Bethesda is going after those pesky pirates the old way, by not integrating the entire game on the disc. Players will still need to download "stuff" from Steam.



Some of you might already know that Fallout 4, like many other games from the Bethesda collection, is using Steamworks to protect the games from pirating. From the looks of it, they are also employing an older type of protection for the physical mediums.
People can buy Fallout 4 on Steam, but they will also be able to purchase it the old-fashioned way, on disks. In fact, some publishers are now selling empty cases with just a game key inside. In any case, if you buy Fallout 4 for the PC, from retail, you'll still need to run Steam and download a few extra pieces.
Pete Hines, the VP of PR and Marketing at Bethesda, explained that this is standard practice for their games. For example, both Skyrim and Wolfenstein employed the same protection and nobody seemed to notice.
This is not exactly a problem and users most likely won't feel the difference, but it's interesting to see that Bethesda still cares about the fact that someone might create a duplicate after the CD. This kind of methods is no longer in use, and it's unlikely that this is still a vulnerability.