Tech

This is the best way to prepare for 'Fallout 4,' which finally arrives next week

Dave Smith

2015-11-04T20:25:15Z

"Fallout 4" is one of the most anticipated games of the year, and it's finally arriving next Tuesday.

Thankfully, Bethesda Game Studios, the game's developer, offers several helpful video guides to prepare for your adventure in "The Wasteland" — the term for the ruins of society after the nuclear war of 2077, which your character was able to escape.

You see, there's a progression system in "Fallout 4" that most "Fallout" fans are familiar with: You get experience from discovering areas, killing bad guys, and more — but once you get enough experience to "level up," you get special points you can put towards changing your character's traits.

In "Fallout 4," your character has seven defining attributes: strength, perception, endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility, and luck. You can easily remember these with the "S.P.E.C.I.A.L." acronym — but before you jump into the game, it's best to understand how it all works.

Here's a brief guide to each of these character perks, which includes fun video breakdowns from Bethesda Game Studios on how these "S.P.E.C.I.A.L." attributes affect gameplay in "Fallout 4."

1. Strength

Strength affects your raw physical power in the game. It affects the damage of your melee attacks and how many things (items, weapons, apparel, first aid, etc.) you can carry on your character.

2. Perception

Perception affects your environmental awareness in "Fallout 4." By adding more Perception points, you can get better at picking locks, pickpocketing characters, creating explosives, and attacking enemies with better accuracy.

2. Endurance

Your Endurance stat affects your overall wellness in the game, particularly with regards to keeping radiation and all its negative effects at bay. You'll be able to swim in contaminated water, and take less radiation when you eat or drink from sources around the Wasteland.

4. Charisma

Charisma affects how your character interacts with other characters — humans and animals alike. Adding Charisma points will let you sell your materials at higher prices, improve how well you work with companions, and even reduce your chances of getting addicted to drugs and alcohol.

5. Intelligence

Your character's intelligence impacts all sorts of aspects of "Fallout 4." With more intelligence, you can heal yourself and others more effectively, hack computers and robots, scrap and salvage any items you come across, and more.

6. Agility

Agility affects your reflexes and how well you can deal out damage, particularly with guns. It's also the key to sneaking around in the game, something "Fallout" and "Skyrim" fans will recognize as extremely important for attack strategies.

7. Luck

Luck has a wide range of effects in "Fallout 4," and in most cases, it's going to be the difference between life or death, particularly in a fire fight. Focusing on increasing your luck will help you find more currency and more ammunition, get more experience from each encounter, and recharge your "Critical Hits," which you build over time to unleash massive damage against powerful enemies.

"Fallout 4" will release on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on November 10.

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