"Fallout 4" Trailer Analysis

- by Ninja Ross, 13 June 2015

Fallout 4 has finally been officially announced! With a pretty little trailer and everything! No doubt you’ve seen the trailer at least a billion times by now, but what do you really know about it? Sure, you know there’s a dog. But what else do you KNOW? We can only speculate right now, but I’m going to take a look at the trailer's biggest clues to both story and gameplay.

Let’s kick off with story!

We open with a dog, most likely the classic Fallout companion Dogmeat, wandering through a ruined house. This is cut with shots of a better time, before the nukes fell, showing a loving family. This gives us our biggest story hint: Time travel or alternate realities.

We can only guess how this will work within the story, but I would imagine the dog that’s featured so heavily is actually a furry time machine. Hopefully nothing like the TARDIS or DeLorean, as physically entering the dog may not seem realistic enough, but Bethesda seem like the trustworthy type. If anyone can pull that off, it’d be them.

Welcome back, Dogmeat! You haven't aged a bit!

The setting for Fallout 4 is Massachusetts, which I have just discovered is a word that’s almost impossible to spell without looking it up.

Massachusetts seems to be more colourful than what we’re used to with later Fallout games. One can only assume that this is an effect of the radiation, possibly enhanced by time travel. We already know The Commonwealth, a classic Fallout group based in Massachusetts, will be involved. Perhaps they have been experimenting with a 3-D Microsoft Paint tool? It’s too early to tell whether they’re involved with that.

Also featuring quite heavily are ships. Flying ships and stranded ships. Pirates seems like the only logical conclusion, here.

We do get a glimpse of Vault 111, so we know we’re getting another Vault Dweller in the game, complete with their own Pip-Boy. This means more Vault shenanigans! Hopefully, we’ll be given the option to stay in the vault, rather than leave and explore the world beyond the vault door. With any luck, we’ll have the opportunity to grow old, clean floors and other stuff that doesn’t include DEATHCLAWS.

Speaking of DEATHCLAWS, there’s a fucking DEATHCLAW in this trailer. Prepare to be horribly mutilated and eaten. This is horrifying.

Fuckin Deathclaws.

So, here’s what I think is going to happen: Vault 111 breaks all of their water chips and sends you out to find more. On your journey, you come across a time travelling dog that has been abducted by pirates. After attempting to rescue it, you’re SLAUGHTERED by a DEATHCLAW that also slaughters the pirates and every living thing within miles. Luckily, time travelling Dogmeat comes to the rescue.

Where it progresses from here, I can’t be sure. Do The Commonwealth have anything to do with why this new Dog Meat can travel back in time? Perhaps it’s a side effect of the colour radiation? Only time will tell.

Let’s move on to gameplay, now! Away from talk of DEATHCLAWS.

The biggest question is “How is time travel going to work?” Is it going to be more like Prince of Persia? Are we going to need to collect dog sand to use the ability? Of course dog sand would be silly. Dog poo seems like a much more believable idea.

How colorful!

Besides that, it looks to have the kind of gameplay you’d expect from a modern Fallout game. We’ll likely get a default first person view with an optional third party, for those of us who like to see our own butts.

We’re probably going to see the kind of combat we’ve come to expect; you’ll be shooting things and stabbing things! I’m sure we’ll be getting a bunch of new and old weaponry, like the Fat Man and the 10MM pistol. But with the level of technology available now, it’s going to be bigger, louder and more awesome than ever before! Blowing stuff up is probably going to feel pretty great.

Moving away from combat, it’s going to be nice to explore the ruins of Massachusetts, seeing how people live, finding new and unusual places and unearthing cool items.

And, naturally, we’ll get all the classic RPG elements, hopefully with some new features. No doubt we’ll see plenty of dialogue with interesting characters, plenty of skills to level up and maybe some companions, besides the classic Dogmeat! More Fawkes and Boone!

But, going back to the trailer, we do get to see a hint of one new mechanic. In several parts of the trailer, we’re treated to glimpses of different locations in the game world, before the view rises and we get some real nice elevated shots. This would be the first time you’ve ever really been able to fly in a Fallout game.

We're flying!

While there may be naysayers out there who think that flying shouldn’t be a feature in the Fallout games, I think it’s going to be pretty interesting flying over the wasteland! Of course, with a flying mechanic we’re most likely going to see flying enemies. Flying Mirelurks. Flying Mole Rats.

Flying DEATHCLAWS.

Near the end of the trailer, we see a Brotherhood of Steel armour hanging inside of garage. It’d be nice if this hints at the possibility of really customising armour and weapons! Hopefully we’ll be given the chance to really turn regular old armour into a monkey costume from the Bloodhound Gang video for "The Bad Touch".

Sweat, baby, sweat.

The trailer doesn’t give us a lot more about gameplay besides that, of course. Focus seems to be on the story and setting. Which is exactly the kind of teaser we needed! There’s no doubt we’ll see more at Bethesda’s upcoming E3 press conference. Some nice, exciting gameplay!

For now, all we can do is continue to speculate. Speculate and rewatch the trailer a few more times!


Yes, this was indeed the best analysis of the trailer. And now you're even more excited for the game, right? Comment with "Yes." in the comments section below!

Tagged: video games.

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