The game is set in the former, sparsely populated state of West Virginia-so don't expect the ruined metropolises from previous Fallout games. Right away, you'll notice that the flora and fauna are thriving much better here, which creates a different atmosphere. The main storyline revolves around you deciding to save and rebuild the human world around you, just because you apparently have a kind heart. The year is 2102, and the world has been destroyed by nuclear war, leaving it radioactive and in ruins. There are several empty vaults in the area, but instead of gathering the locals into these safe shelters, you leave your own vault-completely empty, clean, and functional-to head out and wage war against the local wildlife, mutants, and raiders, who, of course, respawn every few minutes anyway.
The presence of online players adds some variety, but at the same time, it means quests can't have any real impact, since each player is doing their own thing, and changes to the world would interfere with others. As a result, the game has virtually no storyline and no real ending. The quests themselves are peak stupidity. Take Something Sentimental as an example: Miss Maggie tells you that her father was trapped in the Monongah Mine... 27 years ago (!!), but the rubble is too heavy to remove and free him. So she asks you to go to a military facility and launch a nuclear bomb (!!) at the mine's coordinates, because the explosion will clear the debris. And you actually do it. The rubble is gone. Then you enter the mine and discover that her father has mutated into a five-meter-tall, three-headed, four-armed creature that spits some kind of slime at you. What else is there to say? Maybe just that this isn't the only nuke you or your fellow players will drop in the name of rebuilding the world. (Just a reminder-the same world you're supposedly restoring was destroyed by nuclear war.) Throughout the entire game, you never get the chance to do anything that would actually help humanity in a meaningful way. The whole story is just one giant logical mess.
Besides the main quests, you have side quests, daily quests, events, challenges, and Steam achievements. Robotic rangers and scouts constantly nag you to "train for the battle against the communist threat," giving you thrilling tasks like "Kill a deer with a crossbow," "Kill a bear with a shotgun," "Kill a wolf with a knife." Or a robot might send you to hunt a "beast," only for you to sneak up and find... a peacefully grazing sloth. (Speaking of communists, imagine discovering a secret underground base, still filled with Chinese communist soldiers, 25 years after the war! LOL.)
Everything that moves can be killed, and you always get points for it. It doesn't matter if it attacks you or not-your mission to make the world a better place for humans means you can slaughter completely harmless squirrels, frogs, rabbits, chickens, fireflies, cats, beavers, brahmin (two-headed cows), foxes, opossums, and even owls. Naturally, you can eat them too-you can even cook up some owlet nuggets from a dead owl. But if you like animals, don't worry-there are perks like Animal Friend and Wasteland Whisperer that let you befriend even aggressive creatures, so you won't have to kill them anymore.
You can cook or prepare over 90 different solid foods (another 80 can be found pre-made in the wasteland) and 25 types of soups, including tomato and tofu soup. Over 40% of the solid foods are meat-free, and nearly 75% of the soups are completely vegan! Plus, you can consume several types of fruits and vegetables (10), legumes and seeds (4), mushrooms (6), and other plants (24) for energy and hydration. Unfortunately, there's no vegan achievement in the game, so reading this whole paragraph was completely pointless.
Just like in Fallout 4, you can build your own camp. This even includes your own vault, which serves absolutely no purpose beyond aesthetics-just like most of the disgusting decorations you can add to it, such as a mounted owlet (a dead owl nailed to a wooden plaque), a dog's head, a gorilla's head, a frog stuffed in a jar, and patriotic propaganda posters.
The factions were pretty forgettable. The Brotherhood of Steel has never been as useless as in this Fallout (though the Steel Dawn update improved this slightly). The Enclave was similarly pointless. The only group that somewhat caught my interest was The Free States, thanks to their idealistic anarcho-individualist philosophy, which actually could have worked in a post-apocalyptic world-too bad Bethesda didn't let them. The goals of the other factions didn't seem worth caring about, though I did actively help The Settlers.
Somehow, I ended up playing 430 hours. I didn't save the world-because the game doesn't even give you that option. Uninstalling.
