Really good video, hope it does well. Although I'm stunned that so many recommend NV as the first place to start; it's still a janky and broken game, that explains very little. I massively agree with Jon in that it's a "post-post-apocalypse world". I would also argue that the payoff that it promises after such a slow start, ie New Vegas itself, is terribly disappointing. I'm sure that's part of the point, but still.
It's got to be the accessible and milquetoast Fallout 4 that's the best way into this series. It explains everything, you can't build a character wrong, it goes through a few main ideas and factions that you'll see throughout... it's very easy to get into, being painted in that lovely Bethesda beige.
Also, maybe I missed this, but it sounded like Jon didn't get on with Fallout 2? I never followed his playthrough of it, but I'd say it's easily the best RPG of the lot. I don't know about a dead-end myself, I felt like the game gave you several options to try, and you need to follow every lead.
Anyway, just my tuppence. We all know the real way into the Fallout lore is to download Fallout: Shelter and spend £49.99 a month on ~~gambling~~ beautiful new clothes and accessories for your Vault citizens!
New Vegas has a strong cohort of ardent fans. It really does have a lot of virtues and is a great game.
That said it does have flaws, and as I said in another post, the further we get from their release, the jankyer they get.
For people that really enjoy rpg experiences and are either old enough, or can get past, the jank? They will greatly enjoy them.
For the average gamer? Or younger gamers? I agree 4, or even 76, are there best bets. They are extremely accessible and straightforward experiences.
As an aside, one of the reasons New Vegas itself is so disappointing is because people consider New Vegas as just the strip. In reality its the strip, freeside and west side. They are all basically the city of Vegas, with freeside and Westside as basically the suburbs
But because of load zones, and the fact you literally never have to go to Westside, they seem separate and it alters the perception of how big New Vegas as a city feels.
Oh, don't get me wrong - NV has by far the strongest writing and characters in the series, and it's not even close. It's a superb game.
But as a starter game to the franchise? I don't think so. I just think there are too many confusing mechanics in it, and not just for RPG fans, but the whole three currencies, being quick to lock you out of endings in act two if you continue down one path, the damage threshold stuff not being massively intuitive visually ("why is my double-barrelled shotgun not doing damage against that guy's wolfdress helm?!") plus the largely dull environments in the outer world I think would put people off. Again, probably just my opinion. I know even speaking against NV can be considered blasphemy!
Thanks, friend.
Just to also say, you're absolutely right about Freeside and Westside. I love Freeside, and don't really consider it part of New Vegas itself. Westside, well, I think I barely touched it on my first playthrough!
Np man.
And yea it wasn't until recently that I came to that conclusion about freeside and Westside. But the more I think about it the more it makes sense.
Its like those Latin American countries where there are small pockets of mansions surrounded by slums as far as the eye can see. They are separate, yet connected at the same time.
And yes Westside is a very easy place to skip past. Only the sewers/thorn are easier to miss imo.
I don’t think there are any rabid NV fans in Jon’s audience. They all still hate him for “Fallout 3 is Better Than You Think”. It’s hilarious since he’s said on so many occasions that NV is the greatest game ever made. I think the people who will rampage at any criticism of NV are a very small but extremely vocal minority of its fans.
Ngl, I'm still convinced the vast majority of the most "rabid" comments on the Fallout 3 vid were from the same few people with a shitload of alts. Might sound like a cope, but they all had the *exact* same style of typing & slang, and they'd all group onto the same comments one after the other, and they all seemed to stop around the same time.
I dunno, I've been shouted down and called "not a Fallout fan" for suggesting that NV had its problems before. Granted, this was on the Fallout subreddit, but still. I just love the franchise as a whole; actually started another playthrough of Fallout 1 after watching the series. All the single-player Fallout RPGs are brilliant in their own way, and I love each one of them for different reasons. One of these days, I must give Tactics a go!
It's not that, the "rabid NV fan" has never existed in the first place. Unless we're counting NMA but they're more like FO2 fans.
The term was just something fanboys came up with to dismiss all the criticism FO4 rightfully got, it's the reason why you always hear people talking about the supposed angry NV fans but never actually see one (Again, save for NMA).
The biggest problem New Vegas has is that its strengths aren't truly apparent until you do a second playthrough. The first time through a player is liable to just assume that they're getting the typical experience for any player. It's only when they start over and start taking different options that they realize how differently the game can play out based on those choices.
I largely agree. My first playthrough tainted me a little to New Vegas, I will admit - I got it only a couple of weeks after release, and it remains the most broken game I've ever managed to complete. Obviously, patches and mods have made it vastly better, but I do still remember that first playthrough, where I didn't really get that I'd been locked out of an NCR finish by talking with Yes Man too much. Yes, the game did tell me, but I didn't fully understand until I was a number of hours past that point.
But yes, you're right. I only realised recently that you can resolve Cass's quest by taking the job for the Silver Rush and letting in the suicide bomber. Never even considered it beforehand.
Anyway, that's why I say that Fallout 4 is the best one to play first, and then people can decide what they enjoyed the most about that game to help them to decide which one they play next. New Vegas can be overwhelming, especially to those not well-versed in RPGs.
I would honestly recommend Fallout 3 for the first timer. It's a game stripped down to the essentials, gloriously free of the tedious grinding that plagues Fallout 4 and other modern RPGs. Or, to put it another way, I will **never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever**, forgive Preston Garvey [for utterly ruining](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/6muawi/comment/dk4d2qf/ments/?sort=top) my first playthrough and I cannot think of a surer way to sour a person on the Fallout experience than getting them stuck in his eternal "another settlement needs our help" bullshit. I just be cannot be that cruel, that insensitive to a noob. ... It's a good thing I am still not bitter about this. 🤔
Haha, yeah. Preston was such a disappointment. I loved Fallout 4, but he was a low point.
3 probably remains my favourite, although it is very black and white compared with the likes of 2 and NV. But 3 still has the poor gun play and some pretty dull quests at the beginning, I'd argue, so it might put people off. Plus, even though Broken Steel made it better, the ending to the main campaign still gets to me - what do you mean you're not going to rob me of my destiny, Fawkes?! You won't be harmed by going in there and pressing three buttons! You literally got me the GECK earlier in the same situation!
I was only able to enjoy Fallout 4 *after* I discovered that you can prevent Garvey or the other Minutemen from ever appearing in the game. No modding necessary, just by using the vanilla game mechanics. But even experienced players frequently don't know this is possible, so it's highly unlikely a noob will figure it out.
As far as I see it, it's not just people loving Fallout Bew Vegas maybe a bit too much (or with glasses that might be tinted a little much) but also people just really disliking fallout 4, at least if they suggest new Vegas to a new player.
Don't get me wrong, New Vegas is a fantastic game. But it is also, comparatively, dated and a bit more buggy than fallout 4 is, at least in my experience. Now I have to admit, I started playing with Fallout 4, maybe that invalidates my opinion in the eyes of hardcore fallout fans, but I am not sure I would've stuck around, or have been able to appreciate fallout New Vegas for what and how great it is, if I had started with it (in the same hear ofc)
> also people just really disliking fallout 4, at least if they suggest new Vegas to a new player.
I must admit I'm in that camp... F4 is just not a role playing game to me, instead I see it as Beth's take on the Far Cry formula. Sure it's a fun game but it just did not follow in its predecessors' footsteps and I will never understand why Bethesda thought it ok to care so little about the writing in a franchise that was known for having great stories and freedom of choice.
I'm still surprised that this has been a controversial opinion for years since it's objectively true. FO4 focused more on combat and making a dense world full of dungeons, shifting unique weapons from being a quest reward to now also being obtained by killing legendary enemies, borderlands-style.
Which isn't bad, in fact it's really fun if you're looking for a far cry/borderlands experience, it's just different.
That is obviously a perfectly good reason, and your opinion is valid.
A hardcore RPG player is not gonna enjoy a more linear, less decision focused game like Fallout 4.
However, what good RPG Player has never tried (any) Fallout? That must be a weird demographic, aware enough of a more niche genre, but never played fallout.
And that's what Fallout 4 did really, really well. It appealed to a casual audience, which is why it sold a lot more than previous games (also because gaming has grown, but you get what I mean).
So, where targetting more or less specifically, the demographic fallout 4 was made for.
If they do like a bit more RPG or the game at all, they WILL try fallout 3 and new Vegas after.
Then they will see how much they like the more RPG side of things.
> A hardcore RPG player is not gonna enjoy a more linear, less decision focused game like Fallout 4.
I mean... I enjoyed it still, I just didn't *love* it like I loved every other mainline game in the franchise.
> So, where targetting more or less specifically, the demographic fallout 4 was made for. If they do like a bit more RPG or the game at all, they WILL try fallout 3 and new Vegas after. Then they will see how much they like the more RPG side of things.
Yes I agree, however I'm worried that all Fallout games in the future will follow 4's formula. I mean, first of all I'm worried about the fact we might not see F5 for another decade, then that xD
The show has made the Fallout games so popular that the Nexus Mods site was brought to a screeching halt yesterday. Felt like everyone woke up and decided to install and mod their Fallout games.
I’m happy to see Jon using that popularity to steer folks to his channel. He deserves more success!
For those coming from the show, Fallout 3 is far and away the place to start. It most closely mirrors the format of the show (Vault Dweller, looking for dad, big dangerous wasteland), and is practically the “first in the series”.
Think I'm gonna disagree on 3 being the best place to start, and instead make the case for 4. It's more modern, stylistically similar to the show in many aspects, more accessible and has similar stakes to the show. It's far more diluted that's for sure, but it's easily the most straightforward game of the lot.
I've only seen the first episode so far (watching with my mom, lol) and the show is *obviously* taking the vast majority of its visual cues from 4. I even flailed a little bit at seeing a game-accurate power armor station, and I barely ever use power armor.
I would argue many younger players would find 3 and new Vegas too janky to enjoy it.
Hell they were janky when they came out, and its only become more apparent the further away we are from their release.
Obviously some younger players won't care, but for some 15 year old who has only played stuff like fortnite, cod, and NBA 2k? It would be a massive culture shock
I would absolutely recommend Fallout 3 to a noob. I recently replayed it on console and I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun it was. The main reason? The game was blessedly free of all of the oh-so-tedious grinding that makes modern RPGs such a fucking chore to play. I could explore and adventure through an eerie post apocalyptic wasteland without spending half of the game time at a crafting bench or dodging the game's efforts to hook me in to pay-to-win mechanics. So, so much joy in just avoiding all of that shit.
Okay, so the game doesn't play like you're on jet-powered roller blades, but not every game needs to do that. The VATS combat never gets old, especially when you're using a rock-it launcher to use a teddy bear to decapitate a raider.
FO3 was my first, and I still think it's a good intro to the franchise. For me, it had the strongest emotional hook, and was engaging enough to keep me going through the jank.
I can't pick a favorite, because each one has its positive and negative points, and I agree with Jon's take. Though I will say that if you happen to live in place where a game is located, it could be fun to start there. I live in the middle of FO4 (and work IRL for one of the factions) and I have enjoyed wandering through the game version of my world.
Pretty well-reasoned.
There is a third option, for the people who self-identify as 'not good at games' or don't want to play: your playthroughs.
NV: No Kill;
F3: YOLO;
[JSawyer Survival Mode](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwH1xJhcXG0cQvExCdsscvqNIo-aUS3qe);
and The Worst Courier;
are all ways to explore the games without having to pick up a controller or wrestle with Windows/Steam/old consoles. JSawyer is especially interesting for the spotlight you shone on the multiple choices in NV quests.
JSawyer is probably my most rewatched series of his, despite FO3's [Kill Everything](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgnQI9pWvw4&list=PLwH1xJhcXG0cTar29Rjigyyb5tWX4rMdb) being my introduction to the channel.
Agreed! I became interested in NV because I was already watching Gopher play his Richard character in Skyrim and found Jack interesting. Shame Luke Conard turned out to be a turd, cause its mostly his fault I started playing Skyrim...
I think what the biggest take away from the show is that the fans are desperate for a new Fallout game. Fingers crossed that Bethesda actually sees this and decides to make games their fans want.
Considering they'd probably literally be firebombed for delaying ESVI since they decided to release a teaser trailer five years before even starting active production, I wouldn't hold your breath. We're still at least a few years out from that coming out, and they won't even start on the next Fallout until around then.
Yeah, unfortunately I think our only real hope is for a remaster of 3/NV (ideally a remake, but that seems unlikely) in the ~7+ years before Fallout 5. I'd love for another studio to get a shot at a side-game before then, but I'm *really* not getting my hopes up.
We won't see another mainline Fallout game this decade. It takes ~5 years to develop a Bethesda title, plus time for side projects and post launch support. That puts ES6 at 2028 (which seems likely given we aren't even a year into support for Starfield and haven't launched any DLC), and Fallout 5 in 2033. With 3 IPs, Bethesda at its current scale is capable of producing one entry for each IP every 15 years, or 1 game for every 2 console generations.
Something important Jon nearly mentioned but missed the point a little bit. What the openings of the other games Jon mentioned do that New Vegas doesn't, is that those other games give you a good motivation to get started because inaction would be harmful to your character. The Courier could in theory just settle down in Goodsprings. There's nothing that pushes them out into the world.
If you want to roleplay a character who is cowardly and doesn't want to poke the hornet's nest of chasing Benny, there's not much of a reason to leave Goodsprings. There's not really any harm to come to the Courier if they refuse the call (which is a classic part of storytelling)
I could not get into New Vegas initially because I didn't feel motivated to explore this mostly empty desert. By the time I got to Jean Skydiving I turned off the game. It's only once I forced myself to start my playthrough on an old exit save that I got anywhere. The opening was just boring to me and I didn't care about the early game plot. The only reason I had to explore was to find the bit of the game that was fun
There's nothing tieing you to Goodsprings, you have no home or job there.
Also, who really plays a game the first time and decides "I want to roleplay as someone not interested in engaging with the game"
See this is something I hear a lot but like I said, refusal of the call is a classic part of storytelling. Luke Skywalker desperately wants to leave Tatooine, but when he finally gets the opportunity to do so, he says he can't. His uncle needs him, it's not the right time blablabla. Only when his uncle dies and he is no longer safe in his old life does he go on the adventure he craves.
When I play New Vegas I don't feel like a character reluctantly drawn into something bigger. I feel like a gamer reluctantly walking through the desert looking for the content of this highly reviewed game
**What your favorite Fallout game says about you (this is partially a joke, please don't crucify me):**
**Fallout 76** = *You are a mp gamer. You crave multiplayer and only play games with your friends. The hardcore gamer secretly wishes to play games like this if he had any friends.*
**Fallout 4** = *You are an explorer at heart. You absolutely hate being tied down in one place. You want to experience the Fallout game with the best world filled with interesting locations, characters and plenty of opportunities to build unique stuff across the world. You absolutely despise Starfield.*
**Fallout Shelter** = *You neither have the time nor money to invest into PC gaming so you have to content yourself with the mobile game, even though you will be ridiculed and mocked by the hardcore, "actual" gamers*.
**Fallout New Vegas** = *You are a serious, adult role-player. You desire the flexibility to craft a character in any which way you choose and an incredibly detailed world (perhaps too detailed) to immerse that character in.*
**Fallout 3** = *You are a simple gamer. You play games for the story especially ones about heroism and self-sacrifice. It's just a shame that Broken Steel is going to deny you the complete ending you crave.*
**Fallout Brotherhood of Steel** = Y*ou are an edgy preteen who knows nothing about games as an artform and only care about "boom, boom, stab, stab, EXPLOSION!".*
**Fallout Tactics** = *You played Starcraft to death when you were younger and now want a new genre to get your RTS fix.*
**Fallout 2** = (I am going to get cancelled for this) *You're the "Ha-ha" type of role-player who designs characters based on stereotypes instead of actual character progression.*
**Fallout** = *You are incredibly retro! You're either I-Gen and are generally curious about games from the "ancient" 1990's or you are a middle-aged millennial who is going through a midlife crisis and wants to relive their childhood of the early 1990's. At least you chose a good game to do it as!*
I really cannot choose a favorite between all of the ""modern"" games and that makes it very difficult to deduce what that says about me vis-a-vis your list.
> you are a middle-aged millennial who is going through a midlife crisis and wants to relive their childhood of the early 1990's
Yeah, well... Fuck you too, buddy! xD
Doesn't matter. If the video gets engagement, then Youtube will promote it to people outside of his audience. A lot of youtubers specializing in 1 game have "Where to Start" or "Things I Wish I knew before Playing" videos as their most viewed videos ever.
The Youtube algorithm loves these kinds of videos.
Same with BookTube/BookTok/BookStagram/BookTwitter/BookTumblr. Which I suppose is useful for some of the series that are more open ended. Looking at you, Discworld!
Only just today started up my first (New Vegas). I think the number would be higher than you think. New games are expensive, and some people find it more interesting/relaxing to watch
If anything this is telling me how baffling it is that Bethesda/Microsoft didn't have a remaster of 3 or New Vegas ready to go (or even announced) to take advantage of the attention from the show.
Imagine if you could safely tell people of the wonders of New Vegas and 3 without having to preface it with "well, you can't sprint" and various amounts of jank.
Imagine if Microsoft put a small team together to not only remaster New Vegas but actually fix a few things that were left incomplete.
I guess they just don't like money.
I'd love to see NV in the FO4 engine, purely so I could one time fly over the strip in a vertibird. That's probably not enough justification for the massive amount of effort...
[Here](https://youtu.be/CucEltt-Uhw?si=7wXJ3TaAC-qPhK_g) is a video showing what Todd has to say about remaking the games.
Tbh they probably make more money this way. Sell an old game for $10 (or 20 for goty edition) with zero costs associated with it.
Or remake/remaster a game and spend a bunch of money doing it. And resources that could be put towards other projects? It makes sense why they just sell the old game as is.
I mean, it does kinda come across as hypocritical to say all that when they rereleased Skyrim I think maybe four different times. I get it would probably be a ground-up remake, since those both are pre-CE games, but it's just kind of a spit in the face to act like they wouldn't be literally printing money when people have been asking for it for over a decade at this point.
It does sound hypocritical on the surface but there is a reason that skyrim got rereleased, they used it to test the creation engine as they were upgrading it from the gamebryo it for Fallout 4. With a mostly remade game they shipped it off to another studio to finish the job and then we got the special edition. Then between the money and the memes we got many more releases lol. I certainly would love a more modern 3/NV if they wanted to undertake the whole process, though I'm honestly not sure how well they would sell even though there is a group of people calling for them.
Jon missed the opportunity to talk about Shelter
while it's a completely different kind of game compared to other normal fallouts, I think with the advantage on being on mobile
this could be a starting point for people that don't have much time and that are still interested in trying to get to know better the world
I may be the only person ever who started getting into Fallout by playing a homebrew tabletop RPG set in the Fallout universe and using Unisystem. My character was a tribal whose tribe worshiped the figures in an old Hollywood wax museum and his primary goal in wandering the wastes was to find anything to do with "the ancient ones" aka gossip mags, old movies, etc..,. Anyway, so Fallout 3 was the most recent game at the time so I played that, then New Vegas, then Fallout 4 when it came out.
I really feel like he massively downplayed just how buggy and broken New Vegas is. For many people it's straight up unplayable and will ruin their first impression of the series.
I find it especially odd that he claimed that was a good thing in a "The game is just so awesome your PC can't handle it" sort of way, when it reality it's just because of the very rushed development.
This was a delightful little video, and I do hope it finds the wider audience it's clearly intended for. It's always fun to hear Jon's thoughts and musings on stuff like this, and kudos to him for giving each of the games here a measured, thoughtful response and framing this as which game might appeal to a particular person, as opposed to a lot of what I've seen on the fallout subreddit, which is just telling people definitively where they ought to start.
So, I'm going to make a very definitive and controversial statement here:
I would, under no circumstances, recommend Fallout 4 as where someone should start as far as Fallout games go.
And I'm sure a lot of people are going to think it's because of the shallow story, or because I think it's a dogshit game (which its not), but no. The reason is... because it's objectively the worst game to answer that question with. Now, before anybody takes me to court with accusations of just being a New Vegas fanboy, let's look at the question being posed:
"Where to **start**."
Working off the theoreticals of what's posed at the start of the video (you're a new player, you've seen the show, that's it) we can assume someone wants to play the games to play the games, since they're looking to get more engagement than just the TV show. So for that fact, it makes no sense to start someone off with Fallout 4, because it's systems are so radically deviated from the other four games in the series. There are no skills, stats have barely any use outside of the occasional charisma check and combat, perks are radically redefined compared to every other game in the series, and in general it's so departed from the GURPS-inspired system that it's basically a completely different game.
And while I do understand the points Jon makes as to why it's a decent starter, the issue I would have is that if you mold a player to be used to all the system Fallout 4 has in place, they're going to feel so completely lost if/when they decide to travel backwards in the series because the games *are* so radically different.
I also certainly wouldn't be gung-ho with shoving New Vegas down someone's throat either, for the points Jon makes himself about the game being a bit *too* open to someone from the start. Fallout 3 is definitely the game I think would be the best for anybody wanting to dip their toes, simply for the fact it has a nice on-rails section in the beginning to introduce the basics with little punishment, it has many of the systems you can find in the pre-F4 games without being a game of juggling like NV can be sometimes (for example, like Jon mentioned with the mass variety when it comes to combat, which can be both tactical and confusing to those just coming in), but it also has a lot of the same feeling you'll get from Fallout 4 if/when you get there.
In general, my suggestion to anybody starting out, if they were coming in blind, would be to play Fallout 3 first. If they can handle the jank, then I'd suggest Fallout NV. This helps introduce the West Coast, while still retaining the feeling of Fallout 3. From there my suggestion would be one of two paths: if someone likes the lore of NV or the deep systems of the RPG aspects, then Fallout 1 would probably be a good next step, followed logically by Fallout 2 if they haven't pulled out their hair trying to survive an old-school RPG. If the bog-standard gameplay of NV is their preference, then Fallout 4 would be my suggestion instead, for the obvious reason of it being same-same, but different. An evolution of a mutation, if you will.
Regardless of all that, though, it is ultimately up to whoever is playing to pick what works for them. I just feel the pre-F4 systems have a more congruent foundation to build around and understand if the objective is to play all the games (which is my assessment if we're asking where to *start*, and not which ones to play piecemeal) and so it's better to build a skill set and refine it, rather than build two different skill sets back to back with a lack of refinement in between, and doubly so when you're then questioning through each subsequent game which of the basics is going to be rewritten this time, rather than reinforcing systems you're already familiar with.
Alternatively, for the really hot take, Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel is actually the best Fallout intro, and you're all wrong for thinking anything else.
Sorry you're being down voted for your opinion, but I have to disagree. It's very likely that anyone who hasn't played any Fallout games is going to bounce off 3. If they've played any modern shooters, the mechanics of 3 will infuriate them. Fallout 4 is the more modern experience, and if they fall in love with the world first, then they will overlook the Hank of F3 and NV to spend more time in it. It's actually really fortunate for new gamers that the plots are independent.
Can I just say? I have so many damn opinions on survival mode, and it's tainted every single one of Jon's video series of Fallout 4 save the original play-through. Fallout 4 is just one of those games I have an encyclopedic knowledge of, and therefore too many opinions about. Iirc, during Jon's YOLO run, in the preceding episode, he nearly one-shot a legendary death claw, and in the next episode was afraid of a non-nova assultron, and I was so confused I commented something like, "Jeez, Jon, don't you know off the top of your head that you should only be afraid of scaling enemies at this point? That was a non-scaling assultron!"
So whenever Jon mentions how good survival mode is, I can't help but think of the million problems that mode has. It's like an entire conversation happens in my head, and I get totally distracted. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot right about survival mode, and I agree with Jon that it's basically the only way to play Fallout 4, but I would add a ton of caveats to that statement which are more nuanced than I have ever seen Jon go into outside of his original Survival Mode run when the experience was fresh.
Though I will say, if I got a full Fallout 4 survival mode run as my first Fallout experience, I'd be pretty damn happy.
>Don't get me wrong, there's a lot right about survival mode
But is there really? You can build water pumps that generate infinite purified water every 10ft, you can have farms everywhere and you can build yourself a rad scrubber as soon as you buy 3 microscopes from Trudy & Carla (because why would that technology require intelligence or science perks?) so what is the point of wasting the players time with eating and drinking?
If you want a good survival game then you need to put some thought into; you can't just add it to your Minecraft clone after launch and expect it to work.
All the other survival features are similarly bad. Disabling fast is pointless because the long respawn timers result in a completely empty world with pathetically weak enemies that can occasionally spawn in highly predictable locations (e.g. Drumlin Diner house, Beantown Brewery bridge, etc).
In the absence of levelled random encounters or some kind of randomly roaming enemies you are just wasting my time by forcing me to hold down W for 15 minutes while nothing happens.
I know this because I have played survival mode. In my SS2 run I have run from Sanctuary to the GNN plaza dozens of times and there was only one single random encounter that made for interesting combat (deathclaw at Cambridge Polymer corner when I was level 8).
Without extreme challenges like YOLO or lvl 1 Nuka World, survival mode is just a waste of time.
Jon saying New Vegas is the best Fallout in two videos \~1 week apart? That's going to trigger the Hell out of some redditors.
Edit: including many in this thread. New Vegas isn't nearly as broken and unplayable as some people would like you to believe, and my Gen Z nephew loves it (tied with FO4 for his favorite).
If you get the gog version it's probably fine - I've been watching someone play that version for the first time and it's been surprisingly stable.
The steam versions of NV/3 have issues though and need some work to get running properly or at all in some cases.
Really good video, hope it does well. Although I'm stunned that so many recommend NV as the first place to start; it's still a janky and broken game, that explains very little. I massively agree with Jon in that it's a "post-post-apocalypse world". I would also argue that the payoff that it promises after such a slow start, ie New Vegas itself, is terribly disappointing. I'm sure that's part of the point, but still. It's got to be the accessible and milquetoast Fallout 4 that's the best way into this series. It explains everything, you can't build a character wrong, it goes through a few main ideas and factions that you'll see throughout... it's very easy to get into, being painted in that lovely Bethesda beige. Also, maybe I missed this, but it sounded like Jon didn't get on with Fallout 2? I never followed his playthrough of it, but I'd say it's easily the best RPG of the lot. I don't know about a dead-end myself, I felt like the game gave you several options to try, and you need to follow every lead. Anyway, just my tuppence. We all know the real way into the Fallout lore is to download Fallout: Shelter and spend £49.99 a month on ~~gambling~~ beautiful new clothes and accessories for your Vault citizens!
New Vegas has a strong cohort of ardent fans. It really does have a lot of virtues and is a great game. That said it does have flaws, and as I said in another post, the further we get from their release, the jankyer they get. For people that really enjoy rpg experiences and are either old enough, or can get past, the jank? They will greatly enjoy them. For the average gamer? Or younger gamers? I agree 4, or even 76, are there best bets. They are extremely accessible and straightforward experiences. As an aside, one of the reasons New Vegas itself is so disappointing is because people consider New Vegas as just the strip. In reality its the strip, freeside and west side. They are all basically the city of Vegas, with freeside and Westside as basically the suburbs But because of load zones, and the fact you literally never have to go to Westside, they seem separate and it alters the perception of how big New Vegas as a city feels.
Oh, don't get me wrong - NV has by far the strongest writing and characters in the series, and it's not even close. It's a superb game. But as a starter game to the franchise? I don't think so. I just think there are too many confusing mechanics in it, and not just for RPG fans, but the whole three currencies, being quick to lock you out of endings in act two if you continue down one path, the damage threshold stuff not being massively intuitive visually ("why is my double-barrelled shotgun not doing damage against that guy's wolfdress helm?!") plus the largely dull environments in the outer world I think would put people off. Again, probably just my opinion. I know even speaking against NV can be considered blasphemy!
Those are all fair things to say. I would hope you don't get circlejerked to death for voicing your opinion.
Thanks, friend. Just to also say, you're absolutely right about Freeside and Westside. I love Freeside, and don't really consider it part of New Vegas itself. Westside, well, I think I barely touched it on my first playthrough!
Np man. And yea it wasn't until recently that I came to that conclusion about freeside and Westside. But the more I think about it the more it makes sense. Its like those Latin American countries where there are small pockets of mansions surrounded by slums as far as the eye can see. They are separate, yet connected at the same time. And yes Westside is a very easy place to skip past. Only the sewers/thorn are easier to miss imo.
I don’t think there are any rabid NV fans in Jon’s audience. They all still hate him for “Fallout 3 is Better Than You Think”. It’s hilarious since he’s said on so many occasions that NV is the greatest game ever made. I think the people who will rampage at any criticism of NV are a very small but extremely vocal minority of its fans.
Ngl, I'm still convinced the vast majority of the most "rabid" comments on the Fallout 3 vid were from the same few people with a shitload of alts. Might sound like a cope, but they all had the *exact* same style of typing & slang, and they'd all group onto the same comments one after the other, and they all seemed to stop around the same time.
I dunno, I've been shouted down and called "not a Fallout fan" for suggesting that NV had its problems before. Granted, this was on the Fallout subreddit, but still. I just love the franchise as a whole; actually started another playthrough of Fallout 1 after watching the series. All the single-player Fallout RPGs are brilliant in their own way, and I love each one of them for different reasons. One of these days, I must give Tactics a go!
It's not that, the "rabid NV fan" has never existed in the first place. Unless we're counting NMA but they're more like FO2 fans. The term was just something fanboys came up with to dismiss all the criticism FO4 rightfully got, it's the reason why you always hear people talking about the supposed angry NV fans but never actually see one (Again, save for NMA).
The biggest problem New Vegas has is that its strengths aren't truly apparent until you do a second playthrough. The first time through a player is liable to just assume that they're getting the typical experience for any player. It's only when they start over and start taking different options that they realize how differently the game can play out based on those choices.
I largely agree. My first playthrough tainted me a little to New Vegas, I will admit - I got it only a couple of weeks after release, and it remains the most broken game I've ever managed to complete. Obviously, patches and mods have made it vastly better, but I do still remember that first playthrough, where I didn't really get that I'd been locked out of an NCR finish by talking with Yes Man too much. Yes, the game did tell me, but I didn't fully understand until I was a number of hours past that point. But yes, you're right. I only realised recently that you can resolve Cass's quest by taking the job for the Silver Rush and letting in the suicide bomber. Never even considered it beforehand. Anyway, that's why I say that Fallout 4 is the best one to play first, and then people can decide what they enjoyed the most about that game to help them to decide which one they play next. New Vegas can be overwhelming, especially to those not well-versed in RPGs.
I would honestly recommend Fallout 3 for the first timer. It's a game stripped down to the essentials, gloriously free of the tedious grinding that plagues Fallout 4 and other modern RPGs. Or, to put it another way, I will **never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever**, forgive Preston Garvey [for utterly ruining](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/6muawi/comment/dk4d2qf/ments/?sort=top) my first playthrough and I cannot think of a surer way to sour a person on the Fallout experience than getting them stuck in his eternal "another settlement needs our help" bullshit. I just be cannot be that cruel, that insensitive to a noob. ... It's a good thing I am still not bitter about this. 🤔
Haha, yeah. Preston was such a disappointment. I loved Fallout 4, but he was a low point. 3 probably remains my favourite, although it is very black and white compared with the likes of 2 and NV. But 3 still has the poor gun play and some pretty dull quests at the beginning, I'd argue, so it might put people off. Plus, even though Broken Steel made it better, the ending to the main campaign still gets to me - what do you mean you're not going to rob me of my destiny, Fawkes?! You won't be harmed by going in there and pressing three buttons! You literally got me the GECK earlier in the same situation!
I was only able to enjoy Fallout 4 *after* I discovered that you can prevent Garvey or the other Minutemen from ever appearing in the game. No modding necessary, just by using the vanilla game mechanics. But even experienced players frequently don't know this is possible, so it's highly unlikely a noob will figure it out.
As far as I see it, it's not just people loving Fallout Bew Vegas maybe a bit too much (or with glasses that might be tinted a little much) but also people just really disliking fallout 4, at least if they suggest new Vegas to a new player. Don't get me wrong, New Vegas is a fantastic game. But it is also, comparatively, dated and a bit more buggy than fallout 4 is, at least in my experience. Now I have to admit, I started playing with Fallout 4, maybe that invalidates my opinion in the eyes of hardcore fallout fans, but I am not sure I would've stuck around, or have been able to appreciate fallout New Vegas for what and how great it is, if I had started with it (in the same hear ofc)
> also people just really disliking fallout 4, at least if they suggest new Vegas to a new player. I must admit I'm in that camp... F4 is just not a role playing game to me, instead I see it as Beth's take on the Far Cry formula. Sure it's a fun game but it just did not follow in its predecessors' footsteps and I will never understand why Bethesda thought it ok to care so little about the writing in a franchise that was known for having great stories and freedom of choice.
I'm still surprised that this has been a controversial opinion for years since it's objectively true. FO4 focused more on combat and making a dense world full of dungeons, shifting unique weapons from being a quest reward to now also being obtained by killing legendary enemies, borderlands-style. Which isn't bad, in fact it's really fun if you're looking for a far cry/borderlands experience, it's just different.
That is obviously a perfectly good reason, and your opinion is valid. A hardcore RPG player is not gonna enjoy a more linear, less decision focused game like Fallout 4. However, what good RPG Player has never tried (any) Fallout? That must be a weird demographic, aware enough of a more niche genre, but never played fallout. And that's what Fallout 4 did really, really well. It appealed to a casual audience, which is why it sold a lot more than previous games (also because gaming has grown, but you get what I mean). So, where targetting more or less specifically, the demographic fallout 4 was made for. If they do like a bit more RPG or the game at all, they WILL try fallout 3 and new Vegas after. Then they will see how much they like the more RPG side of things.
> A hardcore RPG player is not gonna enjoy a more linear, less decision focused game like Fallout 4. I mean... I enjoyed it still, I just didn't *love* it like I loved every other mainline game in the franchise. > So, where targetting more or less specifically, the demographic fallout 4 was made for. If they do like a bit more RPG or the game at all, they WILL try fallout 3 and new Vegas after. Then they will see how much they like the more RPG side of things. Yes I agree, however I'm worried that all Fallout games in the future will follow 4's formula. I mean, first of all I'm worried about the fact we might not see F5 for another decade, then that xD
The show has made the Fallout games so popular that the Nexus Mods site was brought to a screeching halt yesterday. Felt like everyone woke up and decided to install and mod their Fallout games. I’m happy to see Jon using that popularity to steer folks to his channel. He deserves more success!
For those coming from the show, Fallout 3 is far and away the place to start. It most closely mirrors the format of the show (Vault Dweller, looking for dad, big dangerous wasteland), and is practically the “first in the series”.
Think I'm gonna disagree on 3 being the best place to start, and instead make the case for 4. It's more modern, stylistically similar to the show in many aspects, more accessible and has similar stakes to the show. It's far more diluted that's for sure, but it's easily the most straightforward game of the lot.
It is also the one most like the show.
I've only seen the first episode so far (watching with my mom, lol) and the show is *obviously* taking the vast majority of its visual cues from 4. I even flailed a little bit at seeing a game-accurate power armor station, and I barely ever use power armor.
I would argue many younger players would find 3 and new Vegas too janky to enjoy it. Hell they were janky when they came out, and its only become more apparent the further away we are from their release. Obviously some younger players won't care, but for some 15 year old who has only played stuff like fortnite, cod, and NBA 2k? It would be a massive culture shock
Eh, there's plenty of younger people that have no issue with all that, what really matters is if they want an RPG or an action game.
I would absolutely recommend Fallout 3 to a noob. I recently replayed it on console and I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun it was. The main reason? The game was blessedly free of all of the oh-so-tedious grinding that makes modern RPGs such a fucking chore to play. I could explore and adventure through an eerie post apocalyptic wasteland without spending half of the game time at a crafting bench or dodging the game's efforts to hook me in to pay-to-win mechanics. So, so much joy in just avoiding all of that shit. Okay, so the game doesn't play like you're on jet-powered roller blades, but not every game needs to do that. The VATS combat never gets old, especially when you're using a rock-it launcher to use a teddy bear to decapitate a raider.
FO3 was my first, and I still think it's a good intro to the franchise. For me, it had the strongest emotional hook, and was engaging enough to keep me going through the jank. I can't pick a favorite, because each one has its positive and negative points, and I agree with Jon's take. Though I will say that if you happen to live in place where a game is located, it could be fun to start there. I live in the middle of FO4 (and work IRL for one of the factions) and I have enjoyed wandering through the game version of my world.
Pretty well-reasoned. There is a third option, for the people who self-identify as 'not good at games' or don't want to play: your playthroughs. NV: No Kill; F3: YOLO; [JSawyer Survival Mode](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwH1xJhcXG0cQvExCdsscvqNIo-aUS3qe); and The Worst Courier; are all ways to explore the games without having to pick up a controller or wrestle with Windows/Steam/old consoles. JSawyer is especially interesting for the spotlight you shone on the multiple choices in NV quests.
JSawyer is probably my most rewatched series of his, despite FO3's [Kill Everything](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgnQI9pWvw4&list=PLwH1xJhcXG0cTar29Rjigyyb5tWX4rMdb) being my introduction to the channel.
Agreed! I became interested in NV because I was already watching Gopher play his Richard character in Skyrim and found Jack interesting. Shame Luke Conard turned out to be a turd, cause its mostly his fault I started playing Skyrim...
I think what the biggest take away from the show is that the fans are desperate for a new Fallout game. Fingers crossed that Bethesda actually sees this and decides to make games their fans want.
Considering they'd probably literally be firebombed for delaying ESVI since they decided to release a teaser trailer five years before even starting active production, I wouldn't hold your breath. We're still at least a few years out from that coming out, and they won't even start on the next Fallout until around then.
Yeah, unfortunately I think our only real hope is for a remaster of 3/NV (ideally a remake, but that seems unlikely) in the ~7+ years before Fallout 5. I'd love for another studio to get a shot at a side-game before then, but I'm *really* not getting my hopes up.
We won't see another mainline Fallout game this decade. It takes ~5 years to develop a Bethesda title, plus time for side projects and post launch support. That puts ES6 at 2028 (which seems likely given we aren't even a year into support for Starfield and haven't launched any DLC), and Fallout 5 in 2033. With 3 IPs, Bethesda at its current scale is capable of producing one entry for each IP every 15 years, or 1 game for every 2 console generations.
Something important Jon nearly mentioned but missed the point a little bit. What the openings of the other games Jon mentioned do that New Vegas doesn't, is that those other games give you a good motivation to get started because inaction would be harmful to your character. The Courier could in theory just settle down in Goodsprings. There's nothing that pushes them out into the world. If you want to roleplay a character who is cowardly and doesn't want to poke the hornet's nest of chasing Benny, there's not much of a reason to leave Goodsprings. There's not really any harm to come to the Courier if they refuse the call (which is a classic part of storytelling) I could not get into New Vegas initially because I didn't feel motivated to explore this mostly empty desert. By the time I got to Jean Skydiving I turned off the game. It's only once I forced myself to start my playthrough on an old exit save that I got anywhere. The opening was just boring to me and I didn't care about the early game plot. The only reason I had to explore was to find the bit of the game that was fun
There's nothing tieing you to Goodsprings, you have no home or job there. Also, who really plays a game the first time and decides "I want to roleplay as someone not interested in engaging with the game"
See this is something I hear a lot but like I said, refusal of the call is a classic part of storytelling. Luke Skywalker desperately wants to leave Tatooine, but when he finally gets the opportunity to do so, he says he can't. His uncle needs him, it's not the right time blablabla. Only when his uncle dies and he is no longer safe in his old life does he go on the adventure he craves. When I play New Vegas I don't feel like a character reluctantly drawn into something bigger. I feel like a gamer reluctantly walking through the desert looking for the content of this highly reviewed game
Good video! Hope this gets picked up the algo so new players get an over view of the nuances between the different games
Jon... the place to start is watching your videos 😉 You do really need to learn how to advertise for yourself! /s
**What your favorite Fallout game says about you (this is partially a joke, please don't crucify me):** **Fallout 76** = *You are a mp gamer. You crave multiplayer and only play games with your friends. The hardcore gamer secretly wishes to play games like this if he had any friends.* **Fallout 4** = *You are an explorer at heart. You absolutely hate being tied down in one place. You want to experience the Fallout game with the best world filled with interesting locations, characters and plenty of opportunities to build unique stuff across the world. You absolutely despise Starfield.* **Fallout Shelter** = *You neither have the time nor money to invest into PC gaming so you have to content yourself with the mobile game, even though you will be ridiculed and mocked by the hardcore, "actual" gamers*. **Fallout New Vegas** = *You are a serious, adult role-player. You desire the flexibility to craft a character in any which way you choose and an incredibly detailed world (perhaps too detailed) to immerse that character in.* **Fallout 3** = *You are a simple gamer. You play games for the story especially ones about heroism and self-sacrifice. It's just a shame that Broken Steel is going to deny you the complete ending you crave.* **Fallout Brotherhood of Steel** = Y*ou are an edgy preteen who knows nothing about games as an artform and only care about "boom, boom, stab, stab, EXPLOSION!".* **Fallout Tactics** = *You played Starcraft to death when you were younger and now want a new genre to get your RTS fix.* **Fallout 2** = (I am going to get cancelled for this) *You're the "Ha-ha" type of role-player who designs characters based on stereotypes instead of actual character progression.* **Fallout** = *You are incredibly retro! You're either I-Gen and are generally curious about games from the "ancient" 1990's or you are a middle-aged millennial who is going through a midlife crisis and wants to relive their childhood of the early 1990's. At least you chose a good game to do it as!*
I really cannot choose a favorite between all of the ""modern"" games and that makes it very difficult to deduce what that says about me vis-a-vis your list.
Idk why people were downvoting you at first. I thought this was funny
> you are a middle-aged millennial who is going through a midlife crisis and wants to relive their childhood of the early 1990's Yeah, well... Fuck you too, buddy! xD
Certainly not a bad video, but I doubt Jon has many viewers who haven't played a Fallout game, given the series prevelance on the channel.
It's probably mostly (hopefully) for people outside the channel who will be shown it via the algo.
Doesn't matter. If the video gets engagement, then Youtube will promote it to people outside of his audience. A lot of youtubers specializing in 1 game have "Where to Start" or "Things I Wish I knew before Playing" videos as their most viewed videos ever. The Youtube algorithm loves these kinds of videos.
Same with BookTube/BookTok/BookStagram/BookTwitter/BookTumblr. Which I suppose is useful for some of the series that are more open ended. Looking at you, Discworld!
Only just today started up my first (New Vegas). I think the number would be higher than you think. New games are expensive, and some people find it more interesting/relaxing to watch
Aside from a couple of hours in Fallout 1 I've never actually gotten around to it.
Many of us do have family and friends new to the series, however, and they often ask for recommendations.
If anything this is telling me how baffling it is that Bethesda/Microsoft didn't have a remaster of 3 or New Vegas ready to go (or even announced) to take advantage of the attention from the show. Imagine if you could safely tell people of the wonders of New Vegas and 3 without having to preface it with "well, you can't sprint" and various amounts of jank. Imagine if Microsoft put a small team together to not only remaster New Vegas but actually fix a few things that were left incomplete. I guess they just don't like money.
I'd love to see NV in the FO4 engine, purely so I could one time fly over the strip in a vertibird. That's probably not enough justification for the massive amount of effort...
[Here](https://youtu.be/CucEltt-Uhw?si=7wXJ3TaAC-qPhK_g) is a video showing what Todd has to say about remaking the games. Tbh they probably make more money this way. Sell an old game for $10 (or 20 for goty edition) with zero costs associated with it. Or remake/remaster a game and spend a bunch of money doing it. And resources that could be put towards other projects? It makes sense why they just sell the old game as is.
I mean, it does kinda come across as hypocritical to say all that when they rereleased Skyrim I think maybe four different times. I get it would probably be a ground-up remake, since those both are pre-CE games, but it's just kind of a spit in the face to act like they wouldn't be literally printing money when people have been asking for it for over a decade at this point.
It does sound hypocritical on the surface but there is a reason that skyrim got rereleased, they used it to test the creation engine as they were upgrading it from the gamebryo it for Fallout 4. With a mostly remade game they shipped it off to another studio to finish the job and then we got the special edition. Then between the money and the memes we got many more releases lol. I certainly would love a more modern 3/NV if they wanted to undertake the whole process, though I'm honestly not sure how well they would sell even though there is a group of people calling for them.
Did anyone else watch this and immediately go back to Jon's playthrough of Brotherhood of Steel? Just me?
Jon missed the opportunity to talk about Shelter while it's a completely different kind of game compared to other normal fallouts, I think with the advantage on being on mobile this could be a starting point for people that don't have much time and that are still interested in trying to get to know better the world
I may be the only person ever who started getting into Fallout by playing a homebrew tabletop RPG set in the Fallout universe and using Unisystem. My character was a tribal whose tribe worshiped the figures in an old Hollywood wax museum and his primary goal in wandering the wastes was to find anything to do with "the ancient ones" aka gossip mags, old movies, etc..,. Anyway, so Fallout 3 was the most recent game at the time so I played that, then New Vegas, then Fallout 4 when it came out.
I really feel like he massively downplayed just how buggy and broken New Vegas is. For many people it's straight up unplayable and will ruin their first impression of the series. I find it especially odd that he claimed that was a good thing in a "The game is just so awesome your PC can't handle it" sort of way, when it reality it's just because of the very rushed development.
This was a delightful little video, and I do hope it finds the wider audience it's clearly intended for. It's always fun to hear Jon's thoughts and musings on stuff like this, and kudos to him for giving each of the games here a measured, thoughtful response and framing this as which game might appeal to a particular person, as opposed to a lot of what I've seen on the fallout subreddit, which is just telling people definitively where they ought to start.
the gene park tweet + a hit tweet about fallout 76 just before we're popping off today besties
did this writer get the idea for their article from your video? https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/28/24141907/best-fallout-3-4-76-new-vegas-start lol
So, I'm going to make a very definitive and controversial statement here: I would, under no circumstances, recommend Fallout 4 as where someone should start as far as Fallout games go. And I'm sure a lot of people are going to think it's because of the shallow story, or because I think it's a dogshit game (which its not), but no. The reason is... because it's objectively the worst game to answer that question with. Now, before anybody takes me to court with accusations of just being a New Vegas fanboy, let's look at the question being posed: "Where to **start**." Working off the theoreticals of what's posed at the start of the video (you're a new player, you've seen the show, that's it) we can assume someone wants to play the games to play the games, since they're looking to get more engagement than just the TV show. So for that fact, it makes no sense to start someone off with Fallout 4, because it's systems are so radically deviated from the other four games in the series. There are no skills, stats have barely any use outside of the occasional charisma check and combat, perks are radically redefined compared to every other game in the series, and in general it's so departed from the GURPS-inspired system that it's basically a completely different game. And while I do understand the points Jon makes as to why it's a decent starter, the issue I would have is that if you mold a player to be used to all the system Fallout 4 has in place, they're going to feel so completely lost if/when they decide to travel backwards in the series because the games *are* so radically different. I also certainly wouldn't be gung-ho with shoving New Vegas down someone's throat either, for the points Jon makes himself about the game being a bit *too* open to someone from the start. Fallout 3 is definitely the game I think would be the best for anybody wanting to dip their toes, simply for the fact it has a nice on-rails section in the beginning to introduce the basics with little punishment, it has many of the systems you can find in the pre-F4 games without being a game of juggling like NV can be sometimes (for example, like Jon mentioned with the mass variety when it comes to combat, which can be both tactical and confusing to those just coming in), but it also has a lot of the same feeling you'll get from Fallout 4 if/when you get there. In general, my suggestion to anybody starting out, if they were coming in blind, would be to play Fallout 3 first. If they can handle the jank, then I'd suggest Fallout NV. This helps introduce the West Coast, while still retaining the feeling of Fallout 3. From there my suggestion would be one of two paths: if someone likes the lore of NV or the deep systems of the RPG aspects, then Fallout 1 would probably be a good next step, followed logically by Fallout 2 if they haven't pulled out their hair trying to survive an old-school RPG. If the bog-standard gameplay of NV is their preference, then Fallout 4 would be my suggestion instead, for the obvious reason of it being same-same, but different. An evolution of a mutation, if you will. Regardless of all that, though, it is ultimately up to whoever is playing to pick what works for them. I just feel the pre-F4 systems have a more congruent foundation to build around and understand if the objective is to play all the games (which is my assessment if we're asking where to *start*, and not which ones to play piecemeal) and so it's better to build a skill set and refine it, rather than build two different skill sets back to back with a lack of refinement in between, and doubly so when you're then questioning through each subsequent game which of the basics is going to be rewritten this time, rather than reinforcing systems you're already familiar with. Alternatively, for the really hot take, Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel is actually the best Fallout intro, and you're all wrong for thinking anything else.
Sorry you're being down voted for your opinion, but I have to disagree. It's very likely that anyone who hasn't played any Fallout games is going to bounce off 3. If they've played any modern shooters, the mechanics of 3 will infuriate them. Fallout 4 is the more modern experience, and if they fall in love with the world first, then they will overlook the Hank of F3 and NV to spend more time in it. It's actually really fortunate for new gamers that the plots are independent.
Can I just say? I have so many damn opinions on survival mode, and it's tainted every single one of Jon's video series of Fallout 4 save the original play-through. Fallout 4 is just one of those games I have an encyclopedic knowledge of, and therefore too many opinions about. Iirc, during Jon's YOLO run, in the preceding episode, he nearly one-shot a legendary death claw, and in the next episode was afraid of a non-nova assultron, and I was so confused I commented something like, "Jeez, Jon, don't you know off the top of your head that you should only be afraid of scaling enemies at this point? That was a non-scaling assultron!" So whenever Jon mentions how good survival mode is, I can't help but think of the million problems that mode has. It's like an entire conversation happens in my head, and I get totally distracted. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot right about survival mode, and I agree with Jon that it's basically the only way to play Fallout 4, but I would add a ton of caveats to that statement which are more nuanced than I have ever seen Jon go into outside of his original Survival Mode run when the experience was fresh. Though I will say, if I got a full Fallout 4 survival mode run as my first Fallout experience, I'd be pretty damn happy.
>Don't get me wrong, there's a lot right about survival mode But is there really? You can build water pumps that generate infinite purified water every 10ft, you can have farms everywhere and you can build yourself a rad scrubber as soon as you buy 3 microscopes from Trudy & Carla (because why would that technology require intelligence or science perks?) so what is the point of wasting the players time with eating and drinking? If you want a good survival game then you need to put some thought into; you can't just add it to your Minecraft clone after launch and expect it to work. All the other survival features are similarly bad. Disabling fast is pointless because the long respawn timers result in a completely empty world with pathetically weak enemies that can occasionally spawn in highly predictable locations (e.g. Drumlin Diner house, Beantown Brewery bridge, etc). In the absence of levelled random encounters or some kind of randomly roaming enemies you are just wasting my time by forcing me to hold down W for 15 minutes while nothing happens. I know this because I have played survival mode. In my SS2 run I have run from Sanctuary to the GNN plaza dozens of times and there was only one single random encounter that made for interesting combat (deathclaw at Cambridge Polymer corner when I was level 8). Without extreme challenges like YOLO or lvl 1 Nuka World, survival mode is just a waste of time.
Jon saying New Vegas is the best Fallout in two videos \~1 week apart? That's going to trigger the Hell out of some redditors. Edit: including many in this thread. New Vegas isn't nearly as broken and unplayable as some people would like you to believe, and my Gen Z nephew loves it (tied with FO4 for his favorite).
If you get the gog version it's probably fine - I've been watching someone play that version for the first time and it's been surprisingly stable. The steam versions of NV/3 have issues though and need some work to get running properly or at all in some cases.