One of the central complaints about Fallout 4, and perhaps Bethesda RPG games generally, is how it partially forces you to play a certain type of character. Your backstory is given to you. Your objective – rescue Shaun – is pretty rigid, and makes freeform exploration feel like a guilty pleasure. If the goal of Fallout 4 mods is to expand, overhaul, and transform the 2015 original, this new one might be one of the best – and throws in some of that classic Fallout New Vegas story building to boot.
Roleplayer’s Expanded Dialogue takes the sometimes restrictive and prescribed conversation system in Fallout 4 and transforms it into something where your choices and your character build really matter. Hundreds and hundreds of new lines of dialogue are added to the open-world game, allowing you to push conversations in multiple directions based on your own stats, perks, and SPECIAL choices.
Normally, alternative or hidden dialogue choices in Fallout 4 are mostly governed by the ‘Charisma’ stat – if you have high Charisma, you can finish quests using speech, barter for more caps, and so on. It’s fine, but it doesn’t really take into account what makes your character unique, instead homogenising all the possibilities for dialogue into one single option and buff.
Roleplayer’s Expanded Dialogue adds new lines based on a myriad of factors. Is your Strength stat really high? There are new dialogue options. Put lots of points into the medic skill? New dialogue options. Got the Lady Killer perk? Yep, new dialogue.
Even the beloved low-intelligence options make a return. If you miss blundering through the Mojave Wasteland, battling the “Gum Runners” and asking the Brain Tank if you can have a cookie, that option returns, with some absolutely beautiful one-liners, as you can see below:
Even wearing power armour gives you extra conversation options now – if someone tries to mug you, you can just reply with a glib “erm, I’m wearing power armour,” and watch them crumble and back down. And we haven’t even got to the best part.
The entire mod is fully voiced. All those hundred and hundreds of new conversation options and NPC responses sound perfectly integrated with the base game, thanks to a voice modulation AI which mimics every Fallout 4 character. Essentially, it sounds like Bethesda designed Fallout 4 this way in the first place. It’s flawless. You can get Roleplayer’s Extended Dialogue, created by ‘ProfMajkowski,’ here.
If you want to know what else Bethesda is up to, check out everything we know about the Fallout 5 release date. You might also want to try some of the best sandbox games, or perhaps some of the other best games like Fallout available now.