And then it was all wasted for "Sarcasm" options, and almost zero opportunity to actually see the player character be affected by all the stuff they suffered. Point is, they had a goldmine opportunity when they made the player character an out of time remnant of pre-War America. Remember when you visit the Fraternal Post 115 the player character can reflect on the "War never changes" intro? Imagine if there were moments like that throughout the game, with dozens of locations that would remind you of a past long gone.Īnyway, I'm just rambling now. And visiting locations you've seen in their pre-War state would also solidify the "I lost everything" narrative. All of it wiped out in nuclear fire, and it's not just "wow that's a pretty explosion" but an actual "Holy shit that guy I met half an hour ago and promised to help him just got incinerated!". I think having the prologue be an hour-long experience with choices, backstory, specific characters and locations would be extremely powerful to then take away. Get to know just how corrupt the society of pre-War America became, not just from terminal entries, but from actually juggling justice and law. You could write a similar montage for Nora - her time as an attorney, perhaps some sort of involvement with criminals stealing military technology (and that's how you'd introduce a Power Armour tutorial in pre-War intro). Get a bit of a montage going perhaps, similar to Kellogg's life montage but more interactive and covering a shorter period of Nate and Nora's life. Get to actually know Nora, find out what she's like. Then you go from *that* to your nice a quiet suburban life. It'd be a perfect tutorial intro, including Power Armour but not making you feel like you're getting it too early and haven't earned it. Imagine if you were to start the game not in a nice suburban house, but on a Great War battlefield. In my opinion, and I admit I am no game designer, they could've achieved all of the same things without rushing through the prologue and leaving us with an empty husk of a motivation.