Finlee Kilgore, the Wasteland Bar-bear-ian has entered Vault 81. As he walks in for his second visit, to the jeers of many for being Commonwealth trash, he helps save a small boy's life and gain the adoration of everyone. Despite still being questioned about whether that is his Pip-Boy or not, Finlee journeys back into the Wasteland, wearing his Grognak loincloth and wielding the great barbarian's axe with the dilapidated head of a former sports mascot. He seeks revenge against whoever murdered his wife and stole his son.

This has been my experience with Fallout 4, and it's going to be a LOOOOONG time until I find my son.

The delay in finding Shaun isn't because he isn't important to me. As a matter of fact, Fallout 4 didn't have to do much to get me attached to my main story mission. As a man who has always wanted to be a husband and a father (but am neither), that motivation alone is enough to get my blood boiling. The reason it's taking so long is because...well...there's so much shit to do!

Fallout 3 and New Vegas had their density, but it just can't quite reach the level of how Fallout 4 has achieved it. There's a ton of places to venture to, little "dungeons" with hidden secrets and cool side-quests that offer a one-off experience. This is typical of the franchise at this point. It's the additions to all of this that make matters so much larger. The innumerable number of companions available to you, the absolute depth of the perk chart coupled with the lack of level cap, and even the addition of legendary enemies with special versions of weaponry give the game far more flavor than it already had.

The crafting system even gives you depth, letting you turn your gear into whatever you need it to be for your play style: stealthy, gun-toting, melee-wielding, broad-shouldered tank, and the list goes on and on.

The settlement building lets you create towns that, to many, won't matter. However, the fact that you can essentially build your OWN Megaton, that YOU can be the one who creates the new crown jewel of the Wasteland...and that you might have to defend it... This idea is just extravagant in ways that the series has never known outside of community mods.

The game is packaged with all of the stuff that I wanted, and I can only hope that the DLC will expand on it.

This is why I say that Fallout 4 is my Game of the Year, even with a month and a half left and only 24 hours played on my main character. I already know that I'll be playing this for hundreds of hours to come.