Despite Bethesda’s focus on roleplaying, their games have always lacked an interactive home builder. Players usually buy a house then pay merchants for various upgrades like chairs, beds, and storage space. This formula made for boring houses that never really felt like home. However, Bethesda announced during their E3 conference that Fallout 4 will feature interactive home-building gameplay.
But will Fallout 4 be just another Hearthfire expansion?
According to Bethesda game director, Tom Howard, Fallout 4’s home builder will give players almost complete control of their surroundings. Players can choose land throughout the map to build a new home. At first glance this may seem identical to Skyrim’s Hearthfire expansion, but trust me, it’s far from it. Players can scrap materials from almost any source and turn them into raw building materials. There are no restrictions to what you can build because the building engine is completely modular. Think Fallout meets Minecraft.
Another awesome feature is that you can build up communities too. Merchants can set up shops in your settlement if certain requirements are met. Also, Brahmin caravans can travel in between your communities. There’s even a raid feature where you have to defend your outpost from raiding parties. So make sure to build plenty or defensive structures. Oh, and did I mention that players can create their own power grids?
Fallout 4 will be released on November 10, 2015, for Xbox One, PlayStation, and PC.