Fallout 4 Companions, Romance, and Skills

More Fallout news? You bet.

At Quakecon, Bethesda's Todd Howard led a presentation and demonstration regarding the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. (strength, perception, endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility, luck) system, skills, perks, companions, and romance in Fallout 4.

Starting with leveling and S.P.E.C.I.A.L., as always you'll be given a pool of points to distribute in your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes at the start of the game. According to Howard, these stats will play a much greater role in the development of your character than in previous games.

Fallout 4's leveling system will be more akin to that of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim's than any previous Fallout game. When leveling up in Fallout 4, players will be able to unlock and upgrade perks. These perks are tied directly to your character's S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stats. Each stat has 10 perks, corresponding to the 10 points that can be spent in each stat. For example, if you spend 8 points in charisma, you'll be able to unlock 8 charisma-based perks.

This makes for 70 perks (not including upgrades) in Fallout 4. With some returning favorites, as well as several newcomers. All of the perks and upgrades are displayed on a Vault-Tec poster with an animated Vault Boy.

"When you're coming out of the Vault, if you've decided to go right to the 10 on a stat, and lower on your other ones, you can be picking some really cool perks," Howard said. "And we've found that playing the game over time, this gets us some really cool play styles, and it changes what you want to pick when."

During the panel, we were also introduced to a new companion: a female named Piper. Piper is the fourth companion to be introduced for Fallout 4 (with Dogmeat, Codsworth, and Preston Garvey already having been introduced) and is only one of twelve potential companions to be found in the Boston Wasteland.

"You can have one [companion] at a time, and we wanted to have a lot of different archetypes and we track how they feel about you," Howard said. "With the humans, it can even lead to romances, and that is regardless of whatever gender you're playing."

Fallout 4 launches on Nov. 10, 2015 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.