Twist #1: Shaun's just an average Wastelander chilling in a remote town in Boston. He may have a minor quest for us, he might guess that we're his parent (which he's totally cool with) and that's it. No angst, no drama. Just, "Hey, good to see you again, Mom/Dad! Here are some items if you're interested. "

Twist #2: Shaun actually did die in the conflict and the game is about the parent learning to accept it.

Twist #3: (if you're playing the dude) You were Shaun the whole time. Turns out the 'make the baby look like the parents' was taken very literally. Congrats! YOU ARE YOUR OWN SON!

Twist #4: Shaun, the biological child of Howard/Nora did die. The game is actually centered around a child/young man named Shaun who becomes Howard/Nora's surrogate child.

Twist #5: Shaun is reveled to have left to the Capitol Wasteland years ago talking about the evils of a great, fat worm.

Twist #6: Shaun had become a Super Mutant who thinks he's Uncle Leo. That's right. That Uncle Leo.

That's what I'm expecting, turns to be the boss of generic evil group that is threatening the people of the Wasteland.

Or how about you finish the game and your character exits out of their VR pod. Only to hear on the news that nuclear war has started. There are slight differences to the game especially that instead of Fallout 4 has a 50s technology style and music, it has a 60s technology style and music.

Its revealed that our character was bruce willis the whole time. Or Dolph Lungrid in a hot-pink mesh tank top who can smell crime.

I don't know why everyone is so hung up on the idea of Shaun and/or the spouse still being alive, there is absolutely no actual evidence that they survived, only conjecture, and there is a really good reason to believe they died (a nuclear weapon detonated a few miles away from where they were standing, that tends to do the trick). It's possible of course but it's definitely not a sure thing or even a probable thing. Not to say that some of the ideas floated out on this thread weren't really good ones but, damn, you're kind of grasping at straws here

A big thing they said at the reveal was that Shaun was going to look like you and your spouse. A bit pointless on having that feature if they are just going to kill Shaun right away.

I don't think so.

It's just the most obvious twist you can see coming a mile away.

Emphasis on the baby, baby has a specific gender, baby has a specific name. And the fact they went through all the trouble to make Shaun look like a combination of his parents. There is no doubt this character will appear at a later point in the game and clearly bears a lot of significance to the main storyline.

In the reveal Todd Howard said that the system used to sculpt the character's appearance was the same system used to create the appearance of all NPC's in game, then said that they use the same system to create all of the game's NPCs then mentioned the baby looking like the player created parents as a minor side note before going on to showcase kitchen technology. If anything that just says to me that they used the system to make other NPCs who are related to each other look similar

Actually it wasn't really pointless at all to bring up that the baby resembles the parents.. Since you can build any race of character they could have simply been quashing any questions of the baby's race so they wouldn't have to deal with that later. (because you know if they hadn't brought it up people would be all in a tizzy over that and rumors would be flying.)

"No doubt"? There's a lot of doubt, we don't even have an idea of what the main storyline is going to be, let alone who will be important to it. They mentioned that they made Shaun look like the parents as part of their emphasis on how dynamic the game is. You're right about it being the most obvious plot twist that they could throw in (except maybe for that whole "the players really an android!" theory), but its only that way because we don't know anything about the plot except for how the first five to ten minutes of the plot goes

I don't think BGS would add the baby character just to kill him off for added tragedy; it would be grotesque. I will eat a bottle cap if I'm wrong.

disclaimer: I won't actually eat a bottle cap.

I doubt Shaun or spouse will survive.

Making Shaun look like parents is probably very little work, it would look strange for black parents to have a white baby unless adopted, whereas a black baby could be biological or adopted, depending on players role-playing. Giving him a name gives him more of a personality, thus furthering the feeling of loss.

If the baby was only going to be in the game for the first 10 minutes, then the baby is just wasted resources to have the baby match the appearance of the father and the mother. It just seems like Fallout 4 is a reverse of Fallout 3 where instead of the child looking for the parent, it is the parent looking for the child.

There is also the issue of companion romances. If the spouse is still alive, then the protagonist is cheating on them. I assume their wedding vows contained "Till Death do us part" instead of "Till the earth is cleansed by nuclear fire". Although, it is possible that the protagonist is under the impression that their spouse died.

I really doubt that Bethesda would ever go for something so cliche, thats not their usual style. I think that the "events occur" of Vault 111 will result in the death of our SO and Shaun, making the journey into the wasteland even more emotionally invested since we have lost nearly everything from the old world.

What if the Spouse does become one of our companions? After all, they said you could romance any human companion, and if they took the time to let us mold our spouse as well as our PC, wouldn't it make sense? Perhaps a companion quest between us and our spouse can be us remembering the good old days and discussing everything we've been through since.

That is very possible and would ruin part of the story if Bethesda revealed that one of the companions is the spouse. Another companion could be Shaun. Although, it would be interesting if there wasn't one protagonist, but three. So at a certain point in the game, you can play as the Husband, Wife, or Child. This would allow us to change the three characters to what we want. So I could make the Husband a melee tank (max Strength and Endurance), the Child a sniper (max Perception and Agility), and the Wife as the crafter (Strength 4, Charisma 6 for Local Leader, and Intelligence 8 or 9 depending on if Intelligence 9 crafts radioactive equipment like Fat Man mods).

That's a little far-fetched I think, they aren't going to go all GTA V on us

But interesting speculation is always far-fetched. All I know is that I am going to spend more time on creating the spouse instead of just hitting the random button in case the spouse becomes a companion or protagonist. The game offers more customization to the spouse compared to the other companions so we should be able to define what type of character the spouse is if they become a companion.

True. They wouldn't have given us the option to customize our spouse if he/she weren't going to become important.

Or they just gave us the option to be more dynamic character creation and to get rid of the male/female slider since they REALLY seem to hate sliders now.

Damn, that's a fine idea. Almost too good though for Bethesda writing standards.

Boom Headshot.Filithy things never liked them.

The player can be any of the three, depending on who gets the right Stasis Pod...

First its either the mom or the dad, later in "New Game Plus" u get to choose the baby grew to a Kid/Teen/Young advlt to venture the wasteland ( Lion-O )

Android? Cyborg? Mutation? Stasis? V.R.? Dream? (when game ends ur Pod's power died out) Oo

I honestly think both survive and you get the chance to make your wife your, well, wife. Think Hearthstone. It would be amazing if a major plot point was rescuing or saving them, but we could just have to travel a great distance to find them and be reunited.

I like the idea of facing down with your spawn in a climactic final showoff, I'm just leery about everything leading up to that point and more importantly: how much we'll be in charge of how our characters react to it.