Bethesda recently announced that they were hosting their first E3 conference and “Fallout 4 confirmed!” roared gamers everywhere. Granted, Bethesda has a lot of studios under its belt, such as Machine Games, Arkane Studios, and id software, so their conference could very well involve games from these studios. But this is Bethesda’s first E3 conference ever, and I doubt they would host one if it wasn’t to announce one of the most anticipated games since 2011.

Now, we have been cursing at every E3 in the past 4 years for not announcing Fallout 4, but now that the game is almost confirmed, what exactly do we want from the series? I am sure Bethesda has plenty of features we haven’t even thought about that will blow us away, but based on our experiences with Fallout 3 and New Vegas, these are the 6 features we hope to see in the new Fallout game.

A personal story

Fallout 3 gave you a lot of freedom and presented many good/evil choices. And if you wanted to be really evil, Fallout 3 delivered in spades (blowing up Megaton, anyone?). Yet the main mission asked you to go on some world saving quest where you had to follow in your father’s footsteps to provide clean water to everyone in the wasteland. The ‘save the world’ type of scenario might work in the likes in Elder Scrolls and Dragon Age, but in a world that stresses moral ambiguity and freedom of choice, you’d hate to be shoehorned in the role of the saviour. When everyone through the main mission congratulates on your work, and when your father puts so much faith in you to finish his work, evil choices become jarring and do take you out of the experience.

New Vegas was perfect in this regards. It gave you barely any information on who your character is, and sets you on a personal quest for revenge. With so little information on who you are, and with no real defined quest, roleplaying became much easier where you could sink your teeth in bad karma without worrying about what your father would have to say. So we hope that Bethesda takes the same approach with Fallout 4, and gives us a personal story for our character, where we are free to forge however we please as we go forward

Better writing

As much as I love Bethesda, I will be the first to admit that they don’t know how to create memorable characters. Fallout 3 absolutely nailed the world building, the freedom, the atmosphere, but the characters were as charismatic as a wet tissue. New Vegas on the other hand had far more memorable characters (Mr. House, anyone?), with interesting dialogue, fleshed out companions, and most of all, the dark humor. This made Fallout 3’s shortcomings all the more obvious in contrast.

" Because one dog ain't enough, and two is too low!"

Fallout has always been about balancing the the doom and gloom of the wasteland with the black humor of its characters. Fallout 3 did have memorable characters like Fawkes and Three Dog, but these were few and far between. We don’t want a The Last of Us-type plot, but we would appreciate a few livelier cast of characters to accompany you while you Mad Max it up.

Livelier world

Now, I don’t expect raves to be held in the middle of the wasteland. I realize that having a ‘lively’ wasteland is an oxymoron. But I remember my disappointment when I first visited the city of New Vegas, the glamorous wonderland everybody had been talking about, only to find its casinos populated by about 6 people each (luckily there was a mod for that!). Bethesda’s games have always been about immersing yourself in a large world, and seeing the same five people walking around a city or a town can really break the immersion.

Forever alone.

We’d love for Fallout 4 to have a more populated world, for each city to have its own unique cast of citizens walking around and performing tasks. GTA showed time and time again how a populated world can do wonders for immersion, and in a company whose selling point is how immersive its games are, then a living world is almost a pre-requisite. Fallout 3 was better than New Vegas in this regards, with cities like Megaton and Rivet City doing a good job to convey a sense of community. We also understand that fewer NPCs can be the result of hardware limitations on consoles, but now with more than a year into the new generation and new hardware, we should at least have the option to hold raves in the middle of the wasteland.

Improved Combat

I’m one of the few that enjoyed Fallout 3’s combat system. The clunky shooting and imprecise aiming made perfect sense in the context of the game - you just came out of a vault, of course you don’t know how to use a gun. V.A.T.S system was great to save you in the last moments of a battle, and it gave you great satisfaction to dismember your enemy with a bullet right before your health ran out.

While the core mechanics were great, everything surrounding them were half-baked. Enemies seemed to have kevlar skulls, where multiple headshot would ‘cripple’ their head, instead of, you know, blow their brains out. Human enemies made no attempt at displaying any combat competence, instead they all charged at you in the same way from the same direction using the same weapons trying to kill you in the same way. With the variety of weapons the game provides, enemies should have plenty of options to flank you, flush you out, divide themselves between close range and long range, and just use a variety of tactics to attack you.

More customization

Bethesda games are great at customization, and I can never start an Elder Scrolls game without spending close to 45 minutes tweaking every aspect of my character. Fallout lacked this, instead giving you a few face types, limited hair styles, and almost no body type options. When Elder Scrolls gives you the option to customize the brow depth of your character, there’s no real reason we can’t have this in Fallout.

Its not just appearance we want to customize. We would also love to see an in-depth weapon customization option in Fallout 4, something New Vegas somewhat provided. After all, the post apocalypse is all about resourcefulness and using whatever spare parts you can scavenge to create tools with. Being able to use spare parts to customize your own weapons would add a lot more depth to the combat, and make your journey a lot more personal. And with no multiplayer component, balancing won’t be that big an issue.

One last point - there’s no real race variety in the Fallout universe, but how cool would it to be to play as ghoul?

"Hey! Who you callin' a zombie?"

Drivable Vehicles

This is one feature I am not sure I actually want. Despite long travel distances, traversing the wasteland on foot rarely felt tedious, and walking to the checkpoint on the other side of the map almost always meant that you’ll discover new locations, meet weird characters, and get sidetracked in all kinds of interesting side quests.

But broken down vehicles are constantly present in the Fallout's landscape, so why not have a fixed motor bike you can use to tour the wasteland. An easier transportation method can mean a larger map, more combat options (or to avoid combat), and less reliance on auto travel.

Driveable vehicles are far from a must-have feature in the next Fallout, but it is always interesting to consider the options. Also, couple a driveable bike with bigger customization and you will finally be able to build your own big bad bike with the fire exhaust and call it Rough Rider.

Of course there are many, many things that we would love to see in future Fallout games, from better survival mechanics to an improved karma system to a radio with more songs. But these six features are the ones we would like to see the most. What would you like to see in Fallout 4? Let us know in the comments below!

Serge was the former editorial head for IGN ME Arabic, and remains our resident historian and lover of Bethesda games. Hit him up on Twitter!