Gaming

Both games do environmental storytelling, but with vastly different goals.

Obsidian approach is very constantly supporting a consistent tone and overarching setting. It is more desolate and feels more desolate because that’s what a lot of these in-between little areas are supposed to be. But the details in each area that are there so tell a story about what the area is like and how it function, they give a history to what you are seeing but it often isn’t over the top and full of little cute mini-stories you can follow. It isn’t bad storytelling, it’s telling a story you’re not into.

The Bethesda approach is often much more varied. Each settlement or location can have all these environmental stories, often will little miniature running plots. The variety extends to tone, and type of story. This does come at the expense of some coherence if you step back and start putting a critical eye to everything as a whole.

They are trying to give players different experiences. FNV a player can travel through a bleak desert, maybe only with hostile encounters as the Jungle Jangle radio plays until they finally hit a settlement and it feels like an actual refuge from the sun and rad scorpions to the player. The desolation builds that. Fallout 3 and especially 4 don’t want the player getting bored, so there is something interesting and different every ten feet to check out.

I suppose it says a lot about me that my Fallout 4 modlist turns the world into an extremely dangerous, ghoul filled place with dark nights, and rad storms. All of which makes travel on the overworld terrifying, and settlements feel extra secure in contrast.