Over the course of two Bethesda-hosted panel discussions and a conversation with game director Todd Howard, we gathered new intel on the highly anticipated return of Fallout. Read more to learn about how some of the game systems are evolving for the trip to irradiated Boston millions of PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 gamers will be making come November 10.

Fallout 4 is the most detailed, dense environment Bethesda has made to date. The world has so much content even game director Todd Howard hasn't seen everything in the game.

The extra graphical horsepower provided by the new console gave the team a tech backbone to iterate on its Creation engine and add more dynamic details. Physics-based rendering and volumetric lighting help create more atmosphere in the world, opening the game up to more environmental storytelling.

Fallout 4's narrative has a lot more branching paths and overlapping of "if that than this" than Fallout 3. They want the game to handle all the fail states of missions instead of forcing players to reload saves.

Boston and its surrounding regions offer more varied, vivid colors than Fallout 3, though the color palate still relies heavily on grays and browns in the blast zone where the nuke was detonated.

Fallout 4 has a full weather system that sends radiation storms across the world.

Bethesda has always valued player freedom above storytelling, but with Fallout 4 the team wants to bring more emotional resonance to the plot thread running through the game. This is why they chose to recruit voice actors for both the female and male protagonists the player can make their own.

Combat is receiving a major stimpak thanks to some consulting with id Software to improve the second-to-second shooting. Bethesda's goal? To have the shooting stand shoulder to shoulder with the other great options on the market. The studio even hired away some Bungie talent to help with this remodel. With the new, built-from-scratch shooting system, Howard says Fallout 4 plays much more like a modern shooter. You can aim down the sights, use V.A.T.S., and play in first or third person.

V.A.T.S. has received some slight overhauls. It no longer completely pauses the action, and critical shots are no longer random. If you look at the videos, you'll notice a "critical" bar on the bottom of the screen that the player fills. Once it is fully filled you can decide when to use it. Your luck skill determines how fast the bar increases, and there are perks that dig into how criticals work and how you use them.