The Fallout universe, as many of you will already know, is based on the concept of divergence. Somewhere between 1945 and 1961, an event or events occurred that created two very different timelines. In our own world, everything continued as it was, but in the world of Fallout, a number of changes took place that effected technological advancement, world politics, and society in general. These changes eventually led to the Great War, which in turn created the post-apocalyptic wasteland that is the setting for the series.

In Fallout 4, we are given a choice to play as either a male or a female protagonist. But what makes this game unique is the fact that these two choices, for the first time ever, actually represent two completely different individuals. Even more intriguing is the fact that when we choose one, we inadvertently seal the fate of the other. Whoever we decide to play as will be tasked with trying to find their lost spouse, as well as their son Shaun. And this unique aspect of gameplay gave me an idea.

What if, instead of choosing only one protagonist, we decided to play as both at the same time?

And so, what I have decided to do is play through the entire game using two sets of save-files. One for the male protagonist, and one for the female. Although they will begin their journey along the same path, every encounter, every decision, and every outcome, will shape a unique journey for each protagonist. I will be using a different skill set for each character, in order to cover a more diverse range of perks and abilities. My proposed setup for my two characters, who will be named Jack and Nora as per my theory on the default names, is as follows:

Jack

One thing that would make this really interesting would be to take the Lady Killer perk for the male protagonist, and the Man Hunter perk for the female protagonist. This could even result in different quests or quest paths for each.

EDIT: depending on preference, these perks could also be taken the other way round.

Are you saying we will be able to have separate named save files? So our progress won't be auto-saved over?

Your idea sounds very intriguing ...

As for what differences I would incorporated, let me think on this a bit and get back with you.

Judging by the way Skyrim allocates each save, the name of our character in Fallout 4 should be easy to identify within the file name. And so, when we select a particular save file, we should be able to see straight away which character it's for. I usually keep around 10 saves at any one time, and I always switch off autosaving. What I am planning to do is to keep 5 saves for each protagonist, which should allow for any backtracking that may be required. This concept should work fine on any of the three platforms.

I don't think there is enough disparity between your characters. The only difference is one shoots bullets and one shoots lasers.

Since marriages are often between two people with different approaches to things, why not one that is aggressive and one more passive and thoughtful in their approach to things?

Make one character that fights and kills first, and one that takes a more dogmatic approach to things. This one might choose a less violent outcome to a situation, whether through speech or stealth, while the other goes head first into things with little thought.

Another key difference is in the way that they would approach any given situation. The skills and perks that they each use would be fairly similar, but their approach will depend on their individual 'evolving personalities'. Stealth, for example, can mean a lot of different things. Both would make use of stealth, but the male protagonist, for example, may end up using this to kill every living soul in a particular location without being seen. In contrast, the female protagonist may use the opportunity to gather intel, and may even try to clear or search the same location without harming anyone. It's the role-playing aspects that will provide the real difference, and this will be something that will be reflected in individual choices.

Also, by using different weapon types, they will each have to make use of slightly different perks. What this could mean is that the female protagonist would end up having lower Strength and higher Intelligence to allow her to modify energy weapons. And so her range of options would differ slightly from the male protagonist. This could also mean that she would later focus on other 'technology related' perks, such as Robotics Expert. Finally, due to the male protagonist using only ballistic weapons, this would be a good reason to give him a more 'old-school' approach to dealing with various situations, which would result in a tendency to use brawn and quick reactions rather than carefully planning his approach.

it's an interesting approach, good luck with it.

No official list as of yet. These are the names I previously used on my speculation thread, as they would both make sense if used by either a male or female character, whereas the name 'Black Widow' would only make sense if used by a female character.

While they've said there are some differences in how the male and female PCs interact with the world, it looks like, even with the subtle differences you're citing, it would feel pretty repetitious to do them back to back and following more or less the same path. You may be more focused than I, but I have a hard time doing the same thing on two different play-throughs.... some shiny will catch my eye and I'm off to explore that building there, while on another play-through I head over in this direction.

Perhaps if you post the chargen stats you plan to use for both, and maybe the perks you think you might take, more than just the few you named in the OP, it might take shape. I just don't see a lot of separation between the styles. I am intrigued, and look forward to reading the thread on this as you progress, so please don't take my questions in any way other than just trying to see how you might shape them, and how you predict it will effect their respective worlds.

But this is the whole point. I would start of with both protagonists leaving the vault, but where they go from there will depend on what happens along the way. This is as much a test of the game engine's ability to guide us towards random or differing events as anything else. When I mentioned approaching the same location in a different way with each protagonist, this could be at completely different stages of gameplay and at vastly different levels. They could technically end up being at opposite sides of the map at any given time.

We can only blame Todd and his team for the lack of specifics in my OP! The system they have designed is so ingenious, it would be impossible to fully predict exact details before the game launches (and this is in spite of my previous efforts across 4 separate threads!). What I have listed is more of an outline, or rather a starting point, but once we know the exact functions of each perk along with all the ranks, I will customise each skillset so that they are far more individual.

But what I'm really looking forward to are the moments where both protagonists end up in the same place at the same time. This will highlight the search for both respective set of family members, as well as the chain of events that led to each of them ending up as the Sole Survivor. I just find the idea of having two overlapping timelines within the game to be fascinating.

Good luck and I'll be interested to see what you find out. I don't really believe though that the male/female characters will be that different except for the voice acting and perhaps some minor dialogue choices being different but that remains to be seen. And to answer your question I won't be attempting this, as I have a hard enough time keeping one character at a time straight let only two at the same time.

How do you plan on splitting the time? One hour male, then one hour female or do one quest male then do it as female. Also what is the scope of the playthrough (how long do you plan to play each character)?

There will be certain points where direct comparisons can be made, but much of the time, this will be more about differences in approach to a given situation, as well as the reactions of others. What I don't want to do is create two duplicate playthroughs. The end result will hopefully be as different as watching two different people play the game.

As for splitting the time, this is a very good question. What I will initially do is play up to a specific point as Jack, most likely up to the point where we first find Dogmeat, and then I will start a new game with Nora. After that, I think I'll just go with what feels right at the time. But one very cool part is that I will be finding items and locations in one playthrough that may actually prove to be beneficial in the other. And to answer your second question, I will most likely end up keeping these as being very much long-term. Even if I later decide to start a new playthrough, these two will each be revisited regularly for the foreseeable future

The more I think about it the more I like the idea. I definitely want to play as both the female and male protagonists, to find out the different dialogue and speech options and to see the differences in the story from each perspective.

Just the fact that they are keeping the story so tightly under wraps makes me very hopeful that it is going to knock our socks off.

One of the things that would influence a play through like this is, I would like to get a look at the achievements first to see how or even if that might influence the direction that I might take my characters.

I have been thinking along these same lines.

It might be interesting to give one character high charisma with intimidation and the other lower charisma. It could be the ultimate juggling act, regarding perk selection and role playing. I do hope Bethesda lets us know the rest of the perk details sooner rather than later, because I really want to plan my character(s) now! Oh, and 45 days!

I think it would be cool if you played to a set point with protagonist A, then play past that same point with protagonist B to another point, and repeat so that they leapfrog through the story. That way each character will be exposed to a new situation without any prior experience to influence choices each time you play.

So just in case that isn't clear, I would play to the dog with A, then with B play past meeting the dog to say meeting Preston Garvey with. Then with A I would play past Garvey to doing his quest, or at least the first part of it. I think it is important that each character experiences things without prior knowledge from you, while also using said knowledge in some cases. For me it would be hard to not allow my personal experience with the game to not influence a decision of a character.

Well I hope the play-throughs are different enough that it makes some significant difference. Also if I was going to do that I would play each one differently myself. Different gun choices,different skill uses, etc., but I see what you are trying to do. But again, I have little faith that the games will be different enough to warrant the dual play.

Course I will play both sixes eventually, multiple times with many play-styles.

This is a brilliant idea! And I think this would really make the playthrough/s more interesting as well.

Something else I've been thinking about (which is actually to do with your previous comment) is varying up the specialisation of each character, as well as a number of other details. Here's what I have come up with so far:

Jack

Main Weapons: single shot rifles including sniper rifles, as well as explosives, bows, and crossbows.

Side-arm: combat knife.

Main Companion: Dogmeat.

Base of operations: Red Rocket Garage.

Crafting Skills: making and repairing armor, modifying ballistic weapons.

Additional Skills: pickpocket, lockpick, sneak, underwater exploration.

Main Focus: using stealth, hunting/fishing/scavenging for food & resources.

Nora

Main Weapons: energy rifles and all automatic energy weapons.

Side-arm: laser/plasma pistol.

Main Companion: Piper.

Base of Operations: Diamond City.

Crafting Skills: modifying energy weapons, building settlements.

Additional Skills: hacker, robotics expert.

Main Focus: using dialogue, trading items, networking.

This should keep things different enough to warrant two separate playthroughs, as well as covering a much broader range of skills and abilities between the two characters.

Just saw this. The changes I have suggested in my previous post should hopefully make things a lot more interesting

Yeah those different play-styles should make things more interesting. Course we may run into the problem we had in prior games where energy weapons are very hard to find initially (other than that crank and shoot laser rifle thing). Be interesting to see what we actually leave the vault with.

Meh, Bethesda's history tells me that both playthroughs will be pretty much the same. I doubt Bethesda spent resources on making a completely separate experience if you play as a female. Nor would I think they would want to, as it would mean you miss out on things in the game just because you chose a different gender.

Exactly, and considering playing a completely difference race did basically nothing for you in Skyrim, and those races are pretty distinct (Elves, Humans, Beasts), I have little hope that it will make any difference in FO4 whether you play male or female. They even 'player-sixual' the companions so six doesn't even matter where you'd think it would.