The next installment in Bethesda‘s video series covering the various S.P.E.C.I.A.L skills in Fallout 4 tackles Intelligence, and all the big brain powers it grants you.
We’ve previously covered Bethesda‘s kitschy, classic instructional film inspired S.P.E.C.I.A.L explanation series for Fallout 4 all the way up through the “C” for Charisma. Today, Bethesda has released the “I” video – “I” for the skill Intelligence.
“With all the talk of physical survival in the wasteland,” says the all too cheery narrator over animated footage of a Vault Boy wandering through desolation with a dunce cap on, “you may forget that sometimes its survival of the smartest.” Indeed, in Fallout history, the Intelligence skill has acted many times as an escape route from potentially violent confrontations – it affected the amount of skill points you could put into various skills, perks related to science, medicine, repairs, and energy weapons, and used in conversation to outwit opponents.
However, without skill points in Fallout 4 (or so it appears), the focus is on the perks, left mostly a mystery by this perk chart below released a few weeks ago. The Intelligence video does, however, shed a few radioactive lights on what some of these could be.
The first one glimpsed in the video is a Vault Boy pouring Science and Imagination chemicals on a 10mm Pistol, turning it into a bizarre quad-barreled shotgun. This loosely corresponds to the third level Intelligence perk image hinting that this is either weapon crafting or advanced weapon crafting.
The second one glimpsed is perhaps the most interesting thing of any of these videos thus far; a Vault Boy bulking up and taking on a pack of hostile robots, before combining them into one killer death machine. The image used in the video corresponds with the level 10 Intelligence perk, of a Vault Boy in nerd glasses – previously used to denote the perk Nerd Rage in Fallout 3. This is interesting, because Nerd Rage was effectively a useless perk — a small damage boost when health is low. Making it level 10 in Fallout 4, this implying some massive boost for taking it, along with the bizarre robot combination? That is one of the most dramatic minor changes we’ve seen thus far.
At the end we get quick flashes of another few perks. The level 1 image of a Vault Boy riding a bus, narration implying an ability to use technology to travel. The image of a soldier healing in battle, corresponding to the level 2 doctor perk. A scientist mixing chemicals with narration using the phrase “creating more potent chemical compounds,” fitting with the level 7 image implying explosive creation.
Is any of this exact? Who knows? Bethesda has played Fallout 4 bizarrely close to the vest thus far, even though we are just over one month away from release on November 11th for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.
