Fallout 4 was dire. I'm not a massive enthusiast of open world RPGs, I play them fairly casually but even I was confused by the obvious shortcomings. Basically echoing everyone else, but;



1) Better writers. It was all poorly written, some of it really plumbed the depths of mediocrity. Right from the initial set up you could tell you weren't going to get anything even vaguely intelligent or interesting out of the writing.



2) The main plot had too much urgency. Missing children! GOTTA GO FAST FIND SEAN! But I'll just spend a few days fucking about with a base first yeah.



3) Big one for me, the world felt....wrong. It was nice enough to potter about in at times, but it didn't really feel like 200 years had passed or that a nuke had gone off just over there. My community of dinky wooden houses weathered that 200 years and nuke blast pretty well. It felt more like 20 years and no nuke to me. I was never quite invested. It all felt like a big map with stuff just randomly scattered about, none of it felt cohesive. Compare that to say Witcher 3 where the landscape feels natural, ancient, the towns and villages feel like they've grown organically over time, they fit with the environment they're in. Witcher 3 conveyed more cohesion, more sense of place and life in a single small fishing village on the windswept edge of Skellige than F4 managed in the entirety of the time I played it.



4) Needs better questions add t's, not dull quests. And dull characters. That whole Minuteman quest line was bad. And they want to make me leader after like 20 minutes! Daft.



5) Voiced protagonist was a baaaaaaad idea, as we're the stunted go nowhere say the same stuff dialogue options. Also see above, it was all poorly written and just so dull. I was skipping through the chat.



I gave it maybe 15 hrs or so and never really shook the feeling that it was all a bit amateur feeling. Also I was playing Witcher 3 at the time too (still am!) which just highlighted the myriad shortcomings in F4.