Today is October 27th, 2015, which means the release of the hotly anticipated Fallout 4 is a mere two weeks away (November 10th). FOURTEEN DAYS!! Cancel all your plans, get ready to play hooky from school or work, and stock up on Nukacola because this game is about to take over your life. We wouldn’t have it any other way, would we?

Over the past couple of months, videos have surfaced showing Fallout 4 gameplay and features. Unless you want to spend hours watching them (hey, I did), this post will catch you up quicker on everything there is to know about the new game. Plus, I’ll follow that up with ways Fallout 4 can improve on the previous entries in the series.

The New Features of Fallout 4

Based in Beantown

After much speculation about where Fallout 4 would take place, it was revealed that the game will be set in Boston, Massachusetts. That’s a pretty exciting prospect, and not just for those of us who grew up in the area. Boston is home to iconic landmarks, a harbor, schools like MIT and Harvard, Fenway Park, the first public transit system in the country, and it’s one of the most important places in the country’s history. That’s a lot of various terrain that has the potential to lead to really dynamic storytelling.

Man’s Best Friend

Right at the beginning of the game, you have the option to add a companion – a brave canine named Dogmeat. Having a trusty dog by your side is pretty neat, but even better is the option to issue commands to him, such as telling him to search a potentially dangerous area. He can even fetch things for you. Now your laziness can extend to your Fallout 4 self!

Altered V.A.T.S

We’ve all been there before – a deathclaw suddenly lumbers toward you, so you freeze time by going into V.A.T.S to better assess the situation. Well, you no longer have that luxury in Fallout 4. Triggering V.A.T.S in the new game only slows down time – it doesn’t stop it completely. Which means less time to select the best weapon and administer those much-needed stimpacks.

Real Life Pip-Boy

If you’re willing to shell out a lot of money you can buy the Pip-Boy Edition of Fallout 4, which comes with an honest-to-God real Pip-Boy. Sort of. It’s a casing modeled after the Pip-Boy, which you can put your smart phone into and use as the screen. The good news is, for those of us who don’t want to drop all that dough, we can still use the Pip-Boy app for a “2nd screen experience,” as (Game Director) Todd Howard calls. Kinda neat!

Architect of the Wasteland

A brand new feature in Fallout 4 allows you to build your own home base just the way you want it. You can control walls, furniture, layout, features, everything. It’s basically the nuclear step-child of The Sims. Some players may choose to ignore this feature entirely, but I plan to waste lots of time tricking out my (very) humble abode. Skip to 21:08 in this video to see footage.

Crafty Cannons

In previous Fallout games, there was never much reason to pick up the pencils, clipboards, and coffee mugs that were strewn about (unless you had the Rock-It Launcher – more on that later). But in Fallout 4, every single one of those arbitrary items now serves a purpose. They can all be broken down and used as components to craft add-ons to your weapons – say, a scope for your rifle. In Fallout 4, there will be 50 base weapons, accompanied by 700+ possible modifications for them. So get in touch with your inner Martha Stewart and make something special!

Other Notable Additions

-A voiced protagonist (over 13,000 lines recorded by male & female voice actors)

-Ability to play as female character

-New system to alter appearance of character

-Modify your power armor panel-by-panel

-Revamped S.P.E.C.I.A.L. skill tree

-No level cap

The Fix List

Hopefully Bethesda will address some of the following grievances of previous Fallout games:

Can I Get a Lift?

Fast-traveling between locations is a piece of cake, but not until you’ve explored a decent portion of the map. In the early days of wandering the wasteland, it can take forever to run to the next location. Unfortunately, the only vehicles you ever come across are busted beyond repair. Still, surely somebody must’ve left their old dirt bike lying around, right? Guess not. There’s no indication that any working vehicles will appear in Fallout 4, but we can dream, can’t we?

About Those Glitches…

Glitches like the one above are more hilarious than problematic, but Fallout: New Vegas had its fair share of irritating ones. There’s nothing like getting stuck in a mountain and having to load your last save point (whenever that was). Sometimes it would get to the point where you’re just saving as much as you can, knowing that a glitch is going to strike, any moment now… Hopefully Fallout 4 will have far fewer glitches then we witnessed in New Vegas.

Tell Me How It Ends

I may be in the minority here, but I really wasn’t a fan of the choose your own ending setup in New Vegas. I’m one of those gamers who wants to complete EVERY objective, and I don’t want to have to go back to 10 different decisions and play the game through again from that point. It got really irritating when I had to make a decision, I chose what I thought was best, and then upon completion I see FAILED – WILD CARD: CHANGE IN MANAGEMENT appear on the screen. I get why Bethesda set the game up this way – it forces you to go back and play it again and again. But that’s something I’ll do on my own. I don’t need the game to force me into it.

Bring Back Wacky Weapons

Fallout: New Vegas had two glaring absences in the gun department – the Railway Rifle and the Rock-It Launcher, both from Fallout 3. The Rock-It Launcher was a personal favorite, because somehow taking somebody’s head off with a coffee mug just never gets old. Thankfully, footage from Fallout 4 seems to indicate a possible return for the Rock-It Launcher, but under the new moniker Junk Jet (see photo above). Here’s to hoping that with some modifications, we can all make Junk Jet Sniper Rifles and decapitate a raider with a clipboard from 700 ft away.

What are you looking forward to in Fallout 4? Do you have your own grievances from New Vegas or Fallout 3? Leave it in the comments below, and thanks again for reading!