I already disliked all the references to US history in Fallout 4. To me, cowboys feel misplaced in a science fiction universe. It’s just personal preference though. But the question stands: are large parts of the main story related to the cowboy characters, or does it work mostly without?
Most of the space cowboy stuff is found on the space cowboy planet (where Akila is). The main story has you visit them to get familiar with the big colonies, but you don’t have to stay or do much with it. Other than that, you’ll only sometimes run into space cowboys; they’re the police for the Freestar Collective controlled parts of space.
They put everything and then kitchen sink related to sci-fi in the game, though. If you like sci-fi, you’ll find a slice of the game that appeals to you somewhere.
Yeah, that’s what I liked about Bethesda: most things are optional. Great, thank you for the insight!