Fallout 4...might the protagonist be "set"?

[Ariseishirou]

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugggghhh that would be the worst. I don't mind set protagonists, but the guy in the trailer is Video Game Steve (stubbly white dark-haired 30-something athletic-looking dude with a deep voice).

I don't really believe they'd do that, but if they did, consider this a pass. I just won't play Steve anymore, sorry. I just won't.

 

[Jarek Mace]

I've really been sourcing evidence. Found a narrative transcript that seems to make sense. Even pictures the male protagonist on the front and this was leaked prior to the trailer. Even makes sense in correlation with the trailer, and all signs in that indicate a male only, set backstory protagonist.

This supposed Reddit leak doesn't do us any favours either. If we're being linearised I'll either have to install a fucking ton of mods or outright... outright... sorry. I'm struggling to say the words I thought I'd never say... avoid Fallout 4.

 

[Lightknight]

It's a Bethesda game. They pioneered character customization. It's their shtick that has been around since the 90's and that's saying something with a development studio.

I rate this rumor an "F" on believability.

 

[Ten Foot Bunny]

That said I had no trouble identifying with my crazy elderly black Saint's Row 2 character with a cockney accent. And it was just as swell in Saint's Row 3 when he had a sex change into a crazy blonde Russian lady.

I identified more with the toilet than my own character. What can I say? My life is complicated.

If we do have to play as the dude in the trailer at least we can look at that booty! DAYUM!

EW!!! Sorry, I don't like my booty to be of the male persuasion. Been there, tried that, wasn't interested.

As for the matter at hand, I don't think there's any way Bethesda would get rid of character creation. Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, New Vegas, Skyrim... I could be wrong, but I think I see a pattern.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

I doubt they'll get rid of character customisation when the inevitable backlash is so obvious. It's such a vital feature in their games. Either way, I don't really care. I only ever cycle through pre-sets and change the hair/beard; no way I'm spending all that time precisely tweaking brow angle and nose width.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

Nah...no way in hell.

Though I think it would be a rather interesting path to take personally. If Bethesda didn't suck in the story department, of course.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

But...i thought we were going to be a dog in a man's world. While Liam Neeson soothes us to sleep each night, reciting morally ambigious tales from the wastelands...

It would be like homeward bound, except if a nuke destroyed their home (and world of course), and the other two pets. Leaving the one remaining fluffling to find their calling in a harsh, unforgiving world. You can choose your master or whore your canine ass out to multiple needy characters, voiced by Patrick Stewart and friends. You have a biscuit and tummy rubs meter which you must maintain for optimum post apocalyptic cuteness.

...Is this not what everyone else took from the trailer?

 

[zombiejoe]

I doubt they'll have a set character, and I really hope that they don't give the character a voice. Why? It will slow things down. I don't need what I said repeated out loud to me, I am the character, I only need to imagine what the character sounds like, because in good roleplay fashion I can fill in that blank.

 

[Tayh]

Also, you can't play Furiosa since it's unlikely you have the choice to replace your left arm with car parts. Though it would actually get me excited for this game if you could.

This is Boston, the origin of that android we see in FO3, right? A cybernetic arm isn't far-fetched.

 

[AT God]

For a smaller studio, providing two (or more) main character voice tracks for an entire 100+ hour RPG would be a fair excuse for limiting gender options but Bethesda has plenty of money and they should be smart enough to realize that the cost in sales and bad PR would far outweigh the cost of hiring at least one female voice actor to redo all the lines and to take the time to alter some dialogue lines. Literally the only way this would be remotely okay I think is if being male was a vital part of the plot, at which point it would merely be stupid because Fallout is about a nuclear apocalypse where the player character is generally a nameless character taking part in much bigger world events.

The leak I read said that you could ultimately change gender upon completing the story and that special level of stupid is what makes me think the whole thing is wrong.

I honestly expect multiple voice tracks per gender because I feel that would be a lot less work compared to the amount of complaints they would get.

 

[Silence]

Yeah, I could see them going Commander Shepard (I actually like the idea) but only play as male? I can't believe it because it would generate a shitstorm and does make no sense. You could play female in Fallout 1, ffs.

I imagine the "fallout" would be worse than the ubisoft fiasco

To be brutally honest, and personal preferences aside, I doubt it would matter all that much.

Yeah, there'd be a stink on the internet ("OMG, sexism, why no inclusion?!"). No doubt accompanied by a counter-stink ("Oh shut up SJWs, market forces!").

It would still sell like hot cakes. At this point Bethesda could fill the boxes with dogshit and still recoup their development costs just on pre-orders and early purchases.

You seriously underestimate the amount of males playing females in these games, in my opinion. It's a core feature.

 

[Flutterguy]

If it is a voiced character this time I would bet they got a male and female voicover for the whole story. I hope they at least wrote in some character or jokes rather then making him McBlankface The Slate, which is the reason I kind of prefer a protagonist who doesn't talk in grand RPG's, especially Bethesda ones I'll be sinking months into.

Either way the game will be glorious,just a bit less so if I don't make my own character.

 

[Angelowl]

Yeah, I do not believe Bethesda to be THAT stupid. The whole point of the game is customization and shaping your own adventure, exploring the world. Has always been. This would be turning Resident Evil into a generic shooter stupid, wait I forgot where I was going with this...

Anyway, if I can't play female then I am not buying the game and I doubt any of my gal friends would either. I do note with a lot of humour that the post suggest that while you can't start the game as female but you can alter your character mid game, thus cis women are out and trans women are in. What a delicious irony that is to fantastic and absurd for the video game industry, so no it will not happen.

 

[ExDeath730]

If i remember correctly, there were some documants leaked to the press like, last week or something. About the casting calls for the voices in the game. There were two calls for the main character, one for a male voice and other for a female voice.

I think it may be voiced, i have no problem with that, and i think it's gonna have a male and female voice and that's it. Fallout is...TOO classic CRPG, you know? Games like The Witcher series are like an anomaly in this type of game, i don't think Bethesda will take away our character creation, but i hope to get more choices.

Ps: I also want to be able to make the character into a Cyborg, so yeah, work on that, Bethesda!

 

[Redryhno]

Two problems, you're using Kotaku and the Fallout reddit for references. Neither has the best track record to releasing/finding anything that either everyone already knows, or was scrapped five years before.

If they do a voiced protag, that means they've got some SERIOUS shakeups, because that takes away alot of what makes people like Bethesda games, in that you have options on what you want to say, used to be one of the things Bioware had, but now they've got nothing but fully-voiced junk with three choices(not to say you really have more choices in other Fallout, but you have the option to choose more than Saint, Snark, or Literally Demon Mecha Hitler responses).

 

[Silence]

Pro Cyborg faction!

Cyborgs are seriously underrepresented in these games.

 

[Erttheking]

You know, I think it's just gonna be like Commander Shepard in Mass Effect. Customizable, but with voiced lines and a bit of an established personality that you can tweak.

 

[ThreeName]

As much as I think Bethesda are idiots, they simply cannot be this dumb. It's idiotic for so many reasons.

But then I remember how retroactively terrible I found Fallout 3 and it gives me doubt.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I think it's more likely that there will be Shepard-style voice acting rather than a set character who you must play as. I think that there may be a sort of red haring though in that you may begin the game as a male Vault Dweller who committed a horrible crime but who has connections with someone who can completely change your identity. "It doesn't matter what happened then...by the time I'm done with you, you won't even recognize yourself." Granted, the "waking up in prison" opening is normally reserved for the Elder Scrolls series.

 

[WhateverDude]

Yeah, going with the other posters in this thread and say that this seems too out of left-field for Bethesda. My impression of the trailer and the narrator was that it was going to be like the last game. Since, if I remember correctly, you could create any character you wanted, but the ending was narrated by a designated guy. So, this seems like it's just going to be the same.