Lose yourself in the atmosphere and forget about time

You know, there are games you just play, and there are games you live in. For me, Fallout 4 fell into the latter category. The main thing I loved about this game was its incredible, dense post-apocalyptic atmosphere, steeped in the naive American dream of the 1950s.

It's a huge pleasure to simply wander the Wasteland and explore its locations. The interiors are especially well-done: abandoned robot factories or Nuka-Cola factories. You walk inside and find robots stuck in an endless loop, broken and crazy, who could easily consider you a pest like a small rodent—or even see you as some kind of ghost from the pre-war era. The architecture inside the buildings is a veritable labyrinth, intricate and fascinating. You descend into yet another basement, and there's a whole story unfolding, played out with skeletons, notes, and terminals.

The visual style is truly captivating. You look at all these battered and dusty relics from the utopian America of the 1950s: advertising banners, nuclear-powered cars, scattered children's toys like letter blocks, and empty, easily recognizable Coke bottles. Incidentally, I'm almost certain Coca-Cola sponsored the development—the company is renowned for its ability to market itself. And the coolest thing is: all these objects, battered and rusty, look even more valuable, as if they've stood the test of time. Add to this the atmosphere of 1960s detectives, spiced up with classic Westerns and the futuristic style of old science fiction. You can carry a good old revolver, or you can get a laser version. And the damage output will be sufficient with any build. This, of course, slightly disrupts the hardcore survival experience, where you can effectively fight robots in a torn T-shirt with a rusty shotgun. But I've decided for myself: Fallout 4 is a good classic Broadway show. A terrifying and brutal theater in which only the player decides which role to choose.

I'd like to say a special word about the quests. Despite the shooting and action, they are full of storylines that hit you right in the heart. Tragic forks in the road, where there is no clear right choice, make you truly suffer and care about the characters.

But the real abyss, where I lost track of time, was building settlements. The freedom of action there is simply maddening. You come home from a mission to "plant a couple of garden beds," and three hours later, you're using a flashlight to choose the perfect lamp for the communal dining room or a sofa that perfectly suits the spirit of these settlers. It's incredibly addictive.

But there's a catch.

There are moments that really weigh on your psyche. For example, the atmosphere in the raider bases. Those barricades of old, rotten boards, hanging skulls, and piles of corpses for intimidation—it feels very unsettling. It's that edge of madness that the developers captured all too well.

And the main drawback, the one that irritates me the most, is the insane amount of junk. Seriously, there are tons of items in the game! You open another drawer or safe, and inside are hundreds of different crafting items. This triggers a frenzied loot addiction: you start collecting everything "just in case" instead of just playing. Sometimes you catch yourself thinking that half the time you spend in the menu, sorting through this junk.

And yet... Fallout 4 for me is a hymn to order in a world of mad chaos. A paradise for a desperate perfectionist trying to make sense of the chaos of real life in a virtual world. But no matter how much you arrange objects in your base, no matter how much you choose the color of the carpet, no one but you will clean the real dust from under your real couch. Perhaps that's why we love these games—they only provide a temporary respite, not a true refuge.