Call of Duty and Fallout may both involve firearms, but they come from completely different design traditions. Activision’s series is built around razor-sharp shooting, while Fallout is an open-world RPG where guns are mainly tools for survival, exploration, and scavenging. Still, one longtime Call of Duty developer thinks Bethesda’s franchise has a lot of work left to do when it comes to how it handles shooting.
Greg Reisdorf, who directed multiplayer on several Call of Duty entries, spoke to Hellcase about the combat systems in the Fallout games and did not exactly soften his opinion. He flatly described the gunplay as “terrible”, and he also seems convinced that he understands why it falls so far short of the standard many players expect from a game that includes first-person shooting mechanics. “My God. Right now it’s terrible. There are a lot of problems with the animations. Their engine is very clunky, especially in first person,” he said.
Fallout’s Gunplay Is “Terrible”
According to Reisdorf, part of the issue is that Bethesda appears to be using the same models for both first- and third-person perspectives, even though first-person combat needs much more specific attention in how aiming is handled. In his view, the entire ADS system felt more like a stiff button-triggered snap than a dynamic, fluid transition into aiming. The former developer believes the shooting simply does not meet the level players expect from any game sold with shooter-style mechanics, even if Fallout is not really a traditional shooter in the first place.
The most striking part of Reisdorf’s comments, though, is not the criticism itself but the offer that comes with it. When asked what he would do if Todd Howard called and asked him to help improve the gunplay in Fallout 5, his answer was very clear: “I’ll be there tomorrow, Todd.” In other words, he effectively volunteered his own services to Bethesda, and it is not hard to see why someone with that background would be an appealing addition if the studio ever decided to seriously rebuild the shooting feel of the next game.
For now, of course, this is more of a loud opinion and a pointed suggestion than any actual development plan. Bethesda is currently focused on The Elder Scrolls VI, so if Fallout 5 ever arrives, it is still many years away. Even so, Reisdorf’s criticism lands on a point that players have been noticing since Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas: even though the gunplay improved significantly by the time Fallout 4 came around, the series still does not feel as good to shoot as many players would expect from a franchise of that size.
Source: 3DJuegos
