ItвЂ™s an emotional connection that few other games provide, offering a glimmer of hopelessness and misery that helps make the gameвЂ™s world that bit more believable.ДЇallout 3 doesnвЂ™t hand the player a companion until they meet Fawkes towards the end of the gameвЂ™s main quest others are available from the start, but finding and acquiring them is entirely player-driven. Expelled from the only people your character has ever known, you enter a cold, unforgiving world вЂ“ thereвЂ™s nobody by your side, and few that will welcome you into their community.

While not particularly fun, loneliness is gripping. Fallout 3 is a game about wandering and loneliness, which is fitting given the player characterвЂ™s name: Lone Wanderer. Every town is a miniscule fortification, separated from potential aid by miles of nothingness: empty homes, dead forests and crumbling freeways are all youвЂ™ll have for guidance. If you manage to miss Megaton on your way out of Vault 101, youвЂ™ll spend hours simply looking for another non-hostile NPC. Even friendly faces arenвЂ™t to be trusted, as a trip to cannibal-infested Andale quickly confirms. Making your first foray into Fallout 3вЂ™s Capital Wasteland is about as suffocating as gaming gets, ejecting you unceremoniously from the safety of Vault 101 into a dank, grey world where everything in sight is either demolished, lifeless or inhabited by Raiders.

While itвЂ™s not easy to sell, loneliness is a key part of what makes the Fallout universe so compelling. So why would you even consider venturing out into the wastes without one of them by your side? In return for this bizarre level of commitment, you get someone whoвЂ™ll gladly run through a minefield to save you, carry all your spare junk and gives you a unique perk if you behave yourself around them. Oh, and donвЂ™t even think about getting naked in front of X6-88, it disgusts him.

Because of their outrageous list of likes and dislikes, youвЂ™ve practically built your entire character around appeasing your wasteland chums: youвЂ™ve stopped killing innocents, ceased all drug use and started lockpicking everything in sight because it makes Piper go all gooey-eyed for you вЂ“ which is pretty weird come to think of it I mean, theyвЂ™re just locks Piper. The noise of that first hour ensures youвЂ™ve been exposed to so many potential companions that the notion of exploring the game solo seems totally counterintuitive.ДЄfter a while, when the constant presence of an NPC nattering away in your ear grows tiresome, you realise that itвЂ™s not going to be easy getting rid of them. ItвЂ™s impossible to glean the sense of solitude and isolation that Fallout 4вЂ™s setting should entail when youвЂ™re constantly having to to acquaint yourself with new characters in order to progress through the gameвЂ™s main quest. TheyвЂ™re fully-fledged characters, not just NPCs you can order around, which is why exposing players to five of them within the first hour of gameplay is nothing short of overkill. The gameвЂ™s 13 potential companions all have stories to uncover and uses that go far beyond lugging around all the crap youвЂ™ve accumulated on your travels.

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