AWKWARD ZOMBIE

The initiation of the Dark Brotherhood in Skyrim was done really well yeah, better than Oblivion even. Everything else was a rather weak do-over unfortunately.

Let me tell you what you missed out on actually

While the initiation was indeed less cool, having a creepy dude show up in the middle of the night next to your bed is still unsettling. And right away you notice something interesting: you actually get different dialogue responses. In an RPG? No way! Didn't think you had it in you Bethesda. Unfortunately they are purely cosmetic, but the person you're talking to will actually respond accordingly so it adds a nice bit of flavour. The quests themselves use an interesting system that Bethesda unfortunately has neglected to reuse: you get additional rewards for being sneaky and creative. This pleases Sithis. For example, you can drop a trophy deer head on a dude to make it look like an accident. This culminates in the Whodunit? quest, where you are locked in a house with five other persons who believe there is a treasure inside. You can pick them off one by one without them realizing you're the killer: in fact if you play your cards right they will start blaming each other and do the work for you. Meanwhile, in the base/shrine you get to meet the other members, each with their own reasons and personal history for becoming a murderer, their own style of killing and fun little quirks.

After you've proven your worth, you get to work directly for creepy initiator dude Lucien Lachance. However, there is a problem: a traitor in the Dark Brotherhood. Since the traitor was active before you joined, you're the only one to be trusted. Lucien orders Exterminatus: you're to murder every single person in the Shrine, ensuring the traitor is dead. In fashion with the other quests, it's up to you how to tackle this problem. You can charge in blades pulled, or you can learn the weaknesses of all the members and use them against them.

After taking care of that, to your dismay you find the traitor is still active. You're sent on a wild goose hunt to track him down, eventually leading to his lair filled with rotten carcasses and the insane scribblings of a madman. However, when you return to Lucien with your findings, you find his skinned body hanging from the ceiling. The other leaders of the Dark Brotherhood, Fingers of the Hand, tell you that he was the traitor and that the quests he sent you on were assassinations of high-ranking Brotherhood members, including their leader the Listener. They take you with them to the grave of the Night Mother to choose a new Listener. There, the true traitor reveals himself as he attempts to take out the rest of the Brotherhood.


This is objectively the most well-thought out and creative questline Bethesda has done. You can of course dislike it for subjective reasons, maybe none of the characters meshed with you or it was too dark and "edgy" for your liking, but I miss this same attention to detail and variance in their other work.

i feel like that might sound interesting if any of the characters in oblivion were any form of engaging at all, and not just blandly voiced ugly gnomes

So how about that Fallout.

I'm super hype for Fallout 4. It's the biggest reason that I've decided to now build a PC.

In case you missed it, Bethesda posted a little article about how the character system and perks will work in F4:
http://bethesda.net/#en/events/game/fal ... 5/09/24/31

Basically there's a big perk chart, and which perks you can take depend on your SPECIAL stats. You can also increase your SPECIALs with perk points to unlock the higher level perks for that stat.

It looks like the skill system might be replaced entirely by perks and the level of your SPECIALs, though I'm not sure.

Honestly it looks pretty similar to the perk system in F3, but simplified and more organized. Theyve also been posting cute videos for each of the SPECIALs that hint at what each stat governs and give a few samples of perks.

Also, apparently F4 has no level cap, and leveling speed is faster than in F3 (similar to skyrim) but still XP based. Also physical preorders come with a fancy poster version of the perk chart.

http://bethesda.net/#en/events/game/pre ... 5/10/08/35

Fallout 4's system requirements have been posted.

A compilation of very leaked image so far.
No story spoilers.

It looks so pretty

You kidding? This barely looks better than my modded New Vegas.

it also doesn't look as good as anything that bethesda has actually shown, all of which seems to be actual gameplay because they don't usually lie about graphical quality, which leads me to believe that whoever leaked this either does not have a fantastic computer, or is playing a console version because those settings are lloooow.

Seems to be a PS4.

Well gee excuse me for thinking it was pretty. It looks daisies well better than Fallout 3 that's for sure.

its not alone in the dark, it works for me

fallout 3 was not a good looking game, is the thing

bethesda games in general do not look very nice, especially in stills. in motion they often look better, but really a good looking bethesda game is a fairly low standard.

Maybe if they tried something like a new engine instead of a modified Gamebryo kept together with duct tape and paperclips...