Bethesda inexplicably jeopardized with Preston Garvey's incessant, infamous demands the players babysit settlements in Fallout 4, to universal uproar and contempt.”

    I really, really hope we have the option to do the same in ES6, though. At some point, we are given a lordship, maybe as a joke, because it’s basically an empty field, but then we have the ability to turn that bare patch of land into one of the major cities of the world if we work hard enough. (EDIT: and it’s not a required part of the main quest line, but it is acknowledged at some point if you do both.) Something like that.

    Hmm… ES + Thea? That could be the most perfect game ever…

    1. Ateius says:

      Very much this. Less in a Homestead/FO4 way of manually placing walls and widgets, though, and more in the vein of Morrowind’s faction strongholds, where NPCs do the groundwork and the player makes top-down decisions on what will or will not be produced. The cities may end up visually similar but will have different services or themes depending on what players choose.

      I have Minecraft and a million clones of it to fiddle around with building exact structures and monuments; Bethesda’s games are about the freedom to go and do, so give me a foreman with a menu of priorities to choose from and stick a timer on completion so I can go murder some bandits in the meantime.

      1. Viktor says:

        How I’d pull building:
        First, pick a location. Players will want to be near different towns/ruins/etc, so give them several to choose from.
        Next, an overall theme. Imperial, Altmer, Nordic, etc, this should basically be a palette swap with a couple unique options later that are mostly flavor, but it lets the player have a town that looks pretty to them and that’s what matters.
        After that, start building the core buildings. Bed and chests, with an exterior wall to keep the mobs out.
        Then come the useful stuff. Crafting areas(preferably you can’t get all of them, and the ones you do get should give some sort of bonuses. Make it an actual decision what people want to focus on), settler areas(hunters, farmers, or mercs, with different benefits for each), and a few unique specialized options(kitchen, child bedrooms, etc).
        Finally, the fun things. Trophy room, library, armor display racks, and the like. Players should be able to get most of these, since they’re really no benefit and provide a sense of accomplishment. I’d include an Overlord-style treasure room as well because yes, and a specific Daedra Artifact display room that’s incompatible with a 9 Divines shrine.

        Now, given that, you’re right that Morrowind had the right idea. You never did clutter quests while building your place, you provided money or specific items/people to a guy who oversaw all the little details. Make it an interesting quest chain rather than a collection minigame and it’ll be a lot more interesting to most players.

        1. Decius says:

          The different architecture choices should be way more than a color swap, and the player should be technically able to get every option at the base level, but I could see a limited series of quests that grant one upgrade to a given structure. From a design standpoint I’d suggest having four upgrade levels per building (+0 through +3, with +0 not requiring any limited resource), and enough upgrade points to fill 2/3 of the upgrades available in the game.

          1. Viktor says:

            How meaningful the style is is something I doubt we’ll agree on. My key is, if I think the Dwemer design is ugly, I don’t want going Dwemer to be the only way to get the best forge. Players should never be forced to choose between aesthetics and functionality.

    2. James says:

      Well they have an engine, assets and system to do settlement building, and ALOT of people loved it, either as a side bonus for a days looting well done, or as the main goal of the game.

      Bethesda loves as we’ve found out to make their main quest as walk away from, as possible. yes to “finish” the game you have to do it, but you can for 900 hours roam instead. what if for ES6: Wherever Land the main quest is to establish and build a large settlement. its up to you to design what it looks like, and the “quests” revolve around gathering settlers, getting new better things and defending it.

      Ruts mentioned that he’d like ES6 to be set in the Summerset Isles as a rebel, what if your a rebel leader, and your building up the rebellion and its base. you can ofc instead roam the isles for 600 hours, but having the main plot iterate on past successes sounds very modern bethesda.

  10. Vi says:

    This probably isn’t terribly relevant to the discussion, but I had a lot of fun in freemium World of Warcraft as a level 20 cartographer trying to explore as far as possible before the armies of level-capped monsters stepped on me. Money and experience became non-issues as soon as I stopped accumulating them, which I took as an invitation to wander off and start a new life free of plot responsibilities. I can’t claim it was the most reasonable or appropriate course of action, but I also didn’t have to worry as much about death consequences, food/shelter, or getting arrested for vagrancy/poaching/illegal immigration as I would in real life.

    1. Hale says:

      It’s funny that you mention that, because that is exactly what I did as a very low level character in WoW when I first started playing the game. One of my first big adventures was leaving my designated starting zone as a Night Elf and instead travelling all the way to the Human capital where I would eventually start questing again. In Vanilla WoW, though, that wasn’t a particularly easy task for someone without a Mage friend to teleport me.

      Without an escort I had to take a boat across the sea (which to be fair was the easiest part consisting of a very engaging loading screen) to Menethil Harbor where the actual danger awaited. Outside of Menethil was a long stretch of swamp for people that were a dozen or more levels above me, so I aggro’d just about everything in a 5-mile radius. After getting smashed a few times, I finally figured out that I could “corpse run”, basically booking it as a ghost to a graveyard in a different area where I could force my resurrection. It caused equipment damage and gave you a 10-minute debuff, but I was determined. Long story less long, I did eventually get to Elwynn Forest and it felt like a great accomplishment.

      That wasn’t the only time I got into adventure shenanigans outside my level, I would do things like go into the Burning Steppes or Searing Gorge with a friend since the entrance to it could be accessed from a low level zone, even though it was for close to max level characters. It was a lot of fun, but Rutskarn still isn’t wrong. There was definitely no progress involved in what I did, and likely it was more a detriment to my coin purse and certainly slowed my leveling since I wasn’t focusing in on the grind up.

  11. Cuthalion says:

    Huh. I guess that makes sense, doesn’t it?

  12. Blackbird71 says:

    From the end of the previous Altered Scrolls post:

    “NEXT TIME: THEY CALLED IT BATTLESPIRE”

    So I’m guessing we won’t be getting Rutskarn’s take on Battlespire now?

  13. Jeff says:

    “Go wherever you want, whenever you want. Do only the jobs you want to do when you want to do them.”

    This probably explains why the FO4 story is so stupid and contradictory to the feel of the game. The story wants you to care and find a baby, the game encourages you to ignore the doll you’ve met for less than 5 minutes.

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