With all the speculation of who the PC is and his/her background and the debate regarding FO4's bright colors it now has me wondering how hard was Boston and Mass hit when the bombs fell?

We know in F3 that DC got hit hard which explains the green and grey color tints and the heavy radiation. However, we also know not all states were hit and therefore they experienced little radiation (Mojave and Vegas).

So, just how hard was Boston hit? Does it tell us in the lore? I'm assuming very little impact given the Institute and their tech.

It's never stated, but since it was a major city close to DC I'm sure it was hit hard. Not as hard as the capital, naturally, but I'm sure pretty hard regardless.

Ah, yes. I actually didn't consider the distance between DC and Boston.

Then for the Institute to be in assumed condition it is in they must have an underground base or vault for their work.

Boston does look in somewhat decent condition from what we see in the trailer, though... we'll see when it comes out.

ICBMs would likely prioritize army bases, infrastructure, and any government buildings. Boston would get hit- assuming that army bases are more-or-less in the same spots as they are in the Real World, but not to the degree that DC was (i.e. throw a stone and hit a building that's important to the US Government.)

Also, I'm getting sick of these "close to DC" statements of Boston. I'm near DC. It's an 8 hour drive to get to Boston from DC. That is not "close" to DC, unless you're comparing it to LA.

It either didn't get hit directly, or the Institute rebuilt the city. Or maybe the commonwealth had a good defensive setup in place, kinda like what House did with vegas.

But I do hope there is some nice ruined city parts like in The Divide from Lonesome Road, or parts of DC. The part with the Deathclaw in the trailer, it looked like a sand storm maybe. So that could be a cool location. You know, minus the Deathclaws...

I′m no expert, but I don′t think an eight hour drive distance is considered far in nuclear bomb world.

I mean "close" in that the fallout from the massive amount of nukes that hit DC likely drifted over to Boston, amplifying the overall destruction (depending on the yield of the nukes used, obviously). I know it's not close in a world without cars.

Or just in comparison to the united states or north America in general. In Canada, most of the nearest big cities are around 8 hour drives. I'm in Calgary, the closest big city to the west is 12 hour drive (vancouver), the closest north is 3 hour drive (edmonton), the closest east is 8 hours (saskatoon).
So in a Canadian perspective, Boston is close to DC.

Don't forget the yield of Fallout's bombs are MUCH smaller than in the real world. Considering our real world nukes don't have that kind of radius and their nukes are even lower yield...

Edit: It's about a 430 mile distance from D.C. to Boston.

Yeah, but the point is that Boston isn't a "major city close to DC." New York is closer to DC than Boston is. Baltimore, MD and Richmond, VA are both major cities, and are close to DC.

That's a better explanation. From the sound of it, it initially seemed like you were saying that direct damage from the bombs were also likely to affect Boston because it's "close."

Those would have to be some ridiculously powerful bombs o_O

I have 3 theories about this.

1.Boston wasn't hit hard as lots of the buildings are still in very good shape.(unlike in DC where everything was bombed to ''''')

2.Boston was hit hard but then the game must take place so 300 years after the bombings (if you consider that DC still looks like a bombed hellhole) about 100 years after the happenings of F3

3.Boston (or the institute) has an anti-rocket system similair to that one of M house in NV so they could destroy (most of) the bombs.

As suggested earlier, maybe due to the Institute Boston was protected from most of the bombs, we know at least one hit, fairly near to the location of Vault 111 and the shot of wasteland would suggest that other parts got flattened.....or maybe they have just actually rebuilt rather than those DC guys.

Boston is a Top25 city in terms of population to the U.S., and has always been a major shipping port, as well a Top10 economically in terms of the metro area.

It's a pretty important city, and is the northern city of the Northeast Magalopolis (which stretches from Boston to DC, and includes NYC, Phialdelphia, and Baltimore.

I'm sure it was one of the primary targets. The question is, how well was it defended? Did they have anything at MIT like Mr. House did in Las Vegas to help defend it a bit?

If we see that DC was hard hit,we can also assume that it happend to boston to,maybe they jus rebuilded it with use of the tech from the institute.

That Institute maybe has a sort of vault in it were all the scientists and tech was shipped to.

I wouldn't be surprised if The Institute had it's own vault made by them, because those MIT guys are smart.


Also to note about the lack of overall destruction of Boston buildings in the trailer; Boston is a lot like Philadelphia in that there is a lot of stone buildings, which would fare better than most buildings in an atomic blast.

A bunker or Vault for the Institute makes sense, the other two most important scientific forces in the pre-war US, Mr House and the think tank were certainly protected.

http://www.ki4u.com/webpal/d_resources/states/ma.htm Boston would be a primary target.

Hehe,strange link.

It is, at least when it comes to blast impact. If DC was the closest bombs got to dropping on Boston, there should have been very little damage incurred from the blast. Now the fallout from that blast is an entirely different creature...

Most of the damage seen in the video would likely be a result from the ~200 years of lack of maintenance and upkeep.

The Mojave was hit.Just far less than other areas due to Falloout NV asspull story with Mr.House defence system.

I assume it was hit just as hard if not just slightly less. All of the institute's buildings in the trailer and such look like they were created post-war. I don't think Boston survived as a city as much as it was rebuilt. They've had over 200 years since the war, realistically there would probably be no cities left in complete ruin by this point.

There are sign of buildings surviving in Boston from the pre-war era.....the boston state house appears intact and the bunker hill monument seems in fairly good shape, of course the monument could be like the lincoln memorial in DC, just mostly intact and the boston state house could I suppose have been rebuilt.

Also alot of DC didnt get rebuilt because if you tried you woke up in the morning to find yourself dead after being killed by a gaggle of super mutants.