Fallout 4 improves significantly over its predecessors in terms of gunplay. Movement and gun usage feel organic and satisfying, closer to what one would expect in a FPS game. The crafting mechanic is also greatly expanded compared to previous games, with the ability to craft modifications for weapons and armour, adding to the immersion of the game. Crafting also plays an important role in the new settlement mechanic, where furniture, farms, walls and defences can be built around certain areas. This is a welcome and interesting step that adds variety to the game.

While it is more satisfying to use guns in Fallout 4, gameplay is significantly hampered by how cluttered environments can seem. The fact that everything, from screwdrivers to coffee cups, can be potentially needed in crafting encourages a hoarder-like gameplay where every single container is checked, especially in indoor dungeons. This significantly slows down the pace of gameplay and interrupts the process of being able to appreciate the environment. Complicating this is the prevalence of special loot, which are often hidden in unassuming places. They often offer permanent character upgrades, making it unpalatable to miss them, yet the cluttered areas in Fallout 4 make it a nightmare to comb for them.

The broader issues with Fallout 4's cluttered environments stem not from the importance of the crafting system but rather how the scavenging system has been implemented. Although scavenging/crafting are logical components of a survival/post-nuclear themed game, the game would greatly benefit from reducing the number of containers with randomly generated loot, while introducing specific locations which contain an abundance of specific crafting materials (e.g. a robotics factory has an abundance of items which can be scrapped into circuitry/fiber optics/steel). This would make the scavenging a distinct aspect of the game where you raid specific locations for specific materials, rather than a tedious chore that constantly interrupts the process of combat/exploration.

Compared to previous games, the lighting and general environment of Fallout 4 are a lot brighter, making the world a lot more appealing to play in. Graphics have greatly improved as well. However, exploration quickly becomes tiring when one realises that settlements are extremely rare, with new areas usually resulting in more enemies to fight, rather than new characters to meet. One gets the impression that beyond Diamond City/Goodneighbour and the faction hubs, there is an endless sea of ruins infested raiders, super mutants and ghouls. Although the player can build settlements of their own, they do not add depth to the world due to the limited interactions with the NPCs within them.

Dialogue in Fallout 4 is bad. Options are summarised and presented in a dialogue wheel, and can often be misleading in terms of what the character actually says. The choices themselves tend to be fairly limited, as are the opportunities to meaningfully define the identity of the character through what they say. A lack of meaningful dialogue is also seen in the poor development of NPCs in Fallout 4, as there is usually little opportunity to discuss their background or ideas. These problems are exacerbated by the fact that often choosing different options will still result in the same outcomes, unless it is explicitly made clear that a choice is being offered. While dialogue wheels have their place in facilitating streamlined dialogue cutscenes (such as in Dragon Age: Inquisition), they clash with the fundamental gameplay of Fallout 4, where dialogue is meant to be a lot longer and branching in order to facilitate world-building and character development. In this aspect the dialogue systems of the previous Fallout games are far superior.

(This paragraph has SPOILERS about the factions). Having clear-cut good/bad factions is generally negative as it makes choices to support a particular side unmeaningful and pre-determined. Yet the opposite, making each faction equally morally 'grey', is arguably no better. If factions are equally good or bad, then the only way to decide between them would be a coin-toss, which itself is hardly meaningful. Creating meaningful factions is not about making each faction equally 'grey' but rather introducing defects to each faction while also ensuring that they each have a highly compelling purpose. To this extent the Brotherhood of Steel and Minutemen in Fallout 4 are well-created factions. The Brotherhood of Steel quite clearly are in a strong position to offer safety and technology to the Wasteland, although their founding ideology gives them a tendency towards xenophobia and hoarding technology. Meanwhile, the Minutemen, being the closest option to pre-war civilisation, are shown to be historically beset by infighting, demoralisation and corruption. The other two factions, however, are far less compelling as options. The Institute seems to borrow strongly from the trope of 'science gone wrong', with many of their actions seeming illogical (and perhaps shoehorned in for the sake of moral 'greyness'), while the Railroad has no meaningful relationship to broader wasteland society. Nevertheless, the Institute remains a valid choice for those who think that the 'ends justifies the means', or for those who think that it can be reformed with the player as its leader. Overall, the factions in Fallout 4 are decently done, although the Institute leans towards beings presented as a plainly evil choice. Nevertheless, the limits of the dialogue system prevent them from being fleshed out to their fullest extent.

Quests in Fallout 4 have an even more overbearing feel of 'fetch quests' where something is reached or retrieved at a location after killing the enemies in the way. Indeed many of the descriptions of the quests in Fallout 4 feel like they might fit better under the 'Miscellaneous' quest tab. While it is true that most quests in RPG games, when boiled down, are fetch quests, this is usually hidden by adding multiple stages to the quest, as well as layers of interesting scenarios, environments and characters. The fact that quests in this game seem so much like fetch quests is testament to how poorly the previously mentioned factors are done in Fallout 4.

Overall, many of the core elements of Fallout franchise (exploration, dialogue, choices) are poorly done in Fallout 4. The overbearing feeling I get while playing this game is that while it is fun to play in short-bursts thanks to the improved combat and graphics, it offers very little to keep you engaged beyond that due to an unimmersive world for all of the reasons I have outlined.