Conversations In ‘Fallout 4’ Will Be Much More Cinematic Than Previous Bethesda Titles

As with most role-playing games, players will spend plenty of time talking to non-player characters in Fallout 4. These interactions will serve to set the mood for the game as well as help enrich the title’s overall narrative. Since these dialogue interactions are important to the game, their presentation actually matters. Fortunately, the developer is raising the bar for conversational dialogue segments of Fallout 4.

Fans of Bethesda Game Studios’ previous body of works should be very familiar with the use of abundant conversation to help create the sense of playing inside of a lived-in world. However, many of the developer’s older games never really used overly dynamic cinematic effects for handling these dialogue exchanges.

In titles like Fallout 3, when players interacted with another character, the camera simply zoomed into a static position that was fixed on the subject’s face. This left players with only being able to see limited facial expressions during conversations.

Bethesda later made a few advances to the dialogue system with The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Instead of forcing the camera into the NPC’s face, players were allowed to see more of their surroundings while talking to the inhabitants of Skyrim. This meant that characters could at least be engaged in simple, albeit limited, animations. The interactions still felt stiff, but this was definitely a progression from earlier Bethesda projects.

Continuing see an evolution on in-game conversations, Bethesda has now reach a point where they can truly begin to focus on engaging cinematics to accompany the various dialogue conversations of Fallout 4. While detailing recent changes the mobile-based Fallout Shelter on iOS and Android devices, the developer also released a short video that provides a sneak peak at the improved conversation systems of Fallout 4.

Rather than featuring a fixed camera, Fallout 4 conversations have been enhanced with multiple camera cuts and angles that help make the dialogue have a more cinematic feel. As the first Fallout game to launch on current-gen platforms, the game will have far superior animations than what was capable in previous installments.

The brief example of a conversation with Piper, the newly introduced Fallout 4 vault dweller, shows that the characters conversions will be accompanied by a wide array advanced facial expressions to help illustrate both subtle and overt feelings. More importantly, Fallout 4 will finally also add full-body movement during dialogue. This means that characters can use their hands and posture to further add to the scene.

While the dynamic camera cuts and improved animation certainly help, perhaps the most important new addition that helps breathe life into the spoken interactions of Fallout 4 is due to the fact that the game finally features a fully-voiced protagonist. Rather than seeing a one-sided conversation, players are now shown a completely realized exchange between multiple characters.

Bethesda made sure that there is plenty of content to help fill the open-world wastes of Fallout 4 with a large supporting cast. The game features thousands of spoken lines of dialogue that took voice actors years to record. Furthermore, since players can choose to play as either a male or female vault dweller, every line spoken by the Fallout 4 protagonist had two recorded by two separate actors.

With such a commitment on voicing tons of dialogue for Fallout 4, it’s good to see that the developer is working so hard to make sure that the conversations feel less static. After all, gamers will need to speak with characters to learn new information, barter, and even receive new quests.

In addition to presenting fans with a peek at Fallout 4‘s dialogue, Bethesda is also now helping players prepare of the release of the upcoming game. As reported by the Inquisitr, the developer recently released new information on everything gamers need to know ahead of the Fallout 4 launch.

Do you think that improved conversation cinematics will make you feel more connected to the world of Fallout 4?

[Images via Fallout 4]