Fallout 4’s Controversial Dialogue System Opens Up Many Options For Fallout 5

Highlights

• Fallout 4’s dialog system faced heavy criticism for limiting player choices and nuance with only four vague responses available.
• Fans negatively received the voice-acted protagonist’s dialog system, leading to mods that revert to older, more immersive dialog options.
• Fallout 5 could improve upon Fallout 4’s flaws by increasing transparency in choices and potentially removing the voice-acted protagonist for more player agency.

Although Fallout 4 has many strengths, like its improved combat and detailed world design, it usually isn’t considered the peak of the franchise. Criticisms of Bethesda Game Studios’ second crack at the Fallout series abound, but most of its demerits seem to revolve around how it handles the staple Fallout features, specifically as they pertain to the role-playing experience.

Chief among the most common critiques of Fallout 4 has to do with the game’s dialog system, which many view as a major step backward for the franchise. Rather than a list of distinct and unexpected dialog options like in other Fallout games, Fallout 4 only offers four responses per dialog turn, limiting the player’s opportunities for interaction. Moreover, these options are presented vaguely, often with only a single word that attempts to encapsulate the gist or attitude of the response, removing nuance and transparency from NPC exchanges. Needless to say, RPG fans did not take kindly to this radical approach to dialog, and Fallout 5 will have to contend with this.

How Fallout 5 Could Respond to Fallout 4’s Dialog Mechanics

Players Probably Won’t See an Exact Reprisal of Fallout 4’s Dialog System

The poor reception of Bethesda’s streamlined dialog system is evidenced by the numerous Fallout 4 mods that overhaul dialog, often reverting it back to something resembling its implementation in previous games. As a narrative-driven RPG franchise, the Fallout experience can often live or die on the back of its NPC interactions, so a good dialog system is vital, and mechanics that ‘dumb down’ these encounters can deal a significant blow to immersion and expression.

Regardless of what one thinks of Bethesda Game Studios, it’s clear that it is committed to making the best games possible; BGS rarely, if ever, seems to phone in its projects, even if some creative choices prove to be controversial. And Fallout 4 introduces many interesting mechanics that can be built upon and improved in its sequel, and this includes its ill-fated dialog system.

Fallout 5 Could Make Lemonade Out of Dialog System Lemons

With the shortcomings of Fallout 4‘s dialog mechanics being plain to see, it might seem like Bethesda’s best choice would simply be to backpedal and return to an older, more traditional approach with Fallout 5. While this would certainly be the most obvious, safest option, it’s not the only one, as Fallout 5 could evolve the problematic aspects of Fallout 4‘s barebones dialog while still retaining some of its more experimental elements.

Broadly speaking, Fallout 5 could hold onto Fallout 4‘s more limited dialog system if it made two key changes: more transparency with the options and the removal of a voice-acted protagonist. The fact that the Sole Survivor speaks all their dialog, coupled with how vague these options appear in the dialog selection menu, make it remarkably easy to unintentionally say the wrong thing in Fallout 4. For instance, a player may expect a certain response to come across as calm or intimidating, but it could wind up reading as comedic or corny based on the complete line of text and the voice actor’s delivery.

Perhaps Fallout 5 could feature a similarly streamlined dialog system, allowing for quick decision-making in conversations, while making it clear what the player-character is actually going to say. The game could also leave room for interpretation by removing the voice actor, allowing the player to imagine how their custom character would deliver the line instead. Naturally, Fallout 5 could simply take a step back and have a dialog system like those of Fallout 3 or New Vegas, but if Bethesda wants to keep experimenting, there may be a path forward that doesn’t mean total abandonment of one of Fallout 4‘s core mechanics.