On a serious note, would've been funny if the male-only leak was real. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if some elements of that post turned out to be true. In any case, a voiced protagonist doesn't fit Fallout. It's a mistake that Bethesda made with the personal story of Fallout 3 too. It's indicative of Bethesda not getting the setting at all.
The story is not primarily about the player character. It never has, it never should be. The impact a personal narrative for the protagonist should happen only after the player is emotionally invested, not when it's thrust upon you. Likewise, the bombs falling doesn't demonstrate the brutality of war. It's just the backstory, there's no motif to drive home by focusing on the bombs.
Fallout is a story about the world and society, with the player character as a conduit for the player. It's not a complete blank slate as all the protagonists have defined pasts and backgrounds. But the general idea is to make the player character the agent of change in the setting. The person who disrupts the status quo, without being lauded or recognised for it.
This goes back to the central theme of Fallout. "War never changes". Bethesda has taken that to mean that history repeats itself. Which is true, but the core lesson to take from the phrase isn't that history repeats endlessly, it's that history repeats endlessly because people don't change. Human nature won't ever change. That is the key component that Bethesda is unable to understand, especially with their heavy handed approach to morality.
And that's where the player character comes in. That's why moral dilemmas are the trademark of Fallout, because it's a challenge to the player character (and the player by extension), to see how and if they can change human nature with their actions.
It's why irony and dark humour permeates the setting, it's why they juxtapose the clean 50s retro visual style with violent atrocities. It's all cues to tell the player that no matter how we build society, man is a vicious, selfish, warlike animal when pushed into the right circumstances. No matter how civilised we aim to be, we are beasts at the core.
And the various factions that spring up over the course of the series are answers to solving that problem. The Master's Unity in F1 saw the answer in evolution and genetic ascension (the Super Mutants). Fallout 2's Enclave saw themselves as the true heirs to humanity, and found their answer in suppression and authoritarian control of the impure. The BoS saw the answer in isolation and pursuit of knowledge, eschewing external power structures. The NCR saw the answer in democracy and expansionism through trade. That society would be best served by Old World values. And Caesar's Legion saw the answer in Old World values too, just different ones. Integration and societal cohesion through totalitarian conquest. Side note, the irony of Caesar is that he formed his Empire on the basis that ideology is stronger than any one man, but what actually holds the Legion together isn't shared ideology, it's held together by their faith in him.
Many quests in the series deal with issues like this on the smaller level. For example, there are plenty of settlements in a position where they need leadership, and the player, as the agent of change, is poised to push people in the direction (s)he chooses. But these settlements don't exist in a vacuum (yet another aspect Bethesda doesn't understand), what affects one place will affect everything else. Fallout is about society after all. So when players are put into those positions where they may decide the fate of an entire town, they had to take into account the greater conflict and what kind of interplay it could cause for the whole region and how that changes the ending.
The player is constantly made aware of the contrast between the Old World and the New World, and how one led to the other. As they explore the game world and make moral decisions in quests, they're constantly being asked "is this the right choice?" "can you do better?" "do you even want to do better?"
It forces you to examine your choices from the perspective of actually being in a post apocalyptic shithole. Morality isn't just black and white. There's more than enough gray to cover the Wasteland like a blanket. Again, another Bethesda failing because they don't get that.
So how is any of that relevant to a voiced protagonist? Is it relevant at all? It's tangentially related. In order to hammer home all these high minded ideas about society and human nature, Fallout gives the player an incredibly large range of interactions with the gameworld as a means of immersing the player. AKA encouraging roleplaying. The Wasteland is a dirty, gritty and quirky place showcasing the best and worst of humanity. The player character is no exception.
You can be a Slaver, a Drug Addict, a Porn Star, you can get married, you can impregnate mob matriarchs, and seduce people to kill them in their sleep. You can say and do all sorts of things if you are roleplaying that kind of character. The best thing is that all these actions are optional side content that are structured around your skills and attributes. Hell, in Vegas you could yell at people in dialogue and make them flee combat if you had the right Perk. You could roleplay as a literal loudmouth.
A voiced protagonist demands a lot of resources, and the first thing to be cut would be the little side content. We've already seen the Low INT dialogue of the first two Fallouts go, I doubt there will be very many branching conversation checks outside of INT and Barter. That's what Fallout 3 did, and Fallout 4 will probably be worse. So if you enjoyed the small touches like light hearted lesbian banter between Cass and the Courier based on your perk selection, prepare for disappointment. The end result is an experience where the player character feels more akin to a tourist than someone truly apart of the world. It works in Elder Scrolls because you are literally the chosen one of legends but it doesn't work in a jaded setting like Fallout. Even when you play as the Chosen One, it's semi satirical. No one really gives a **** about your backwards tribal customs outside of Arroyo.
Individually, these aren't game breaking problems. Having a voiced protagonist doesn't mean a game is crap. Having black and white morality doesn't mean a game is crap. Having a protagonist that is put on a pedestal doesn't make a game crap. In other games, they could be key contributors to a game being good. But all of these quibbles, along with many others (like how they approached the lore) paints a very clear picture. That Bethesda has absolutely no understanding of the Fallout franchise and what makes it tick. They might make a game with visually striking environments, plenty of inteteresting exploration, an adorable animal companion and a cool crafting mechanic. So there's no denying that Bethesda can potentially make a very fun game.
But they don't understand Fallout, and people who claim F3 is a better Fallout game than NV because the former is in a visually striking Wasteland and the latter is in a boring looking desert, they don't really understand Fallout either. That's fine. Not everyone is going to be a sperg like me and write paragraphs on VIDEO GAME SETTINGS and there's nothing wrong with liking Bethesda's Fallout in the first place. But it does #trigger me when I see people claim that F3 is a better Fallout game because it's simply not true.
It's a clever thesis, but where you're wrong is in the dialogue. Fallout doesn't give you particularly varied or notable dialogue, and it certainly doesn't give you the kind of rich dialogue you've based your analysis of the PC in the gameworld on. New Vegas is a great example of this bit. You get a bit of flavour dialogue outside of skill checks, but then the fundamental driver is the skill check.
But that being said I do actually think VO is a lot less useful in how Bestheda games work, because they are incapable and totally disinterested in any kind of meaningful personal interaction with characters. Aside from POE, Obsidian writes in this way too - they don't let you express personality, you're either letting fly with morals or using a skillcheck. Even POE is like that - the "disposition" dialogue is heavily tied to morality (e.g. Passionate is typically angry good).
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