Fallout 4's most divisive faction is The Minutemen, but a simple change would have made them the coolest faction in the game. Many fans were bored of The Minutemen due to the lifelessness of it, despite the interesting premise of it being a faction the player builds from scratch and has full control over from the start. The problem is that the game doesn't expand on this the way it could have. Of course, therein lies the solution that could make The Minutemen the coolest side of the four factions.
The premise of The Minutemen is that they are an organized militia of settlements all agreeing to watch each other's backs. Unlike factions with similar setups in past games, like the NCR or New Vegas' Caesar's Legion, The Minutemen aren't necessarily a governing body, but instead a mutual aid organization meant to protect settlements from raiders and other threats. Due to corruption in the ranks and a string of harsh losses, however, the Minutemen are reduced to a single soldier, companion Preston Garvey, by the time the player runs across them.
If the player saves Preston, the Sole Survivor is tasked with rebuilding The Minutemen as its general. However, the faction drew criticism for not having much character to it, even after it completely returns to its former glory. Which is a shame, since one single change to the faction's existing gameplay loop would make The Minutemen the coolest faction in the Commonwealth.
The Minutemen Should Have Given The Recruited Settlements A More Active Role
What made the faction dynamics work in New Vegas, one of the secret weapons that led it and Obsidian to be praised by even Todd Howard, was that every faction's potential is explored to its fullest once the player s them. ing the NCR leads to a fundamentally different experience than ing the Legion. Giving the settlements the Sole Survivor recruits a bigger role in the story and the faction would basically result in a completely different game within the game.
Many settlers in Fallout 4 have actual names and history, and quests associated with them. Fallout 4 could have taken things even further by letting the player choose settlers to recruit as officers, so that the chain of command doesn't collapse in the event of their death. One of the reasons fans are more excited for New Vegas 2 than Fallout 5 is because player choice across the game adds up way more in New Vegas than in Fallout 4. This change would make every choice matter, as who the player recruits into The Minutemen would affect how the wasteland is affected by them, and how successful they are this time.
As with the rest of Fallout 4, the foundation was there to make The Minutemen really interesting. Unlike New Vegas, where the factions are already well established long before the player shows up, this would be something the player would build from nothing. With just a little bit of expansion on what was already there, The Minutemen could have been the coolest, most interesting faction in Fallout 4.
