Games Inbox: What will Fallout 5 be like?

The Monday letters page tries to imagine what Fallout 5 might be like, as a reader agrees a Zelda 2 spiritual sequel would be interesting.

Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Post-post-apocalypse
I agree that Microsoft trying to make franchises like The Elder Scrolls and Minecraft Xbox console exclusives seems crazy, but I also see Fallout being talked about in the same breath, as if it’s something that is coming up soon. The Elder Scrolls 6 still seems to be at least two years off so I could be dead of old age by the time Fallout 5 turns up.

I know there’s remakes and a spin-off coming up but that’s not the same thing and not what you’d expect to push the series forward. But if we assume Fallout 5 in, maybe, five years or so – well into the next generation – what is it actually going to be like?

I think most people feel that Fallout 4 was a little disappointing, as it was not very different to Fallout 3, once you took the base-building out of it. My feeling is that it’s time to start showing society rebuilding itself. It’d still be post-apocalyptic but at some point someone’s going to get around to picking up all the trash, knocking down the ruined buildings, and putting up new ones.

I feel that would actually be very interesting, as things starting to turn all right again is very rare to see in that kind of setting. You’d inevitably get people who profited from the status quo, and don’t want things to get better, so I think it’d could be very cool and would not just be the same old thing.
Tom Meadows

Honest marketing
What a weird thing, to take out all the guns from GTA 6 posters, even in the US. Are they somehow trying to make it seem family friendly? Given the amount of nudity that seems to be in it, that seems like an extremely bad idea, which is only going to make things worse for Rockstar if the moral majority gets their teeth into them.

As far as I can tell from the Netflix preview in particularly the morals of the game, if you can call it that, seem the same as always. It might not be as funny in terms of satire but it seems like it’s going to be the same dog eats dog approach they’ve always had.

I say that as good thing because that’s what GTA should be. Like it or loathe it, I really don’t see the sense in pretending it’s anything else but what it is.
Paulie

Apples and oranges
Nice Resident Evil list on Friday. Although almost all of the list is pretty much the order I’d choose – and I feel most people – I didn’t realise until I thought about it, just how difficult it is to decide which is number one. Like you say, Resident Evil 2 and 4 are the best example of their particular styles and they’re so different to each other it’s kind of pointless to compare them.

In theory, and I imagine this is what Capcom was thinking, Requiem would be the perfect blend of the two but for me the last few hours are such a letdown it sours me on the whole thing. If it had ended when you get out of the asylum then I think it would’ve been the best Resi ever, but then it would also be only three hours long, so that doesn’t really count.
Olliephant

Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Zelda 2.5
Interesting Reader’s Feature on the next mainline Zelda at the weekend. I’ve heard a few people say that they should focus on the combat in the future and I wasn’t necessarily down with that, as I don’t think it is that important to Zelda to make it the main focus. But I suppose if, as the reader says, you take that as the reason to do it, it does make some sense.

You could also argue that Zelda 2 was the most combat-focused of the mainline games, so I can begin to see how a modern take on an action role-player could work for a new Zelda game. I don’t particularly want much more in terms of the story though. A better written story, sure, and for heaven’s sake get a better Zelda voice actress, but I definitely don’t care about the stories in Zelda games.

We as players make the stories and I want it to stay that way, not just follow along after some pre-set story the developer made. Instead of The Witcher 3, I would look more at something like Elden Ring, if you wanted to think of a modern action role-player to crib from. I’m sure From are big Nintendo fans, because the way it works seems much more like a dark take on Zelda than a Western game like The Witcher.

But yeah, some interesting ideas and I would be completely okay for Zelda 2 being the main inspiration for the next mainline game.
Zeiss

The final countdown
As the countdown time slowly comes to 30 days, I can’t tell you how excited I am about GTA 6. I know 30 days will feel like six months, but I really can’t wait. There has only been three or four games that I’ve wanted in the last few years but this one my whole body is excited.

I know some people will say why and it’s because it’s been 13 years. I stopped playing GTA 5 years ago and the sooner 19th November gets here the better, because at midnight, when that game unlocks and I can play it, I’ll be there for eight hours solid. The last trailer made it look really good with the graphics, so roll on the 19th.
David

Successful start
In response to someone who said in the Underbox that funding new games via Kickstarter is a waste of money when there is new games being released all the time, one game that has been highly rated and mentioned throughout the gaming press and gaming world that got funding on Kickstarter is the first Hollow Knight game, here is the page for it on Kickstarter.

Also, Beacon Pines, which came out in the past few years, which reviewed well and I really enjoyed, was also funded on Kickstarter, here’s the page.

I backed System Shock 1 remake on Kickstarter and when it was released and reviewed in Edge magazine in the past few years they gave it a 9, which is very good as Edge can be quite harsh with their reviews. They gave Metroid Prime 4 a four out of 10 and Wolverine a five out of 10.

I am sure there are other examples of good or great games like this being funded on Kickstarter, I know when I read the preview section of Edge they will say if a game has been crowdfunded through Kickstarter or other crowdfunding platforms.
Andrew J.
PS: GTA 6 is £64.99 currently on Amazon on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. I think they are price matching Smyths, who are also selling GTA 6 at this price.

Modern malaise
I don’t feel it’s Black Ops 7 that was the real problem for Call Of Duty but Modern Warfare 3. As I recall they couldn’t finish the game on time and rather than skip a year, or make it multiplayer-only, they puffed up some DLC they had planned and made it the game. It was awful, as you’d expect, and for me they never recovered from that.

Ending the Modern Warfare games now and moving onto something else is absolutely the best thing they can do. Giving Black Ops a rest is probably a good idea too. An overreliance on these old sub-franchises is another part of the problem, they just have to make sure the new one isn’t same thing with a new name.
Austin

Instant hit
I got to thinking about the upcoming launch of GTA 6 and the colossus that it’s almost certainly going to be.

My thoughts touched on the vacuum it’s creating for itself, in terms of other games launching, or rather, not launching around its window.

Then I started to wonder about what would it mean to be an exec at Rockstar and, in their world, what would be the definition of a successful launch.

Who is rubbing their hands there waiting for that bonus so they can buy their favourite Caribbean island?

But, really, what are the terms for a successful GTA 6 launch?

It has a huge production budget, and I can only imagine there’ll be an enormous marketing campaign; maybe I’m wrong about the marketing, surely it doesn’t need it?

Anyway, I couched a question to Goggle’s AI mastermind and it suggested between 12.5 million and 30 million units sold before it broke even – quite a spread.

As the install base for PlayStation 5 is about 90 million that means it could be a third of all owners have to buy a copy before Rockstar make a cent.

Am I correct in saying that the game has been rated as mature, too? An action which should limit the sales of the game, but won’t.

I’ve made a few assumptions here and relied on a hallucinogenic AI, ignored the entire userbase for Xbox and PC; I’ve also completely neglected the long term sales run and cash cow of online when it arrives.

But, it seems to me they’ll want a big splash at launch, figures wise, and that, my friends, is one giant bomb coming our way.

No pressure on your review score then, GC.
Shambling Reg

GC: Nobody knows what the budget is for GTA 6, and rumours vary wildly, so it’s impossible to calculate what it needs to become profitable. The marketing budget for GTA 6 is believed to be $150 million. That’s a relatively normal amount for a big budget movie, so Rockstar haven’t gone overboard in that respect. Being mature rated certainly didn’t hurt the previous games, or franchises like Call Of Duty. GTA 6 is not going to have trouble making money, it’ll be the biggest entertainment launch in history by a considerable margin.

Inbox also-rans
I can’t believe Xbox would consider making Minecraft an Xbox exclusive either. I’m sure it’s played a lot on PC but no way are there going to be kids lining up to play it on Xbox.
Scooter

I am very jealous of that Zelda: Ocarina Of Time pre-order. I realise it’s only a box but the nostalgia on that one hit me pretty hard.
Denbo

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New Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length and content.

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MORE: Games Inbox: Was the GTA 6 launch trailer the last one?

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