Fallout 4 Review (PS5) | Push Square

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Nearing a decade after its original release, Bethesda has ported Fallout 4 to PS5, promising the kind of improved technical performance that you'd expect from a generation-jumping upgrade. But does the once highly-rated, open world RPG still hold up in 2024?

That's a surprisingly difficult question to answer. Some would argue that Fallout 4 was never that good to begin with, but we've always enjoyed its addictive gameplay loop: the endless cycle of exploring, blasting mutants, and levelling up. Said loop has, in our opinion, stood the test of time, and Fallout 4 remains incredibly moreish with regards to character development, both through the acquisition of loot and the distribution of perk points.

Bethesda's greatest strength has always been its ability to craft worlds that constantly distract from your destination, and Fallout 4's post-apocalyptic Boston is no different. It's an impressively dense map, offering adventure at every turn. It's an open world that you can easily get lost in for hours at a time, especially when you factor in all of the character progression systems that we mentioned above.

But this is where the game starts to fall apart a little — at least by more modern standards. Fallout 4 is often hamstrung by technical limitations — limitations that were already questionable all the way back in 2015. For example, hitting a loading screen every single time that you enter or exit an interior location feels so unbelievably archaic, and that's with the PS5 version's vastly superior load times.

What's more, the game's overall scope is held back by similar limitations. Now, obviously, you wouldn't expect a radiation-soaked wasteland to be teeming with life, but Boston can just feel so… unambitious. There's a general lack of action as you move from place to place, and established settlements like Diamond City and Goodneighbor — supposed hubs of activity and trade — feel like total facades when the combined population count caps at around 30 NPCs.

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