In a recent interview with The Telegraph in the U.K. Todd Howard sat down and discussed some details about Fallout 4. One of the first questions asked was if there was going to be any pre-nuclear story in the game due to the footage in the announcement trailer. Howard stated that the segment was just used as a prologue, stating…
“It needs to be a prologue. It’s important to us to let you experience that world, so that when you emerge from the vault you feel the sense of loss and think. ‘I wish this was the way it was.’ Having the beginning and having the sense that stuff is all gone? That you’ve lost everything? That is important.”
Howard also stated that the game will take place in Boston in the year 2075 and is based on an alternative history timeline to our world based on visions of the future from the 1950s.
“In any decade you can ask: what were their designs going to be?What were the cars they wanted to make? If you look at the 40s and 50s and you go to the Carousel of Future at Tomorrowland and you see what they thought the future would be — that stuff is amazing. That’s a big inspiration. Like concept cars from the 50s… I thought we drew crazy stuff but the real stuff is crazier.”
Finally Howard elaborated on the modifications the VATS system will be compared to Fallout 3. Howard explained that VATS will not pause, but will continue to move in very slow motion. Saying…
“We found some ways to make it a bit, not a ton, but a bit more dynamic. It’s very, very slow and you’ll see the percentages change because the person is moving behind or coming out of a wall. So queuing up the shot at the right time matters. And while the playback is happening, the criticals are not random, you assign which shot is the critical one and you load up that bar. So it’s a little bit more under your control, not a lot, but just enough to make it feel better.”
