E3 2015: Fallout 4 Brings The Pip-Boy to the Real World

While the announcement of the heavily rumored Fallout 4 wasn’t a huge surprise, that isn’t to say that the announcement of the game didn’t bring with it some big surprises. While many had correctly guessed that the game would be set in Boston, what hadn’t really been rumored was that for the first time we would get to play in the pre nuclear war era even if only for a short while.

Fallout 4 pits the player as the sole survivor of Vault 111, one of the many nuclear bunkers built by Vault-tec that the lucky few were able to use to survive nuclear Armageddon at some point in the fifties.

Bethesda have made a game which builds on the success of Fallout 3, bringing everything that worked into a larger world. Fans of ‘dogmeat’ the popular canine companion that players could bring along on their adventures in previous games will be happy to hear that Fallout 4 puts a lot more focus on the pup. To go along with this added focus, this time your canine pal will be a lot more useful and realistic as you scavenge the irradiated wastelands together.

Another major change is that this time your character is given an in game voice, but don’t worry, as players can still choose to be male or female, and can still fully customize their characters appearance to their liking. Personally I always prefer a character to have a voice, so that’s news I welcome.

One of the best innovations of Fallout 3 was the VATS system, which let you pause the action at any time and choose what your character would do next, choosing which enemy to attack, what weapon to use and which specific part of them to target. These actions would be carried out with dynamically chosen cinematic flair. Players that preferred to just control the action directly could do so, but VATS really won a lot of people over, myself included.

The coolest surprise is that Fallout 4 is going to be launched alongside with an app for your smartphone that lets you use your phone as your Pip-Boy. A Pip-Boy is a wearable computer in the Fallout universe and is where you handle your inventory, your upgrades, VATS and where you access the map of the world. The app lets you directly interact with the game world.

Making this even more exciting is that the Pip-Boy Edition of the game comes with a Pip-Boy you can actually plug your mobile phone into and strap onto your arm. Not only does this let you easily access your Pip-Boy, but it means you’ll be doing so just as your ingame character does, further immersing players in the game.

Fallout 4 is expected to launch for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC on November 10^th. The Pip-Boy edition will be available on all platforms and will retail for $119.99. Hit the pre-order today!