Fallout 4 will have no level cap and no hard finish

For many players, one of the gravest failings of Fallout 3 was that once it was over, it was over.

was that once it was over, it was over. Having saved the world from almost certain doom, players couldn't wander back into the wasteland to horse around at their leisure. Same deal with New Vegas: If you didn't do all your exploring before the grand finale, you were out of luck unless you loaded up a pre-endgame save. But Bethesda says that won't be the case with Fallout 4.

"To fans who’ve asked: Fallout 4 doesn’t end when the main story is and over and there is no level cap," Bethesda tweeted earlier today. "You can keep playing and leveling."

To our fans who’ve asked: Fallout 4 doesn’t end when the main story is over and there is no level cap. You can keep playing and leveling. August 6, 2015

Being open-ended is cool, but the lack of a level capis a surprise. Fallout 3 had a cap of 20, which could be boosted to 30 through the Broken Steel expansion. New Vegas peaked at 30 out of the box and could be pushed up as high as 50 via the four DLC releases, which increase the max by five levels each. Without that limit, I would think that Bethesda is opening the door to some potentially dicey balance issues. After all, scaling enemies will only go so far before they start to seem weird.

We'll see soon enough: Fallout 4 will be out on November 10.