New features to the series include the ability to develop and manage settlements and an extensive crafting system where materials scavenged from the environment can be used to craft drugs and explosives, upgrade weapons and armor, and construct, furnish and improve settlements. The player explores the game's dilapidated world, completes various quests, helps out factions, and acquires experience points to level up and increase the abilities of their character. After witnessing the murder of their spouse and kidnapping of their son, the Sole Survivor ventures out into the Commonwealth to search for their missing child.

The player assumes control of a character referred to as the 'Sole Survivor', who emerges from a long-term cryogenic stasis in Vault 111, an underground nuclear fallout shelter. The main story takes place in the year 2287, ten years after the events of Fallout 3 and 210 years after 'The Great War', which caused catastrophic nuclear devastation across the United States. It makes use of a number of local landmarks, including Bunker Hill, Fort Independence, and Old North Bridge near Concord, as the bridge out of Sanctuary Hills. The game is set within an open world post-apocalyptic environment that encompasses the city of Boston and the surrounding Massachusetts region known as 'The Commonwealth'. It is the fourth main game in the Fallout series and was released worldwide on November 10, 2015, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Fallout 4 is a 2015 action role-playing game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks.

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