I have returned to playing Fallout 4. One of my friends reinvested himself in the franchise and, after we had a lengthy talk about it one day, I found myself wishing to return to the world. I’ve played it before, even doing a fun punching-only build with a character who looked like Superman/Clark Kent, but I’ve never beaten the game. Like Skyrim, there’s just so much to do that I never quite get around to chasing down the main quests. Or most of the major side-quests. I don’t think I even reached the point of the game where you have to pick a final faction. I have, however, always enjoyed the game and it’s low-stakes combat on a moderate or lower difficulty makes it a perfect game to doze off to.

I have little to say about the game’s plot, it’s mechanics, or it’s visuals. They’re all fine. Nothing outstanding, nothing horrible, just good enough to be interesting. Same for most of the writing. I guessed the main plot’s twist instantly, have never really gotten attached to any of the characters, and never been moved by a single part of the story. All I remember is the protagonist yelling in a piece of very good voice acting “WHERE’S MY SON” as I accidentally nuked the guy I was supposed to chat with and broke the game. The reload didn’t lose me much, but I never ran around with a mini-nuke launcher equipped ever again. Compare that to Ghost of Tsushima which I can’t replay without getting emotional and you can see why Fallout 4 is “just fine” in my estimation.

I enjoy the base building, though I’ll admit it feels more difficult to do smoothly on a PS4 than a PC, but I’ve always enjoyed getting organized, collecting an endless amount of resources, and base-building. I mean, I get super addicted to tower defense games rather than clicker games, so I feel like you can see why I might enjoy the Fallout 4 base building stuff (gotta love setting up baffles and mazes outside my bases so my turrets can fire on everything as it approaches and then as it navigates my maze so my defenders never have to do shit).

It can get onerus, though, when you need to keep building stuff all the time so you can keep yourself supplied with the resources you need to upgrade your weapons and armor. Half of the bases I’ve made across every hour I’ve spent on the game were for the express purpose of growing the vegitables I need to make adhesive. I never have enough. Even scouring the wastelands, ruined cities, and enemy hideouts couldn’t keep me supplied in addition to my vegetable growing efforts. Half the reason I decided to the fists-only melee build was so I wouldn’t spend so much time trying to build gun upgrades. Those fuckers get expensive fast, lemme tell you.

Still, it’s fun to wander the wastelands, collecting trash for upgrades, shooting bandits that should know better than to attack me by now (Fallout 4 has it’s own version of the “you never should have come here” bandits), and dozing off as I forget I’m in combat and get chewed to death by mole rats. I mean, it’s not like there’s much of a penalty for death in the game. Same for radiation. I used to be so cautious and conservative about picking up Rads because I was worried about the impact it would have on my game. Now, I feel so free and uncaring. It’s not like anything horrible happens if I die. The game reloads and boom, I’m back to life. If I doze off after auto-saving right next to a source of heavy radiation and die half a dozen or so times before I wake up enough to walk away and save the game somewhere safer, well, I still fail to see a problem.