Fallout 4 is a massive game. We already covered the SPECIAL Perks system with a general overview, then with more detailed looks at each of the categories in the system. Now it's time to look at a facet of the game that isn't a requirement. You basically level up and use the SPECIAL Perks system if you want to make it through the game. However, you don't have to craft or build anything, and that's what we're taking a look at in this article.
The crafting in Fallout 4 was completely revamped to the point where it's almost a game within a game. This isn't a quick house builder where you move around preset objects. You decide where to put each wall, but before you can place a wall you have to find the resources required to build it. Likewise, if you want to place a chair in your new building, you'll need to acquire the resource, then build the chair from scratch before you place it in your home.
Most of the interactions between raw materials and crafting will come via the workbench. You may find a glass bottle while roaming around post-apocalyptic Boston. You can take that bottle to the workbench and break it down to usable glass. You can then take the glass and use it to create a window in your house or even a lens for your weapon scope.
Of course it can be rather daunting to think you need to scavenge for every possible raw resource. That would potentially require you to keep every piece of trash you come across, just in case it can be broken down into something useful. To help alleviate this potential problem, you can mark an item you want to craft and the game will inform you if you come across items that can be directly used to create the desired object, or can be broken down into the raw materials required for crafting.
There's also another system in place to help you avoid carrying around a plethora of items. For the larger crafting jobs that require far more raw resources, you can place crafting items in workbenches found in the immediate area. When you access a workbench you'll see all of the items you stored there without the need to carry everything with you. This is extremely helpful because there's a weight limit to the number of items you can carry in Fallout 4. You would quickly reach this weight limit if you wanted to craft a lot and were forced to carry everything.
To take crafting one step further, some of the items you craft can be controlled once you created them. The E3 2015 gameplay demo showed this off a bit. A sign was connected to a computer terminal. This made the sign light up in the demo, showing the famed Fallout mascot (Vault Boy) giving a thumbs up gesture. When you connect certain creations to a computer terminal, you can do a light-up sign similar to what was on display at E3, but you can determine the color of every light, the order sequence in which the lights display and much more.
This extra step in the creation process adds depth to the Fallout 4 crafting system. Anyone can create a basic house, but can you create a house that lights up, with wheels and a steering column so you can drive it around as you travel through the area? The potential creations that occur when you tap into a computer terminal are considerably vast. It should be interesting to see what players can do with this system once the game is available.
I've played American McGee's Alice, and that is the perfect archetype to survive the nuclear apocalypse. My third play through will be of course a supermench monster exploiting every loophole and feature in the game. I forgot the actual term for those kind of play throughs but smart leveling and squeezing everything you can out of the world into one character is some of the most fun you can have in a Bethesda title.
