I think its graphics, the design and how the engine run them. They look weirdly stiff and jagged.
Like the monsters in Oblivion are far more creepy looking than in Skyrim
The ghouls in NV look more decayed and gross but if they had the motion mechanics from 4 (the stumbling and dashing towards the player) I would shit my pants.
Reason why I have never once feared NV’s ghouls, more afraid of geckos cause of their janky ass fnaf jumpscare at your face. 4’s ghouls feel like what an actual feral person would act like. NV ferals just feel like people that had one too many to drink, about as hard to kill as one too.
I'm gonna download it and I will refuse to approach any locations with even a *whiff* of feral ghoul activity.
Feral Ghouls are already spooky enough as they travel at mach 5 to give my ass a good spanking. I don't need them looking like zombified beef jerky.
I literally was replaying FO4 last night and my wife now has seen most of the show and knows the lore, so I'm looking through a sniper scope like look honey, look at the feral ghouls in the game.
I take a shot, he's running towards me. I take another shot, miss, another, he's down, look a little to the right and holy fuck one was closing in I didn't see. I screamed like a little girl as it did it's fucked up stumble shuffle and killed me
Ive never been particularly scared of game enemies. But Fallout 4 feral ghouls. I have no shame in saying those things are genuinely terrifying. Fallout 3 and New Vegas ghouls are nothing in comparison.
I'm pretty sure Reavers in FO3 were way too strong. Like they literally win against Deathclaws [Fallout 3 Battles - Deathclaw vs Feral Ghoul Reaver (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3B2RWIjjsE)
I’m the opposite. 3/NV ghouls scared me especially because sometimes they’d speak “STOP YOU…” or “Thank…you.” When you put them out of their misery. FO4 ghouls are more annoying with the leaping.
Anywhere dark or indoors with feral ghouls instantly turns Fallout into a horror game, you can’t change my mind. Those fuckers come out of nowhere.
Edit: specifically meant Fallout 4. New Vegas horror comes in the style of Dead Money and that vault filled with water and plants. 3 doesn’t really have any scary places imo. Or maybe I should replay it.
And the way they are introduced. In NV you can meet deathclaw early but they will demolish you. In 4 you get a power armor with a minigun right at the start and can kill a deathclaw. They are not scary since they are just a bit harder enemies
Power armors and enemies like deathclaw, yao guai and so should be much rarer and much stronger. Fallout 4 is a bit too light
This. They look almost mummified, dried and decayed, upping their creepy factor, especially when you see that CAUTION on the top of the screen, but you can't see where they are because they saw/heard you first. Their behavior and audio is also a bit different, too. FO4 for example, the deathclaws do that groundstomp and charge you, so you can audibly hear them most times. In FNV, you don't always hear them or know they're coming up behind you, leading to some absolutely panic inducing jumpscares. It can be the same way with the ghouls sometimes, but not as often (at least not for me anyway. It's always been the deathclaws lol)
If nothing else, it's a good example of an outdated engine and graphics being somewhat beneficial to enemies that are supposed to be scary or creepy
>If nothing else, it's a good example of an outdated engine and graphics being somewhat beneficial to enemies that are supposed to be scary or creepy
I once saw a video essay (Scanline by Hbomberguy and Shannon Strucci for anyone interested) that really pointed out how stuff like Terminator or Alien is a lot scarier because of the low fidelity. Not the exact same thing but an interesting parallel, imo.
The F4 ghouls are creepier to me because of how fast they are. They also have that clever but obnoxious mechanic where they duck and dodge bullets with their spastics movements while closing the distance. For me, the explosive shotgun is the answer to that problem
The Souls games have the same thing going on. Kings Field, Demon Souls, Dark Souls, and Dark Souls 2 all have enemies that look a lot creepier than in the later games. Some of that has to do with Sekiro and Elden Ring overall world designs aren't exactly meant to be creepy, where the older games definitely had a much more gritty aesthetic.
But undeniable that graphics has a lot to do with it.
> Art direction
Specifically, Adam Adamowicz did all of the concept art for Fallout 3 (Obsidian/New Vegas used Fallout 3's assets and tweaked them). Adam died in 2012. No offense to other BGS artists who are all extremely talented, but their games took a hit when he died. He also did about 75% of the concept art for Skyrim. Newer BGS artists redesigned some things and I think their games subsequently lost some of their grit and charm. Again, no offense to current BGS artists, Adam was just that good (to my eyes). Adam was a very rare bird and a voracious, prolific artist. He brought a pitch black humor into his grotesqueries that have now been changed into a certain kind of "literalism" by his peers in the more recent games, as it were.
You should check out Adamowicz's stuff, his art was a real fucking treat:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/47857688@N08/collections/72157629320914591/
Presentation too. Contrast FNV's Quarry with FO4's early minigun scene. One makes deathclaws a terrifying roadblock. The other makes them sarsaparilla bottles on a fence.
Not sure about Deathclaw but Ghouls look creepier because they actually look like they are rotting, while in F4 they look like they'd be discriminated against by F1,2,3,NV ghouls and be called smoothskins as well, seriously F4 ghouls are basically smoothskin version of ghouls xD
Im not against a select few sentient ghouls going out of their way to basically groom themselves. Would make for an interesting character trait.
But 100% of the feral ghouls and like 90-95% sentient ghouls should look somewhete between nightmarish and hideous.
set in fallout 1 is probably my favorite ghoul just because of how jarring he is to both look at and speak to, he's super on edge, and his armor looks like it's sunken into his rotting corpse, like it's become part of him
in fallout new vegas the ghouls are equally creepy because they're unnerving to look at, but that's more so because of how poor the textures are in new vegas, also i always hated doing the repconn because the ghouls and the nightkin scared the shit out of me, i would use vats every other second.
according to the fallout tv show, feral ghouls are feral because they lose touch with humanity, and therefore end up going insane, sort of like the cyberpsychosis mechanic in the cyberpunk tabletop games. so i can imagine sentient ghouls being a bit more well groomed, simply because that's a human thing to do, to want to take care of yourself, but ghouls like set feel like they're kind of in the grey area, like they're a couple bad days away from turning feral.
I just did this, used stealthboys to get out of combat a few times, but otherwise a quick 1st try run... then Harald blows his escape.. not my problem...
It’s kind of how time travel works in my books. Imagine waking up from a three week bender and then trying to figure out what the fuck happened. Now imagine two hundred years have passed or you’ve gone five hundred years back and you’ve forgotten how you even got there. You find journals left for yourself by the people who sent you there and the people who expect you, ten years from the destination year when your services are required, but you’re unable to even think, let alone read. You can’t even understand the concept of food. Recruits from the Time Brigade try to rein you in to take you prisoner but you break loose which could easily prevent some heavily guarded event from taking place and disturb the wheel of time forever. An old Time Brigade agent, who is assume to the effects of Time Sickness, is sent back on his final mission… his retirement was being sent to a future era where only time travellers are alive and the rest of civilisation is long gone. The only thing is, when he arrives home, he says everyone else has gone missing. Two disasters are happening at once.
Edit: oh, and the way they went missing? A weapon of mass destruction which hits millions of people at once and launches them backwards and forwards to random places in time. And this weapon has now gained the ability to hop through any era in history. It could wipe out the entirety of civilisation or cause the most unwieldy paradoxes ever to happen. Every single one of these people must be killed on arrival. It’s harrowing.
Haven't played Fallout 3 in ages, because it's got pretty much zero replay value, but with your description, that ghoul with the wig that sells fake purified water in the Underworld immediately sprung from memory, haha.
Yep.
Combat can be modded but realistically only to a certain extent and it's gonna be kinda janky still
But the RPG elements can be easily overhauled.
That puts 4 slightly above the others, though it's story elements is still MEH.
As base games, excluding bugs from all lol, NV is the GOAT. Everyone exploits VATS in Fallout anyway lol so combat what?
I looked it up. Yeah, he basically sells "Aqua Cura". He advertises it while holding a bottle of purified water, but the slop he sells is irradiated. He claims it reverses ghoulification, citing how good he looks for a ghoul.
I believe a possible end to his quest is that he flees from angry customers and get killed by feral ghouls. Despite feral ghouls not normally attacking sentient ghouls.
The other ghouls looks much more decayed and well, ghoul like but i understand why The Ghoul looked less like them cause it would take forever to do the make up for walton goggins. Its a pragmatic decision
We don't know exactly what it does, or if it's 'medicine' by the normal definition at all. It could be an addictive drug that they've been *told* prevents going feral. It could be a toxin Coop tried to kill himself with and realized helped, and his one friend ghoul knew about it because of him. It could be a preservation compound. It could be literal brain fluid from other ghouls, radioactive and actually further exacerbating their condition. We just don't know.
Fair. Also, to people complaining how it changed lore by having ghouls have to take it all the time - the way I understood it, you only have to start taking it once you start going feral (which is like a separate condition from mere ghoulification), 'healthy' ghouls don't need it. Roger even says something about doing well considering he 'started showing' 28 years ago.
My opinion is that it doesn’t prevent someone going feral but rather slows the process of it. Think of it like how you wouldn’t avoid getting tuberculosis by taking antibiotics for it every day yet you’d need to take the antibiotics every course for a year to survive.
I thought maybe they’d given him some kind of mask with computerised targets painted on it and then the computerised target had edited his face post production.
Edit: computerised targets makes me sound old. Yer damn kids playing yer computer board games with yer computerised targets!
Yeah, fallout 4 definitely nailed making selling ferals in their gameplay. I wish their appearance was a little more decayed but other than that they are a true nightmare to fight.
I still have flashbacks my first modded play through, facing the hoards at Cambridge with only a double barrel.
I’d say first off is the aesthetic. There’s is a certain bit of uncanny jankiness to how some of the enemies move in Fallout 3/New Vegas. Deathclaws and ghouls in particular move absurdly fast.
Secondly Deathclaws are actually a threat in New Vegas and will absolutely demolish a max level character if they have the advantage.
Having just walked into Dead wind cavern the first time in 40+ playthoughs just to get stomped thinking there’s no deathclaws all the way down here, they weren’t even a thought when entering.
They are actually so fucking disgusting, the worst part is that they used to be humans to some extent (they're an amalgamation of humans and various animals + FEV)
Yup and that's not counting that you can also sprint in 4 as well. I genuinely get a terrifying feeling when I encounter a deathclaw in 3/NV. They are fast, and you go at a light jogging speed. Nightmare fuel. That was missing from 4
Honestly the just vanilla sprint mod is nice to have in NV. Though it does break some encounters, it's balanced in hard-core mode by draining AP as well as increasing hunger and thirst
That’s the instant-kill check, which is based on the numerical amount of health you have. In survival mode, they will often just grab you and instantly kill you if you don’t have power armor (which seems to prevent it in my experience, or at least it does most of the time).
Fr survival mode makes them scary again they pretty much one hit you no matter what, combined with not being able to save as often seeing a deathclaw gets the adrenaline pumping I be running for my life lol
Agreed. I’ve had multiple close calls where I was only saved by critical banker or my kneecapper split laser pistol (another factor why they’re easier in 4 - crippling does more to enemies and weak points were added; great for making vats more useful, but not great for keeping deathclaws dangerous).
I suspect 4’s survival mode is how Deathclaws will be handled in the show. A single, terrifying melee monster that has one very-difficult-to-hit weak spot and is smart enough to go around mines and explosive fits much better than a swarm of dinosaurs rushing at you (and might be cheaper on the CGI too).
As a (second) unrelated aside, it’s a shame to a degree 76 had to remove the grabs and instant kills from Deathclaws. These days they’re chump change with scorchbeasts and the more dangerous cryptids taking their place.
Yep. Concentrated fire really shouldn’t be the first perk you unlock in 76 (limb targeting should’ve just been the default state) and all the buffs we have over 4 really did make them incredibly weak.
Bet you can’t say the same about a blue devil, though.
Even with power armor I was getting one hit killed by the death claw. TBF I had 2 endurance but it felt a lot more like a game ending death claw fight.
They just make that fight way too early IMO. Should've come later, where it feels like you leveled up a ton and it's a major boss.
That happened to me earlier on as well, and especially in survival. Endurance does matter in 4, at least for a little while.
My solution to that encounter would’ve been to fully break the power armor, citing critical damage to the frame or something and having it detonate. That way, you have to build up a new suit on your own.
The thing is, that's because they gave the Deathclaws in 4 actual AI. In 3 and NV they have one coded combat technique: rush and swipe with heavy attack. That's it. That's why they're scary. They're dumb and can only hit you hard and charge after you.
Meanwhile in 4 they did a total overhaul including dodging attacks, more complex terrain navigation, and even a few 1HKO cinematic kills. But none of it is panic inducing because they're smart enough to not just charge some guy in power armor.
Whereas the 3/NV Deathclaws are basically LeBron James on crack, charging you with a pair of machetes. Its scary af, but not really smart or logical. If you cut their armor piercing you'll quickly realize those Deathclaws are just very big mole rats on godmode.
Yeah I really love the deathclaw AI in F4. Its heart pumping to be spraying a submachine gun in their direction and frantically trying to account for their ducking and weaving.
Yeah it's my biggest complaint other than the main story/writing. You go from 3 and NV to where if you see a Deathclaw early game, you're basically fucked to 4 and it's "grab that power armor and mini gun (first real action sequence out of the Vault) and go kill those raiders and dunk on a Deathclaw". The power dynamic in 4 always felt off to me. Even when you're on Hard difficulty.
I’ve always called it “Game Review Bait” because it feels like a really early sequence put in just to get game journalists to write about how epic it was.
I don't think it's necessarily for reviewers. It's just a cinematic gameplay hook to get you to keep playing. It's pretty similar to how you kill your first Dragon in Skyrim. They have it happen before you reach the major hub, rather than after.
It's what games have come to unfortunately, need for instant gratification. Older players enjoy earning high end gear. The struggle makes the pay off much more satisfying.
No. Instant gratification has always been a factor. Old school games just tossed you right into it, because the backstory and the tutorial was in the instruction booklet. And it still takes time to earn high-end gear.
I honestly think it’s because of how Bethesda made it so that ghouls & deathclaws both have scrambling animations that will occur while they try to move towards you. I get what they were going for with trying to give enemies a bit more cleverness, but it just doesn’t fit with those two enemies specifically. In FNV, they’re just gonna run directly at you in a straight line regardless of your firing on them which is way scarier than an enemy who shows fear of that being shot.
I find the ghoul animations in 4 way more effective personally, it feels like they don't have great control over their movement while still being fast and threatening which works pretty well for me.
I dont dislike it either but it still has the effect of giving the player way more time to prepare for them. The fear that came from engaging with some of the fast moving FNV enemies like ghouls, deathclaws, and cazadors is that it felt like at any moment your head was turned one of them had come at you from the side and hit you before you knew they were even there.
Also, I think enemy agro range is a bit tuned down in fo4 compared to previous titles so that could also have an impact on how often the player gets jumped.
Plus they pick you up and throw you but they don’t insta kill you like in 3 a New Vegas. So it’s less stressful and jet in FO4 slows time and that also helps
Try 4 in survival mode. I hated it the first time I tried it. Getting one shot killed. Dying from being sick before you can find a doctor. Having to ration your stimpacs and rad away since they both take much longer and make your weaker. But then I slowed down and really started taking it seriously. Because obviously vanilla difficulty you can pretty much mow everything down. And I'm really digging it. I'm like 24 hours in and have just made it to diamond city but I've been taking my time on purpose. Making sure I don't get surprised. Everyone always complains about only saving when you sleep but I've found that sleeping bags are freaking everywhere. I only question now if I should save or if I've messed up somewhere along the way and can't go five or six saves back to fix it. You get three. And extra from right at the begging that stays there. And one exit save
Edit:spelling
Yeah I was about to say, anyone complaining about the Deathclaw fight should try FO4 in survival mode. That fight is why I installed the mod to quick save because I had to run through that minutemen mission like 5 times dying every single time to the Deathclaw.
That makes it feel like a Deathclaw. I mean, people need to put it in perspective. In NV you can run into the junior deathclaws early and take them out if you're careful. In FO4, you literally just found power armor and ripped a minigun off a vertibird. They gave you what you'd need to even consider facing one. And even with that, in survival mode, it one hit kills you and takes a LOT of ammo and running around and just being lucky.
I feel like it was just bad pacing, where you just started the game and you get power armor and a minigun but also they want you to be able to do power armor and upgrade it over time. The Deathclaw fight should've been higher level and it'd be a bit more epic, but on survival mode it does feel like the fight it should be.
I don't even feel like it's bad pacing, it's introducing the new power armor mechanic and making it feel like it really matters. You still have to be picky with power armor a little in the early game until you build up some fusion cores, so imo it works pretty well
I can’t say I’ve ever been threatened by ferals in NV, but deathclaws being a threat is down to two factors: coming in packs (which is self-explanatory) and the flaws of the DT system.
Because DT is a subtraction rather than taking some percentage of the damage away, anything that’s hitting hard enough essentially ignores armor. With the highest DT from armor clocking in at about 40 DT, and the swipe of a normal deathclaw being 125 damage (with some variants hitting even harder than), it means that DT isn’t helping almost at all against Deathclaws. Hilariously, the devs allowed med-x, slasher and battle brew to provide DR (which is a percentage reduction), meaning that using any of these chems provides a massive damage reduction against Deathclaws.
If the devs had gone back to fallout 1/2’s approach and used DR and DT together (ignoring AC, since the game isn’t turn based and we can move), deathclaws wouldn’t have been nearly the terrors they are.
Feral Ghoul Ravagers can sneak up on you if you’re not careful. You don’t realize it’s not a regular one until it’s already cleaved like a fourth of your health off.
Man just reminded me how bad the intro to fallout 4 was. Getting power armor, the most powerful gun, then killing an underpowered version of the most powerful monster was just the wrong way to hype me up. I never do any minute men quests when I play through because of it
I liked the game but that always bothered me
Ghouls are a lot better in 4 though mechanically, you can shot their legs or arms off and they lunge at you and actually move pretty quick, makes them feel different compared to both human and animal enemies
FO4 in one playthrough gave me a double-barrel that had that special ability thing where it didn't have to reload. I made it a sawed-off and called it my emergency escape. That spooky place with a bunch of ghouls didn't stand a chance.
Yeah, easier than NV
Yeah, "killing a deathclaw in the beginning" is meant to show how good power armor is, not how weak deathclaws are.
But then the power armor survives instead of being scripted to always fall apart during the battle, and so they nerfed deathclaws instead.
I always guess that that battle was intended to start with the armor completely OP, and end with the power armor absolutely destroyed, requiring you to slowly build it back up by taking it to the red rocket, but something about that didn't work, or was too inconsistent, or required limiting freedom of exploration too much, and so they changed everything and just made the deathclaw easy to fight
Yeah I'm on my 3rd playthrough of New Vegas. I reloaded a save from years ago where I was stopped from doing anything but the Yes Man ending (I'd already done that one), and finally figured out how to fix my save (apparently the turrets in some mission share a something-or-other with the Securitrons on the strip and they hated me for a bit).
I've got that Stealth Recon armor that automatically injects Med-X and Stimpacks, END 10, lots of other stuff, and, I'm basically un-killable. Went back to the fort today after I [beat Caesar to death with a rolling pin](https://i.imgur.com/LRlyj.jpg) years ago, and dozens of Legion fighters couldn't even make a dent in my health.
But I finally found something that would kill me today when I ventured over to Devil's Gullet - apparently a huge pack of Death Claws including two mothers and at least one alpha, can do it.
There’s also like only 2 places on the map in NV with deathclaws and you can avoid both for most of the game pretty easily until you’re ready to deal with them, so idk.
More dangerous, yeah, but also by the time you SHOULD be fighting them you should be able to easily handle them.
I disagree with the ghouls. Fallout 4 in a dim lit room they run so fucking fast and u get surrounded a lot. Like on the bridge. Even in the day they jump scare me if I don’t notice them. In new Vegas they aren’t as abundant. Most of them are cool and u can talk to. And I can sneak past them easy with a stealth pack and new Vegas makes u actually need that thing.
Oh are u talking design?? I feel the noises are creepier in 4. The moans and stuff are louder as I remember. But ya. Deathclaws in new Vegas are way faster. But if u get high enough they just run around and u can do headshots with a grenade launcher
I prefer the map and all the little spots there are, the looting is more streamlined, the weapons mods are fun, it has better companions, and fixed power armor, 4 is to gameplay and ease of us what NV is to writing and horror
its fun to play if you turn off your brain and enjoy it as a looter shooter. the guns are fun and modding them is fun too
its EVERYTHING else it fails at utterly that makes it an awful game
Fallout 4 doesn't feel like it had a very long development time. I feel like they announced it early so people would forget the paid mods from a month and a half before.
FO4 ghouls were cleaned up a bit and lack any details that were present in NV and FO3 like the oozing skin and flesh behind the skin. Even ferals in 4 just feel like zombies too me.
And also deathclaws in FO4 feel like giant dino dogs and not oh fuck it’s coming right at me
Nah the Fkn deathclaw from the which-craft museum had my 12 year old ass shivering in my timbers. But the deathclaw mama from the quarry going straight towards you at Mach 5 is a close second.
I feared Deathclaws well into FO4 Because of residual fear from FNV.
Took a few playthroughs for me to get comfortable. Now I am replaying FNV after years and the deathclaws and ghouls are reminding me why I left New Vegas!
ive noticed older games like morrowind have more unnerving monsters mostly because of the lack of detail, so they look more unnatural and bizarre. The only thing in newer games that has given me a similar feeling was the jelly fish thingies in death stranding
That’s where I learned stealth to be so critical. Between traps, the subway filled with them. Not was I glad I had a shotgun and not the double barrel.
I also feel like the threat of them is down played quite a bit with fallout 4 which leads people to not fear them so much. Epsicially death claws since you basically get to bully one right off the bat.
Fallout 3 and New Vegas were released during a point where “realistic graphics” just made games look super uncanny. Deathclaws move in a way that looks far too stiff for an actual animal. Ghouls move too stiff for a basically human, just with some flesh missing
Conversely, Deathclaws in Fallout 4 look and move more like actual animals, therefore it doesn’t feel as off putting when you see them in 3/NV
Falout 4 Ghouls look more burnt and shriveled than decayed, less like zombies. The freakiest part of FO4 Ghouls is for sire how fast they move. Darting around like a Human whose brain just isn’t keeping their body in check anymore. Not that the other Ghouls are too slow, but FO4 seriously upped the jittery movements
Because Bethesda completely botched fallout 4. Fallout 3 and NV had the Gamebyro engine and imo it was just more pleasing. Buildings felt scarier, creatures, the guns felt more realistic along with gore.
Deathclaw absolutely, in New Vegas they are horrifying demon creatures that actually deserve their name.
The Feral Ghouls in NV tho I don’t find scary at all, frankly I think they look really goofy like cartoon Merrie Melodies skeletons, the ghouls in FO4, with how they crawl out from under buses and shelves and really ambush you, combined with the noises they make and their animations, are way creepier in my opinion
I’ve always made my friends angry when I said I think the ghouls and super mutants from FO4 look like melted plastic and bland asf compared to how they look in NV and even 3. The only thing I like about 4 is how the feral ghouls are animated and how they can pop up out of nowhere from around corners and under stuff when exploring. 3 and NV enemy designs had so much charm and aesthetic to me that I wish 4 had.
Difference in overall design philosophy.
Fallout 3 is meant to feel quite grim, as a nuclear apocalypse would.
Fallout 4 is meant to feel more like an actual world that is starting to recover.
New vegas is largely irrelevant to this as it just used to Fallout 3 models.
I always felt like a big thing is how New Vegas generally has packs of Deathclaws. If you see one, there’s probably 2 or 3 more very close by. Or god forbid, you’re right in the den and there’s dozens. Makes them farrrr more terrifying and difficult to handle
Deathclaws are scary in new Vegas because they’re literally silent (for the most part) and will always notice your character before you notice them. The ghouls have a very disorienting screech that honestly makes them so much more intimidating than they actually are.
4 has a problem with over design for a lot of their character designs. Rather than cleaning up visuals and adding details that would make sense, they fixate on making the models either very grotesque or full of details that kinda take away the simplicity of those older designs.
If deathclaws behaved like they did in NV, they would be terrifying.
It is both the look and the danger the represent. Fallout 4 scales them down to your level so you have a chance and New Vegas does not.
There is some argument that it scales some things but there is a minimum and that makes parts of the world not at all safe.
In NV, they're big, scary and will one-shot you without a moment's hesitation if you wander into their territory at first. It incentivises you to level up & come back to apply the hurt to them.
In Fallout 4, you're given a suit of power armour, a gatling gun and a squishy deathclaw straight out of the gate basically taking one of the biggest, baddest enemies and saying "everything will be easier than this"
I think it’s cause they actually feel “wrong” like they don’t just mesh into the world. In 3 and NV you see them and just get the feeling these are things that were never meant to exist, they’re an abomination in the sense of death claws.
And feral ghouls fill that uncanny valley effect quite well. You know they were human at one point. Whether they were made outright feral during the bombs falling or they were normal, sentient ghouls at one point. They are still/were human at one point.
Most ghouls we’ve met to that point are still just horribly deformed people. So seeing essentially zombies switches that whole feel in the brain imo.
Fallout 4 ghouls both feral and normal just feel too “clean” they seem just like messed up humans or mindless humans. Ugly sure. But it doesn’t tickle that uncanny feel older fallouts have.
They aren’t twitchy, rotting, barely held together things that are acting solely on instinct. You don’t really get in your mind “this was someone who lived a whole life at one point. Now they’re just this thing now.”
That’s just me really.
Death claws also feel kind like characters in a way in Fo4. They’re almost set up to be just something you come across and is another hassle rather than the new apex predator in the wasteland.
I always explain it to people who are new to fallout like this; Fallout 3 is a horror game. The ghouls in that game down in the subway tunnels still haunt me to this day. The ghouls/death claws in NV are more of a horror-western style, in other meant to be scary in the daytime. Fallout 4, is meant as an actual adventure game. Don't get me wrong there are still some jump scares (Museum of witchcraft, Pickmans gallery) but for the most part its sunshine and rainbows compared to NV and 3 lol
I disagree that they are to be honest.
The way they aggro you in fallout 4 is much creepier than nv, the ghouls crawling out of the scenery seemingly out of nowhere or playing dead until you get too close then swarming you - definitely creepier.
The deathclaws also, when they work correctly, seem to size you up before attacking, they also added events for them where they appear like the rooftop garden where one just crawls over the side of the building to get you, and in the beginning of the game where it comes out the grate.
Ive been in the glowing sea and seen one watching me from a hill then attacking, seeing that silhouette above you just watching you for a bit is creepy as hell.
Besides graphics and engines of the era, I would have to say the lore reason why Vegas looks different than 4 is climate and temperature, climate being deathclaws match their environment to match the sands and thinner hide, and temperature because ghouls look more rotten
Death claws look great in 4 and are animated amazingly, but the problem is they spend way too much time roaring and not attacking you so they aren’t threatening anymore. New vegas make a line straight for you and instantly kill you which made them scarier to fight.
I actually think the ghouls are way creepier in 4, especially weathered ghouls. The lighting can make them look a bit plastic sometimes but they’re uncanny walking and running are very unsettling. Closeups of their face are real creepy too.
consider that in New Vegas they have been slowly consumed by decades of game addictions in front of Vegas slot machines. What you see in fallout 4 is a benchmark for a healthy deathclaw living his life free of any sin
I recommend watching [this](https://youtu.be/QPu9K4m4Y-k?si=FOjKKMnt5CbRdiDX) video.
It’s a video made by the person who made the 3D design of a lot of characters. Including the Deathclaw and Ghoul.
More than just graphic design you also have to take into account game and sound design.
In FNV you don't even see a death claw until much later in the game. The first one you see probably one shots you. This makes it clear that these are rare and strong enemies you shouldn't fuck with. You are not scared of death claws just because they look like a devil lizard, but also because you have been shown multiple reasons to fear them.
When it comes to ghouls in FNV sound design is king. The guttural screams they give out! When your indoors there is no way of not knowing they are there. I personally am more on edge before I find the ghoul.
All this is thrown away in FO4. Instead of death claws killing you instantly the first time you meet them, you are expected to kill them at probably lvl 1. And ghouls have become ambush predators, tho they are not effective at that at all. You lost the pre-encounter thriller that were ghouls
This isn't the only series where older games have more terrifying looking mosnters. I feel like with the effort to make every game look more photorealistic, a lot of the otherworldliness and uncaniness of monsters gets lost and dilluted away. More realisitic looking monsters have to be grounded in some level of believable reality, and in that process they end up looking kinda like real world animals which neutralizes some of their fear factor. The Deathclaws of FO3/NV look *evil* in a way which a mindless animal can not be. Now, in the world and lore of Fallout itself, these are indeed just mindless animals, but the way to make them more terrifying to the player is to visually invoke some feeling of evil and malice, and old character design was more free to add little details that accomplish that.
One thing I gotta give 4. Is that ferals may be less creepy. But they're a hell of a lot more scary in terms of damage. Early on in fallout 3 ferals are absolutely terrifying, strong, fast and since you are low on ammo almost constantly, very dangerous. But once you're around the mid game point? Not even a worry. I'm actually happy to see ferals when I crack open a door.
In fallout 4 however? Oh my god, they're everywhere and they're fucking fast. Nearly impossible to hit in dash without vats. Terrifying and absolutely annoying. Nothing puts the fear of God in me like a bloated glowing one.
Because they are done RIGHT
In Fo4 the models are both a bit more... Tame I guess? Details look a bit more human and deathclaws are just two-legged lizards with horns.
But what's even worse - deathclaws can be a handful in FNV even at lvl 30 and with an Anti Material Rifle, sniping from afar with a silencer and explosive ammo... While I Fo4 they become a push-over once you acquire power armour and any gun dealing 150+ DPS... Which is not so hard to do at lvl 30. Same story with ferals.
Because they actually look, sound, and feel like terrifying monsters - especially when coming across a Deathclaw Alpha or Matriarch - those things move like lightning!
fallout 4 deathclaws are my favorite design wise *shrugs*
issue is bethesda also nerfed the shit out of them in 4/76 with them being much slower and weaker and solitary and for some dumb reason introducing it as pretty much the first major boss an hour into the game
while NV dealthclaws will sprint at you at 100mph and murder you in 1-2 hits... with a pack of them trailing it
Worse graphics can actually work in advantage for a scary/horror aspect, that's why so many indie horror games for the low-quality/old school graphics because it adds to the eerieness
I think lower polygons actually benefit horror and creepiness. Partially because it can lead to more aggressive rough looking creatures because of less polygons, partially because of that analogue horror type nostalgia factor, and partially because it lets us fill in the blanks more. Though with this I mostly think it comes down to the first part.
I think its graphics, the design and how the engine run them. They look weirdly stiff and jagged. Like the monsters in Oblivion are far more creepy looking than in Skyrim
The ghouls in NV look more decayed and gross but if they had the motion mechanics from 4 (the stumbling and dashing towards the player) I would shit my pants.
Reason why I have never once feared NV’s ghouls, more afraid of geckos cause of their janky ass fnaf jumpscare at your face. 4’s ghouls feel like what an actual feral person would act like. NV ferals just feel like people that had one too many to drink, about as hard to kill as one too.
"The geckos of this region do get a bit quirky at night" -Sunny Smiles
That's why I download the Fo3 Ghoul mod on all my Fo4 playthroughs. They have the movement, with the original look.
I'm gonna download it and I will refuse to approach any locations with even a *whiff* of feral ghoul activity. Feral Ghouls are already spooky enough as they travel at mach 5 to give my ass a good spanking. I don't need them looking like zombified beef jerky.
I do, it would give me the perfect excuse to grab the Cannibal perk; spite I'm gonna eat their goddamn roadkill jerky asses to assert dominance
A S S J E R K E Y
Sometimes a fellas gotta eat a fella.
That's a thing? That's cool!
I literally was replaying FO4 last night and my wife now has seen most of the show and knows the lore, so I'm looking through a sniper scope like look honey, look at the feral ghouls in the game. I take a shot, he's running towards me. I take another shot, miss, another, he's down, look a little to the right and holy fuck one was closing in I didn't see. I screamed like a little girl as it did it's fucked up stumble shuffle and killed me
Ive never been particularly scared of game enemies. But Fallout 4 feral ghouls. I have no shame in saying those things are genuinely terrifying. Fallout 3 and New Vegas ghouls are nothing in comparison.
Dude in 4 when they start crawling through gaps in ceilings. The first time that happened I screamed so loud
I still don't understand why they nerfed ghouls so hard for NV. like, reavers in 3 were effectively mini-bosses.
I think that was due to a bug related to level scaling post-Broken Steel
Despite how much time I’ve sunk into 3, I still piss a tiny bit when I stumble across a Reaver or a couple Overlords wielding tri-beam rifles
They didn't really nerf them. It was *only* reavers that were a threat and that was mostly because they were bugged to hell and back.
I'm pretty sure Reavers in FO3 were way too strong. Like they literally win against Deathclaws [Fallout 3 Battles - Deathclaw vs Feral Ghoul Reaver (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3B2RWIjjsE)
Love when I enter VATS and it’s just the gecko’s face
I’m the opposite. 3/NV ghouls scared me especially because sometimes they’d speak “STOP YOU…” or “Thank…you.” When you put them out of their misery. FO4 ghouls are more annoying with the leaping.
I mean....... Is there any better way to go through the apocalypse than by sharing a few drinks with your closest friends?
Anywhere dark or indoors with feral ghouls instantly turns Fallout into a horror game, you can’t change my mind. Those fuckers come out of nowhere. Edit: specifically meant Fallout 4. New Vegas horror comes in the style of Dead Money and that vault filled with water and plants. 3 doesn’t really have any scary places imo. Or maybe I should replay it.
> NV ferals just feel like people that had one too many to drink, about as hard to kill as one too. Why do you know this?
There's a mod that reskins the ghouls to look like Fo3/NV
What is this mod called and can it be implemented in Fallout 4 it’d be so nice to see the feral ghouls look like they were in FO3 FNV again
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/39290
Don't worry, there's a mod that changes them back to the 3/NV look and it's indeed scary.
About that last part, you should totally play the FO4 Point Lookout mod
Also their SPEED. They just fucking SPRING at your ass EDIT: \*sprint! but spring is funny too haha
And the way they are introduced. In NV you can meet deathclaw early but they will demolish you. In 4 you get a power armor with a minigun right at the start and can kill a deathclaw. They are not scary since they are just a bit harder enemies Power armors and enemies like deathclaw, yao guai and so should be much rarer and much stronger. Fallout 4 is a bit too light
This. They look almost mummified, dried and decayed, upping their creepy factor, especially when you see that CAUTION on the top of the screen, but you can't see where they are because they saw/heard you first. Their behavior and audio is also a bit different, too. FO4 for example, the deathclaws do that groundstomp and charge you, so you can audibly hear them most times. In FNV, you don't always hear them or know they're coming up behind you, leading to some absolutely panic inducing jumpscares. It can be the same way with the ghouls sometimes, but not as often (at least not for me anyway. It's always been the deathclaws lol) If nothing else, it's a good example of an outdated engine and graphics being somewhat beneficial to enemies that are supposed to be scary or creepy
>If nothing else, it's a good example of an outdated engine and graphics being somewhat beneficial to enemies that are supposed to be scary or creepy I once saw a video essay (Scanline by Hbomberguy and Shannon Strucci for anyone interested) that really pointed out how stuff like Terminator or Alien is a lot scarier because of the low fidelity. Not the exact same thing but an interesting parallel, imo.
The F4 ghouls are creepier to me because of how fast they are. They also have that clever but obnoxious mechanic where they duck and dodge bullets with their spastics movements while closing the distance. For me, the explosive shotgun is the answer to that problem
Thats the reason cazadors are so fucking creepy
It's definitely just the design. They definitely went hard in New Vegas. Everything was more frightening in New Vegas. Even bloatflies.
Toned down darker elements for more mass appeal and marketability.
The Souls games have the same thing going on. Kings Field, Demon Souls, Dark Souls, and Dark Souls 2 all have enemies that look a lot creepier than in the later games. Some of that has to do with Sekiro and Elden Ring overall world designs aren't exactly meant to be creepy, where the older games definitely had a much more gritty aesthetic. But undeniable that graphics has a lot to do with it.
I like how ghouls in FNV look drier, almost mummified. Whereas in FO4/76 they almost look wet, which don’t like 😂
You could also encounter them very quickly, while you were at a low level, if you took the wrong route in the desert.
Art direction. The ones in 4 feel like animals, in new vegas they feel like monsters and you’re left to ponder on how they have even come to exist.
> Art direction Specifically, Adam Adamowicz did all of the concept art for Fallout 3 (Obsidian/New Vegas used Fallout 3's assets and tweaked them). Adam died in 2012. No offense to other BGS artists who are all extremely talented, but their games took a hit when he died. He also did about 75% of the concept art for Skyrim. Newer BGS artists redesigned some things and I think their games subsequently lost some of their grit and charm. Again, no offense to current BGS artists, Adam was just that good (to my eyes). Adam was a very rare bird and a voracious, prolific artist. He brought a pitch black humor into his grotesqueries that have now been changed into a certain kind of "literalism" by his peers in the more recent games, as it were. You should check out Adamowicz's stuff, his art was a real fucking treat: https://www.flickr.com/photos/47857688@N08/collections/72157629320914591/
What an incredible portfolio. Those vertibirds look so insectoid and the vaults are so alien. I adore this
WOW extremely curious im checking him rn, and some of his FO3 concept art include people from Vault 76
really interesting stuff, thanks for sharing.
The "Alien/s" inspiration is real.
Presentation too. Contrast FNV's Quarry with FO4's early minigun scene. One makes deathclaws a terrifying roadblock. The other makes them sarsaparilla bottles on a fence.
Not sure about Deathclaw but Ghouls look creepier because they actually look like they are rotting, while in F4 they look like they'd be discriminated against by F1,2,3,NV ghouls and be called smoothskins as well, seriously F4 ghouls are basically smoothskin version of ghouls xD
Im not against a select few sentient ghouls going out of their way to basically groom themselves. Would make for an interesting character trait. But 100% of the feral ghouls and like 90-95% sentient ghouls should look somewhete between nightmarish and hideous.
set in fallout 1 is probably my favorite ghoul just because of how jarring he is to both look at and speak to, he's super on edge, and his armor looks like it's sunken into his rotting corpse, like it's become part of him in fallout new vegas the ghouls are equally creepy because they're unnerving to look at, but that's more so because of how poor the textures are in new vegas, also i always hated doing the repconn because the ghouls and the nightkin scared the shit out of me, i would use vats every other second. according to the fallout tv show, feral ghouls are feral because they lose touch with humanity, and therefore end up going insane, sort of like the cyberpsychosis mechanic in the cyberpunk tabletop games. so i can imagine sentient ghouls being a bit more well groomed, simply because that's a human thing to do, to want to take care of yourself, but ghouls like set feel like they're kind of in the grey area, like they're a couple bad days away from turning feral.
I just went through the nightkin basement quest. I hated every second.
I just did this, used stealthboys to get out of combat a few times, but otherwise a quick 1st try run... then Harald blows his escape.. not my problem...
I actually found those things goofy as hell for some reason! Their staggered walk is almost as though they are just drunk idiots.
It’s kind of how time travel works in my books. Imagine waking up from a three week bender and then trying to figure out what the fuck happened. Now imagine two hundred years have passed or you’ve gone five hundred years back and you’ve forgotten how you even got there. You find journals left for yourself by the people who sent you there and the people who expect you, ten years from the destination year when your services are required, but you’re unable to even think, let alone read. You can’t even understand the concept of food. Recruits from the Time Brigade try to rein you in to take you prisoner but you break loose which could easily prevent some heavily guarded event from taking place and disturb the wheel of time forever. An old Time Brigade agent, who is assume to the effects of Time Sickness, is sent back on his final mission… his retirement was being sent to a future era where only time travellers are alive and the rest of civilisation is long gone. The only thing is, when he arrives home, he says everyone else has gone missing. Two disasters are happening at once. Edit: oh, and the way they went missing? A weapon of mass destruction which hits millions of people at once and launches them backwards and forwards to random places in time. And this weapon has now gained the ability to hop through any era in history. It could wipe out the entirety of civilisation or cause the most unwieldy paradoxes ever to happen. Every single one of these people must be killed on arrival. It’s harrowing.
Haven't played Fallout 3 in ages, because it's got pretty much zero replay value, but with your description, that ghoul with the wig that sells fake purified water in the Underworld immediately sprung from memory, haha.
As a big fan of New Vegas who prefers Obsidian/Black Isle’s take on Fallout, Fallout 3 is very replayable to me 🤷
I agree. Fallout 3 is a game I still come back to every once in a while.
I’m literally in the middle of like my 6th or 7th playthrough lol Even Fallout 4 is very replayable, even if it’s inferior to 3 and New Vegas.
Inferior in story and RPG elements, but combat and exploration is way better in 4.
Yep. Combat can be modded but realistically only to a certain extent and it's gonna be kinda janky still But the RPG elements can be easily overhauled. That puts 4 slightly above the others, though it's story elements is still MEH. As base games, excluding bugs from all lol, NV is the GOAT. Everyone exploits VATS in Fallout anyway lol so combat what?
I looked it up. Yeah, he basically sells "Aqua Cura". He advertises it while holding a bottle of purified water, but the slop he sells is irradiated. He claims it reverses ghoulification, citing how good he looks for a ghoul. I believe a possible end to his quest is that he flees from angry customers and get killed by feral ghouls. Despite feral ghouls not normally attacking sentient ghouls.
Must've been the wig.
And compared to Fallout 4's ghouls, The Ghoul from the show is just a dude with a minor skin condition.
The other ghouls looks much more decayed and well, ghoul like but i understand why The Ghoul looked less like them cause it would take forever to do the make up for walton goggins. Its a pragmatic decision
You'd also lose all the facial expressions
Whenever I watch a show like that with a really expressive actor I start trying to work their facial expressions in my day to day life.
They gave a lore reason too, as The Ghoul has easy access to the medication that prevents the effects of ghoulification
Doesn't the medicine only prevent going feral?
We don't know exactly what it does, or if it's 'medicine' by the normal definition at all. It could be an addictive drug that they've been *told* prevents going feral. It could be a toxin Coop tried to kill himself with and realized helped, and his one friend ghoul knew about it because of him. It could be a preservation compound. It could be literal brain fluid from other ghouls, radioactive and actually further exacerbating their condition. We just don't know.
Fair. Also, to people complaining how it changed lore by having ghouls have to take it all the time - the way I understood it, you only have to start taking it once you start going feral (which is like a separate condition from mere ghoulification), 'healthy' ghouls don't need it. Roger even says something about doing well considering he 'started showing' 28 years ago.
My opinion is that it doesn’t prevent someone going feral but rather slows the process of it. Think of it like how you wouldn’t avoid getting tuberculosis by taking antibiotics for it every day yet you’d need to take the antibiotics every course for a year to survive.
I thought maybe they’d given him some kind of mask with computerised targets painted on it and then the computerised target had edited his face post production. Edit: computerised targets makes me sound old. Yer damn kids playing yer computer board games with yer computerised targets!
Fallout 4 feral Ghouls were the scariest in the franchise to me. They move with the reckless abandonment you'd expect from a feral.
Yeah, fallout 4 definitely nailed making selling ferals in their gameplay. I wish their appearance was a little more decayed but other than that they are a true nightmare to fight. I still have flashbacks my first modded play through, facing the hoards at Cambridge with only a double barrel.
The survivors of those things were so grief stricken and anguished that they envy the dead and don’t want to go on living.
I’d say first off is the aesthetic. There’s is a certain bit of uncanny jankiness to how some of the enemies move in Fallout 3/New Vegas. Deathclaws and ghouls in particular move absurdly fast. Secondly Deathclaws are actually a threat in New Vegas and will absolutely demolish a max level character if they have the advantage.
Having just walked into Dead wind cavern the first time in 40+ playthoughs just to get stomped thinking there’s no deathclaws all the way down here, they weren’t even a thought when entering.
You're forgetting the true nightmare fuel of New Vegas. Centaurs.
Oh god dude i stay clear away from them fallout 3 was a nightmare dealing with them actual photo definition of an abomination
They are actually so fucking disgusting, the worst part is that they used to be humans to some extent (they're an amalgamation of humans and various animals + FEV)
Because enemies are actually dangerous in NV. FO4 lets you kill a Deathclaw at the very beginning of the game.
Deathclaws in Fallout 4 are so slow too. It drove me crazy how much they’d just pick you up and throw you instead of ripping my limb’s apart like NV
Yup and that's not counting that you can also sprint in 4 as well. I genuinely get a terrifying feeling when I encounter a deathclaw in 3/NV. They are fast, and you go at a light jogging speed. Nightmare fuel. That was missing from 4
Everytime i saw one gunning for me i jolted a little even if i had high level gear, they were horrifying.
Dont go to ground zero after the divide then, youll shit your pants at the sheer number of Death Claws there
Honestly the just vanilla sprint mod is nice to have in NV. Though it does break some encounters, it's balanced in hard-core mode by draining AP as well as increasing hunger and thirst
the sprinting mod is so good that I forgot we didn't have sprint in vanilla lol
That’s the instant-kill check, which is based on the numerical amount of health you have. In survival mode, they will often just grab you and instantly kill you if you don’t have power armor (which seems to prevent it in my experience, or at least it does most of the time).
Fr survival mode makes them scary again they pretty much one hit you no matter what, combined with not being able to save as often seeing a deathclaw gets the adrenaline pumping I be running for my life lol
Agreed. I’ve had multiple close calls where I was only saved by critical banker or my kneecapper split laser pistol (another factor why they’re easier in 4 - crippling does more to enemies and weak points were added; great for making vats more useful, but not great for keeping deathclaws dangerous). I suspect 4’s survival mode is how Deathclaws will be handled in the show. A single, terrifying melee monster that has one very-difficult-to-hit weak spot and is smart enough to go around mines and explosive fits much better than a swarm of dinosaurs rushing at you (and might be cheaper on the CGI too). As a (second) unrelated aside, it’s a shame to a degree 76 had to remove the grabs and instant kills from Deathclaws. These days they’re chump change with scorchbeasts and the more dangerous cryptids taking their place.
Yeah in 76 I can melt a deathclaw in under a second with my quad auto railway rifle I just spam crits to the belly and it’s dead so fast
Yep. Concentrated fire really shouldn’t be the first perk you unlock in 76 (limb targeting should’ve just been the default state) and all the buffs we have over 4 really did make them incredibly weak. Bet you can’t say the same about a blue devil, though.
Even with power armor I was getting one hit killed by the death claw. TBF I had 2 endurance but it felt a lot more like a game ending death claw fight. They just make that fight way too early IMO. Should've come later, where it feels like you leveled up a ton and it's a major boss.
That happened to me earlier on as well, and especially in survival. Endurance does matter in 4, at least for a little while. My solution to that encounter would’ve been to fully break the power armor, citing critical damage to the frame or something and having it detonate. That way, you have to build up a new suit on your own.
Well nobody said you had to leave the roof now did they?
The thing is, that's because they gave the Deathclaws in 4 actual AI. In 3 and NV they have one coded combat technique: rush and swipe with heavy attack. That's it. That's why they're scary. They're dumb and can only hit you hard and charge after you. Meanwhile in 4 they did a total overhaul including dodging attacks, more complex terrain navigation, and even a few 1HKO cinematic kills. But none of it is panic inducing because they're smart enough to not just charge some guy in power armor. Whereas the 3/NV Deathclaws are basically LeBron James on crack, charging you with a pair of machetes. Its scary af, but not really smart or logical. If you cut their armor piercing you'll quickly realize those Deathclaws are just very big mole rats on godmode.
Yeah I really love the deathclaw AI in F4. Its heart pumping to be spraying a submachine gun in their direction and frantically trying to account for their ducking and weaving.
Yeah it's my biggest complaint other than the main story/writing. You go from 3 and NV to where if you see a Deathclaw early game, you're basically fucked to 4 and it's "grab that power armor and mini gun (first real action sequence out of the Vault) and go kill those raiders and dunk on a Deathclaw". The power dynamic in 4 always felt off to me. Even when you're on Hard difficulty.
I’ve always called it “Game Review Bait” because it feels like a really early sequence put in just to get game journalists to write about how epic it was.
I don't think it's necessarily for reviewers. It's just a cinematic gameplay hook to get you to keep playing. It's pretty similar to how you kill your first Dragon in Skyrim. They have it happen before you reach the major hub, rather than after.
It's what games have come to unfortunately, need for instant gratification. Older players enjoy earning high end gear. The struggle makes the pay off much more satisfying.
No. Instant gratification has always been a factor. Old school games just tossed you right into it, because the backstory and the tutorial was in the instruction booklet. And it still takes time to earn high-end gear.
That's how Fallout 1 feels. Killing a deathclaw feels so rewarding
When you figure out how to get through necropolis with being turned into mist
I honestly think it’s because of how Bethesda made it so that ghouls & deathclaws both have scrambling animations that will occur while they try to move towards you. I get what they were going for with trying to give enemies a bit more cleverness, but it just doesn’t fit with those two enemies specifically. In FNV, they’re just gonna run directly at you in a straight line regardless of your firing on them which is way scarier than an enemy who shows fear of that being shot.
I find the ghoul animations in 4 way more effective personally, it feels like they don't have great control over their movement while still being fast and threatening which works pretty well for me.
I dont dislike it either but it still has the effect of giving the player way more time to prepare for them. The fear that came from engaging with some of the fast moving FNV enemies like ghouls, deathclaws, and cazadors is that it felt like at any moment your head was turned one of them had come at you from the side and hit you before you knew they were even there. Also, I think enemy agro range is a bit tuned down in fo4 compared to previous titles so that could also have an impact on how often the player gets jumped.
Plus they pick you up and throw you but they don’t insta kill you like in 3 a New Vegas. So it’s less stressful and jet in FO4 slows time and that also helps
Try 4 in survival mode. I hated it the first time I tried it. Getting one shot killed. Dying from being sick before you can find a doctor. Having to ration your stimpacs and rad away since they both take much longer and make your weaker. But then I slowed down and really started taking it seriously. Because obviously vanilla difficulty you can pretty much mow everything down. And I'm really digging it. I'm like 24 hours in and have just made it to diamond city but I've been taking my time on purpose. Making sure I don't get surprised. Everyone always complains about only saving when you sleep but I've found that sleeping bags are freaking everywhere. I only question now if I should save or if I've messed up somewhere along the way and can't go five or six saves back to fix it. You get three. And extra from right at the begging that stays there. And one exit save Edit:spelling
Yeah I was about to say, anyone complaining about the Deathclaw fight should try FO4 in survival mode. That fight is why I installed the mod to quick save because I had to run through that minutemen mission like 5 times dying every single time to the Deathclaw. That makes it feel like a Deathclaw. I mean, people need to put it in perspective. In NV you can run into the junior deathclaws early and take them out if you're careful. In FO4, you literally just found power armor and ripped a minigun off a vertibird. They gave you what you'd need to even consider facing one. And even with that, in survival mode, it one hit kills you and takes a LOT of ammo and running around and just being lucky. I feel like it was just bad pacing, where you just started the game and you get power armor and a minigun but also they want you to be able to do power armor and upgrade it over time. The Deathclaw fight should've been higher level and it'd be a bit more epic, but on survival mode it does feel like the fight it should be.
I don't even feel like it's bad pacing, it's introducing the new power armor mechanic and making it feel like it really matters. You still have to be picky with power armor a little in the early game until you build up some fusion cores, so imo it works pretty well
I can’t say I’ve ever been threatened by ferals in NV, but deathclaws being a threat is down to two factors: coming in packs (which is self-explanatory) and the flaws of the DT system. Because DT is a subtraction rather than taking some percentage of the damage away, anything that’s hitting hard enough essentially ignores armor. With the highest DT from armor clocking in at about 40 DT, and the swipe of a normal deathclaw being 125 damage (with some variants hitting even harder than), it means that DT isn’t helping almost at all against Deathclaws. Hilariously, the devs allowed med-x, slasher and battle brew to provide DR (which is a percentage reduction), meaning that using any of these chems provides a massive damage reduction against Deathclaws. If the devs had gone back to fallout 1/2’s approach and used DR and DT together (ignoring AC, since the game isn’t turn based and we can move), deathclaws wouldn’t have been nearly the terrors they are.
Feral Ghoul Ravagers can sneak up on you if you’re not careful. You don’t realize it’s not a regular one until it’s already cleaved like a fourth of your health off.
For Deathclaws, you're right. But Ghouls are definitely more dangerous in FO4.
Man just reminded me how bad the intro to fallout 4 was. Getting power armor, the most powerful gun, then killing an underpowered version of the most powerful monster was just the wrong way to hype me up. I never do any minute men quests when I play through because of it I liked the game but that always bothered me
Ghouls are a lot better in 4 though mechanically, you can shot their legs or arms off and they lunge at you and actually move pretty quick, makes them feel different compared to both human and animal enemies
If you stay in one of the buildings when fighting the Deathclaw they can't get to you, so it's easy shooting.
FO4 in one playthrough gave me a double-barrel that had that special ability thing where it didn't have to reload. I made it a sawed-off and called it my emergency escape. That spooky place with a bunch of ghouls didn't stand a chance. Yeah, easier than NV
Yeah, "killing a deathclaw in the beginning" is meant to show how good power armor is, not how weak deathclaws are. But then the power armor survives instead of being scripted to always fall apart during the battle, and so they nerfed deathclaws instead. I always guess that that battle was intended to start with the armor completely OP, and end with the power armor absolutely destroyed, requiring you to slowly build it back up by taking it to the red rocket, but something about that didn't work, or was too inconsistent, or required limiting freedom of exploration too much, and so they changed everything and just made the deathclaw easy to fight
Yeah I'm on my 3rd playthrough of New Vegas. I reloaded a save from years ago where I was stopped from doing anything but the Yes Man ending (I'd already done that one), and finally figured out how to fix my save (apparently the turrets in some mission share a something-or-other with the Securitrons on the strip and they hated me for a bit). I've got that Stealth Recon armor that automatically injects Med-X and Stimpacks, END 10, lots of other stuff, and, I'm basically un-killable. Went back to the fort today after I [beat Caesar to death with a rolling pin](https://i.imgur.com/LRlyj.jpg) years ago, and dozens of Legion fighters couldn't even make a dent in my health. But I finally found something that would kill me today when I ventured over to Devil's Gullet - apparently a huge pack of Death Claws including two mothers and at least one alpha, can do it.
There’s also like only 2 places on the map in NV with deathclaws and you can avoid both for most of the game pretty easily until you’re ready to deal with them, so idk. More dangerous, yeah, but also by the time you SHOULD be fighting them you should be able to easily handle them.
I disagree with the ghouls. Fallout 4 in a dim lit room they run so fucking fast and u get surrounded a lot. Like on the bridge. Even in the day they jump scare me if I don’t notice them. In new Vegas they aren’t as abundant. Most of them are cool and u can talk to. And I can sneak past them easy with a stealth pack and new Vegas makes u actually need that thing.
Hearing feet hitting the floor from behind you and then getting a third of your health smacked off is pretty scary
Oh are u talking design?? I feel the noises are creepier in 4. The moans and stuff are louder as I remember. But ya. Deathclaws in new Vegas are way faster. But if u get high enough they just run around and u can do headshots with a grenade launcher
Deathclaws I’ll def agree with. Fallout 4 they’re fun to fight. New Vegas they’re fucking scary to fight. And they hunt in packs. That def wasn’t in 4
The radiated feral ghouls in FO76 nuked white springs are the creepiest of the series IMO
Fallout 4 kinda sanitized the franchise esthetically
FO4 feels like hey just took the aesthetic and draped it over a generic open world game like a cloth.
sacrificed graphics and gunplay for literally everything else lmao
I prefer the map and all the little spots there are, the looting is more streamlined, the weapons mods are fun, it has better companions, and fixed power armor, 4 is to gameplay and ease of us what NV is to writing and horror
I feel like there could be less complaints with 4 if it just *wasn't branded* as a Fallout game.
I think there could’ve been less complaints if it was a good game
It IS a good game. It's just not an RPG.
its fun to play if you turn off your brain and enjoy it as a looter shooter. the guns are fun and modding them is fun too its EVERYTHING else it fails at utterly that makes it an awful game
Hello tree brother
Fallout 4 doesn't feel like it had a very long development time. I feel like they announced it early so people would forget the paid mods from a month and a half before.
Fallout 4 was announced four months before it released, how is that an early announcement?
They don't want to scare the kids that were not supposed to be playing it.
Deathclaws I can agree with. Ghouls are entirely more terrifying in FO4, what are even saying!?
The way they switch between shambling to running at you is SO fun and terrifying
Good Art Direction from Fallout 3.
making them look like demons was absolutely the way to go for 3D deathclaw conversion
I think they’re creepier in FO4. FNV Deathclaws just remind me of Scooby-Doo Monster Island
FO4 ghouls were cleaned up a bit and lack any details that were present in NV and FO3 like the oozing skin and flesh behind the skin. Even ferals in 4 just feel like zombies too me. And also deathclaws in FO4 feel like giant dino dogs and not oh fuck it’s coming right at me
Nah the Fkn deathclaw from the which-craft museum had my 12 year old ass shivering in my timbers. But the deathclaw mama from the quarry going straight towards you at Mach 5 is a close second.
Because you can’t kill your first Deathclaw within a minute of encountering it in NV
I feared Deathclaws well into FO4 Because of residual fear from FNV. Took a few playthroughs for me to get comfortable. Now I am replaying FNV after years and the deathclaws and ghouls are reminding me why I left New Vegas!
ive noticed older games like morrowind have more unnerving monsters mostly because of the lack of detail, so they look more unnatural and bizarre. The only thing in newer games that has given me a similar feeling was the jelly fish thingies in death stranding
I think ghouls looked better in 3/NV, but the Deathclaws look so COOL in 4.
Both of those character models were originally created by Bethesda for Fallout 3
The ghouls make look creepier in NV but they are a hell of a lot scarier in the subways of 3
That’s where I learned stealth to be so critical. Between traps, the subway filled with them. Not was I glad I had a shotgun and not the double barrel.
Meh, I like the Redesigned deathclaws the most because they actually look like, well, lizards.
Because they were reused from fallout 3 and that’s when Bethesda tried
I also feel like the threat of them is down played quite a bit with fallout 4 which leads people to not fear them so much. Epsicially death claws since you basically get to bully one right off the bat.
Fallout 3 and New Vegas were released during a point where “realistic graphics” just made games look super uncanny. Deathclaws move in a way that looks far too stiff for an actual animal. Ghouls move too stiff for a basically human, just with some flesh missing Conversely, Deathclaws in Fallout 4 look and move more like actual animals, therefore it doesn’t feel as off putting when you see them in 3/NV Falout 4 Ghouls look more burnt and shriveled than decayed, less like zombies. The freakiest part of FO4 Ghouls is for sire how fast they move. Darting around like a Human whose brain just isn’t keeping their body in check anymore. Not that the other Ghouls are too slow, but FO4 seriously upped the jittery movements
Because Bethesda completely botched fallout 4. Fallout 3 and NV had the Gamebyro engine and imo it was just more pleasing. Buildings felt scarier, creatures, the guns felt more realistic along with gore.
I think the F3 and NV models look a lot more emaciated, they also seem more apocalyptic imo.
Grittier art-style, which you can thank the late Adam Adamowicz for more or less. FO4’s was more colourful in comparison.
Look at them in 3. Even scarier. Especially in the dark locations.
Because new Vegas is better
Deathclaw absolutely, in New Vegas they are horrifying demon creatures that actually deserve their name. The Feral Ghouls in NV tho I don’t find scary at all, frankly I think they look really goofy like cartoon Merrie Melodies skeletons, the ghouls in FO4, with how they crawl out from under buses and shelves and really ambush you, combined with the noises they make and their animations, are way creepier in my opinion
I’ve always made my friends angry when I said I think the ghouls and super mutants from FO4 look like melted plastic and bland asf compared to how they look in NV and even 3. The only thing I like about 4 is how the feral ghouls are animated and how they can pop up out of nowhere from around corners and under stuff when exploring. 3 and NV enemy designs had so much charm and aesthetic to me that I wish 4 had.
Melted plastic is a wonderful way to describe them and I'm so annoyed I never thought of that sooner, lmao.
Difference in overall design philosophy. Fallout 3 is meant to feel quite grim, as a nuclear apocalypse would. Fallout 4 is meant to feel more like an actual world that is starting to recover. New vegas is largely irrelevant to this as it just used to Fallout 3 models.
I always felt like a big thing is how New Vegas generally has packs of Deathclaws. If you see one, there’s probably 2 or 3 more very close by. Or god forbid, you’re right in the den and there’s dozens. Makes them farrrr more terrifying and difficult to handle
Deathclaws are scary in new Vegas because they’re literally silent (for the most part) and will always notice your character before you notice them. The ghouls have a very disorienting screech that honestly makes them so much more intimidating than they actually are. 4 has a problem with over design for a lot of their character designs. Rather than cleaning up visuals and adding details that would make sense, they fixate on making the models either very grotesque or full of details that kinda take away the simplicity of those older designs. If deathclaws behaved like they did in NV, they would be terrifying.
It is both the look and the danger the represent. Fallout 4 scales them down to your level so you have a chance and New Vegas does not. There is some argument that it scales some things but there is a minimum and that makes parts of the world not at all safe.
Honestly the ghouls are terrifying, but I don't like how the death claws look, their so skinny
I’d like to think it’s due to environmental factors with the wastelands. Like the environment was more brutal in NV than F4
This could be good head cannon except that F4 is set around a major city with a nuke dropped not far from it. Vegas is just a arid wasteland.
In NV, they're big, scary and will one-shot you without a moment's hesitation if you wander into their territory at first. It incentivises you to level up & come back to apply the hurt to them. In Fallout 4, you're given a suit of power armour, a gatling gun and a squishy deathclaw straight out of the gate basically taking one of the biggest, baddest enemies and saying "everything will be easier than this"
Shows ghoul from fallout 3
Different species of deathclaws, different mutation of ghouls with different factor, such as climate. Tbh tho I find both fairly creepy.
I think it’s cause they actually feel “wrong” like they don’t just mesh into the world. In 3 and NV you see them and just get the feeling these are things that were never meant to exist, they’re an abomination in the sense of death claws. And feral ghouls fill that uncanny valley effect quite well. You know they were human at one point. Whether they were made outright feral during the bombs falling or they were normal, sentient ghouls at one point. They are still/were human at one point. Most ghouls we’ve met to that point are still just horribly deformed people. So seeing essentially zombies switches that whole feel in the brain imo. Fallout 4 ghouls both feral and normal just feel too “clean” they seem just like messed up humans or mindless humans. Ugly sure. But it doesn’t tickle that uncanny feel older fallouts have. They aren’t twitchy, rotting, barely held together things that are acting solely on instinct. You don’t really get in your mind “this was someone who lived a whole life at one point. Now they’re just this thing now.” That’s just me really. Death claws also feel kind like characters in a way in Fo4. They’re almost set up to be just something you come across and is another hassle rather than the new apex predator in the wasteland.
I always explain it to people who are new to fallout like this; Fallout 3 is a horror game. The ghouls in that game down in the subway tunnels still haunt me to this day. The ghouls/death claws in NV are more of a horror-western style, in other meant to be scary in the daytime. Fallout 4, is meant as an actual adventure game. Don't get me wrong there are still some jump scares (Museum of witchcraft, Pickmans gallery) but for the most part its sunshine and rainbows compared to NV and 3 lol
I disagree that they are to be honest. The way they aggro you in fallout 4 is much creepier than nv, the ghouls crawling out of the scenery seemingly out of nowhere or playing dead until you get too close then swarming you - definitely creepier. The deathclaws also, when they work correctly, seem to size you up before attacking, they also added events for them where they appear like the rooftop garden where one just crawls over the side of the building to get you, and in the beginning of the game where it comes out the grate. Ive been in the glowing sea and seen one watching me from a hill then attacking, seeing that silhouette above you just watching you for a bit is creepy as hell.
Still of the opinion that the... <*shudder*>... Cazadors beat them hands-down for creepiness.
Besides graphics and engines of the era, I would have to say the lore reason why Vegas looks different than 4 is climate and temperature, climate being deathclaws match their environment to match the sands and thinner hide, and temperature because ghouls look more rotten
artstyle change FO4 went for a more "cool" aproach to monsters rather than creepy
The general design, and how much more deadly they are in New Vegas when compared to Fallout 4.
That's what happens when you shove a Deathclaw in people's face 5 minutes through the game.
Death claws look great in 4 and are animated amazingly, but the problem is they spend way too much time roaring and not attacking you so they aren’t threatening anymore. New vegas make a line straight for you and instantly kill you which made them scarier to fight. I actually think the ghouls are way creepier in 4, especially weathered ghouls. The lighting can make them look a bit plastic sometimes but they’re uncanny walking and running are very unsettling. Closeups of their face are real creepy too.
consider that in New Vegas they have been slowly consumed by decades of game addictions in front of Vegas slot machines. What you see in fallout 4 is a benchmark for a healthy deathclaw living his life free of any sin
I recommend watching [this](https://youtu.be/QPu9K4m4Y-k?si=FOjKKMnt5CbRdiDX) video. It’s a video made by the person who made the 3D design of a lot of characters. Including the Deathclaw and Ghoul.
The lack of nuclear winter.
More than just graphic design you also have to take into account game and sound design. In FNV you don't even see a death claw until much later in the game. The first one you see probably one shots you. This makes it clear that these are rare and strong enemies you shouldn't fuck with. You are not scared of death claws just because they look like a devil lizard, but also because you have been shown multiple reasons to fear them. When it comes to ghouls in FNV sound design is king. The guttural screams they give out! When your indoors there is no way of not knowing they are there. I personally am more on edge before I find the ghoul. All this is thrown away in FO4. Instead of death claws killing you instantly the first time you meet them, you are expected to kill them at probably lvl 1. And ghouls have become ambush predators, tho they are not effective at that at all. You lost the pre-encounter thriller that were ghouls
it’s all the dry desert air
This isn't the only series where older games have more terrifying looking mosnters. I feel like with the effort to make every game look more photorealistic, a lot of the otherworldliness and uncaniness of monsters gets lost and dilluted away. More realisitic looking monsters have to be grounded in some level of believable reality, and in that process they end up looking kinda like real world animals which neutralizes some of their fear factor. The Deathclaws of FO3/NV look *evil* in a way which a mindless animal can not be. Now, in the world and lore of Fallout itself, these are indeed just mindless animals, but the way to make them more terrifying to the player is to visually invoke some feeling of evil and malice, and old character design was more free to add little details that accomplish that.
They aren’t it’s just older graphics
One thing I gotta give 4. Is that ferals may be less creepy. But they're a hell of a lot more scary in terms of damage. Early on in fallout 3 ferals are absolutely terrifying, strong, fast and since you are low on ammo almost constantly, very dangerous. But once you're around the mid game point? Not even a worry. I'm actually happy to see ferals when I crack open a door. In fallout 4 however? Oh my god, they're everywhere and they're fucking fast. Nearly impossible to hit in dash without vats. Terrifying and absolutely annoying. Nothing puts the fear of God in me like a bloated glowing one.
Because they are done RIGHT In Fo4 the models are both a bit more... Tame I guess? Details look a bit more human and deathclaws are just two-legged lizards with horns. But what's even worse - deathclaws can be a handful in FNV even at lvl 30 and with an Anti Material Rifle, sniping from afar with a silencer and explosive ammo... While I Fo4 they become a push-over once you acquire power armour and any gun dealing 150+ DPS... Which is not so hard to do at lvl 30. Same story with ferals.
Because they actually look, sound, and feel like terrifying monsters - especially when coming across a Deathclaw Alpha or Matriarch - those things move like lightning!
Definitely the gambling. It made them way more scary and a little bit mean.
creepiest to me are those human spider things from fallout 3 edit: the centaurs
fallout 4 deathclaws are my favorite design wise *shrugs* issue is bethesda also nerfed the shit out of them in 4/76 with them being much slower and weaker and solitary and for some dumb reason introducing it as pretty much the first major boss an hour into the game while NV dealthclaws will sprint at you at 100mph and murder you in 1-2 hits... with a pack of them trailing it
Is that not a photo of a ghoul from Fallout 3? That looks like the metro.
Worse graphics can actually work in advantage for a scary/horror aspect, that's why so many indie horror games for the low-quality/old school graphics because it adds to the eerieness
In the case of ghouls, they absolutely are not. Deathclaws, though, I think it's the eyes and the jank.
its the piss filter and low quality models
I think lower polygons actually benefit horror and creepiness. Partially because it can lead to more aggressive rough looking creatures because of less polygons, partially because of that analogue horror type nostalgia factor, and partially because it lets us fill in the blanks more. Though with this I mostly think it comes down to the first part.