Quite a bit of news came out recently about Bethesda’s upcoming fourth chapter of the main Fallout series, the least of which is probably the “revelation” that the game is already finished. The more interesting news has little to do with release dates or the game nearly ready to go gold, but instead the romantic flexibility of its recruitable NPCs and the new twist added to the perk system.

First, It would seem that bisexuality is quite common in post-apocalyptic 1950’s-themed America, since there is confirmation that every human NPC in the game can be romanced regardless of the player character’s gender. Though you understandably cannot romance Dogmeat or your robotic companion, the rest are, apparently, fair game.

Secondly, the perk system has been revealed to be quite a bit different from what we have seen in previous entries. Instead of new perks opening up depending on the character level you’ve reached and the statistics you started with, perks are now automatically revealed when you meet the base statistic for their unlocking. What this means is that you may, if your statistics are high enough at the start, already have access to several perks from the get-go.

Even more of a surprise is that there are no longer any skills and rather than have lock-picking and stealth be something you pour points into at level-up, they are presumably now replaced by perks that, as stated earlier, become available according to your base stats.

This shouldn’t shock those who have been following the fan boards, since screenshots from the E3 showcase revealed subtle hints that Bethesda was doing away with the idea of skillpoints at level-up.

There’s definitely an opposite version of the infamous “Feature Creep” phenomenon going on with the Fallout series. Whether this results in a more streamlined game is unknown…though we’ll know for sure when the game launches on November 10th.