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Perhaps a smart guy like you has seen everything under the sun already and nothing could possibly surprise you. I mean all of the other Fallouts have been so original before this one. Not like the first two boil down to your community slowly dying and you're the only one that can save them? Then in 3 you have to track down your long lost/deadbeat dad, that's never been done before right? Oh then in New Vegas you have to avenge yourself from the guy that almost murdered you, that's definitely never ever been done before!
The Elder Scrolls series is even worse. I mean with the player always being a prisoner. Unoriginal Bethesda bastards! Somebody should tell them how much they suck.
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Maybe you should try active aggression, rather than this passive aggressive stuff.
In Fallout 3 you begin with, quite literally, your birth. After you've done character creation via organically chosen interactions (do you remember the GOAT?) you leave the vault and enter a rather standard story line of chasing your father. Thing is, the introduction doesn't give a crap about getting you started or an overarching story, it just says "welcome to our world, it's yours now."
As far as New Vegas, the opening was a bit cliche. It follows the amnesia tropes, but getting shot isn't the opening. The opening is interacting with the doctor to set your SPECIAL, wandering around a town, getting into an easy mode bit of combat to introduce you to the systems, and being able to kill something which genuinely poses a challenge (and therefore gives a sense of accomplishment). Getting a second life is cliche, but the mechanical introduction was genuinely good and didn't rely on any tropes once you could actually play the game.
I never argued Elder Scrolls. They are the exact same beginning for every game. Prisoner, accused of an unspecified crime, get saved by deus ex machina, and adventure begins.
The reason this particular introduction was galling is that it has the death of your loved one immediately as a motivation. It frames actions against another loved one as a means of core motivation. It doesn't even have a particularly good introduction to the mechanics, as you enter a standard character creation shuffle like that of 3, without being invested in anything before being shuffled off to the vault. I cared about the people in 3 because we could talk. I don't care about 4 because we're told that we love a cardboard cut-out. Sorry, but I care more about the Raiders than a character that is used as motivation that I'm told to care about. Tell me, other than their gender, and that they love their child, what do you know about your spouse? If you can't give me a dozen things, then the character wasn't a character, and thus wasn't worthy of being a motivation.
You argue that I'm jaded and believe Fallout 4 should have had a completely fresh opening; I argue that this is impossible. I just want Bethesda to make me care about characters that should be our primary motivation. If you spent anything more than a token few minutes with your loved ones they might be that. Unfortunately, Bethesda dropped the ball here, so we get a trope. I'm angry that after years of time for them to develop we get an opening worse than that of 3. Way to start off by shooting yourself in the foot Bethesda.
