Fallout 4 isn't the problem. It's a great game, albeit, I despise the restrictions they bring in by adding a voiced main character (I'd riot if that was in an Elder Scrolls game) because they limit roleplaying and modding capabilities, and the main storyline's plot forks are super restrictive and morally ambiguous in ways that don't make sense, where as decisions in past games had a "do you pick the
right option, or do you pick the option that helps you the most?" vibe, but the main decision in Fallout 4 was literally:
...and they didn't even allow the multi-track drifting.
My problem with Fallout 4, which is very similar to the problems many Bethesda fans I've talked to have as well, is that Fallout 4 was designed to bring in as much profit as possible, not to be an amazing game that long term fans of Bethesda's products will value for years to come. Skyrim is still being played today, 5 years after it's release, because of modding and the accessibility to people to mod. This is where the issue lies.
Fallout 4 was marketed to release various DLCs that cut out modding more or less altogether until they're less relevant, as where they only released the Creation Kit after they released DLCs that are quite literally the level of sub-impressive player made mods. The release of Wasteland Workshops makes it so that any mod using or manipulating or changing anything a part of the Wasteland Workshops legally require users to own those DLCs. However, those DLCs have little to no real content in them, and are illicitly in there to limit the freedom of modders. If those conveyor belts and such and such were all a part of the base game, this problem wouldn't exist, but they literally only added those partial-DLCs to limit modders/require users to get those DLCs to use specific mods (meaning they can charge MORE than $60 to the people used to that and get away with it!).
Take into reference Skyrim. In Fallout 3 and New Vegas, there were several DLCs that all had storylines, quests, new areas, new weapon types and special weapons, and just awesome content and hours of entertainment. In Skyrim, the first DLC released, Dawnguard, was a mod that added a series of quests and items overlapping the base world, and adding a few new areas that act as bases and questing zones for the DLCs. However, the most we walk away with is crossbows and an emo girlfriend, but I'm not Lil B, so that doesn't necessarily peak my interests. Sure, I'm not giving Dawnguard too much credit, but you should then remember Dragonborn. Solstheim was an amazing DLC in that it added a new, awesome area that blended the aspects of Skyrim and Morrowind (many designs used were pulled straight from TES3, really pulling on the old nostalgia strings for many long term fans), as well as incorporated many new dungeons and zones, added upon the lore of Tamriel quite well, and left players with a whole new arsenal of loot, multiple followers, and something to remember. Now, it's certainly a step up from Oblivion DLCs, where you're basically paying 2000 gold at a time to upgrade an aspect of a player home that you mysteriously inherited from some family member, though Shivering Isles set the standard for what Bethesda's DLCs would be, and in Fallout 3, they delivered. Every DLC of Fallout 3 was like a slightly downscaled Shivering Isles, which expanded on the experience of Fallout 3 and leaves people like me saying "yeah, that was one of my favorite games of all time." In Fallout: New Vegas, they nailed it as well (mostly; I'm trying to ignore the stupid launch deals (buy it on all platforms and get cool loot!... for each... separately... and then buy the rest later!) and the one or two that exclusively adds weapons), so I have no idea why they limited it in Skyrim. However, at least Skyrim's DLCs are still memorable, and both of them blessed modders with a
TOOON of new assets to work with.
But for Fallout 4, they released Megatron or whatever they called it, which was setting up to be like Dawnguard but instead of adding a number of new dungeons they just added a really cool one, but you could beat it in like half an hour, and the pacing on how you get robot parts and shit is terrible, along with Wasteland Workshop (disclaimer that we wouldn't learn until weeks/months later: there's going to be three of them), which again, is fucked up. Then they released Far Harbor, which despite me not completing, was a really cool experience, and the design on various things from what I had seen really impressed me. I'll keep it spoiler free; that robot was really cool! Aaaand another Wasteland Workshop. Now, they're releasing Nuka World, which has the
potential to be a great experience as well,
aaaand another Wasteland Workshop.
A big problem I had about all this was that Fallout 4 was supposed to be their introductions to mods on console, something that excited me, but I well knew it would be quite limited as modding on PC can be quite annoying as mods tend to have compatibility issues and patches are required, sometimes those patches don't exist, and how would you get them anyway on console? Despite that, I was excited for what it meant, because it meant I could tell my friends who play it on console "hey, you should really check out this mod!" Yet those fucking Wasteland Workshops. So, the first WW added shit that should just be in the base game, no question. And the second WW, Contraptions, literally added the type of shit you would see by a modder, so that's kind of frustrating. But with the third one, people were already working and releasing mods that allowed custom Vault building, and they were actually way less limiting than the official DLC.
It really upsets me because they're looking at the one thing that keeps some of their games, like Skyrim, alive for years and years, and saying "hm. How can we profit off of that?" However, in doing so, they're doing things that
really restrict modders. It's kind of a kick in the gut.
Bethesda games under Ken Rolston (the lead for Morrowind and Oblivion) really took in elements from pen-and-paper roleplaying games, even down to the HUD. Todd Howard has always been a great project manager, because he did a great job at taking those visions of Ken and the team and getting them into the game and out the door to the market. However, modern Bethesda games just don't have that appeal anymore, in that in Morrowind and Oblivion, you were basically no one who became someone (note, the main player in Morrowind could easily have not been the Nerevarine), but in Skyrim, you're
forced to be the Dragonborn, and you have to have a damn good reason to keep yourself convinced that you may not be if you're roleplaying as someone who isn't, because so much of that game is in being the Dragonborn. This is a whole different discussion altogether, but it goes hand in hand with the whole money-grabbing scheme they're pulling to convince me that they're just not compassionate about making games anymore and only interested in getting that new car or moving somewhere ten feet closer to the beach. Watch the Making of Oblivion documentary some time, the employees there seem like ordinary people and college students just making a game together, it's kind of fascinating. You just don't get that to day.