OK so we all know that the baby son, Shaun, is going to survive. That's going to be the "grand reveal" at a later point in the games main quest. There will probably be a baby skeleton in the vault at the start of the game or something to try and make you believe your son died, and the major twist will later reveal that was not Shaun.

What makes it so obvious is that the focus on the couple having a baby in the first place, baby actually has a specific name and that he is generated as a mix of what the player makes the parents look like. Clearly points to the fact that Shaun will be an actual character at some point later in the game.

But would it not be interesting if Shaun basically turns out to be a chip off the old block? If you spend most the game being evil, Shaun will be a horrible leader of some crazy cult/group. If you do good deeds throughout the game, he will be the leader of a righteous faction. Your actions will alter the course of the story in a dynamic way. That would be cool.

What if, shaun was really a cat in a outfit?

Imagine if he has become a Ghoul!

Another idea:

Shaun survives, but the Sole Survivor and Shaun never meet. In fact, Shaun has long-since died.

Instead, the Memory Den has a plot-related use where the Sole Survivor, likely multiple times, needs to use it to experience Shaun's life in the Post-War period, like the Animus from Assassin's Creed. This means, we play as Shaun, albeit briefly and in special circumstances.

Playing off of this part specifically, perhaps your actions do alter the story effecting Shaun's character, but to the opposite. You do good deeds, and Shaun turns out to be a evil person, or vice versa. Shaun ends up being the antithesis of who your PC is, and it is up to you to face him. I don't know that games have come far enough to be this dynamic to your actions, but it would seem that the default in BGS games is for the PC to be the good guy, so I am betting Shaun will likely end up being a marginally bad person, and you end up "saving" him and turning him around.

Shaun was raised by robots, never knowing humanity, and perished in an unfortunate lubricating incident.

Thanks guys, just spit my coffee all over the table. Twice.

Shaun will become a random settler in Diamond City. It will be totally obvious to the player, but there will never be a dialogue option to say anything worthwhile to him.

I wonder if Shaun will be Shauna if you choose to play a female.

While you are inside the vault, Shaun lives a life on the outside, and he establishes a reputation for himself. Then he dies. Rumor of his passing abound. Then you emerge from the vault, and people are suprised because, "Hey, we thought you were dead, Shaun!"

Maybe Shaun dies many, many years before you appear. Here and there you might discover what appears to be a statue to you, or some other monument to you, but it isn't you. When they see you, maybe some people mistake you for Shaun reborn.

No, Shaun is a baby son regardless of whether your playable character is a male or female. This is what lends further credibility to the inevitable fact that he is going to play a bigger role in the game at a later point. Specific gender, specific name.....and they took the effort to make him look like a mix of both the parents.

This is blankety blank brilliant

Player: Vault-tec never told you what happened to your father.
Shaun: They told me enough! They told me YOU killed him.
Player: No, I am your father.
Shaun: No... no... that's not true. That's impossible!

Player: Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

Shaun: NOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Sheena, and she will be a punk-rocker

I hope he turns out to be the villain
That would be delicious. Well, until BGS writes it

OMFG... if they actually try to pull that kind of father-son corny crap again.....SMH.

Im hoping they added the baby to make the loss of your family just all that much more devestating. Its one thing to lose your wife but entirely another to lose something you created... your own flesh and blood. Im hoping hes there simply to set the mood, youre a man whose lost it all. Honestly I cant see them p0ulling that type of lame scenario. They already had their cheesy father son story in F3.

You know that would be an interesting idea. Piecing together our families fate via the Memory Den. If not dead, then we use those memories to track them down.

I think that is far to contrasting. Bad = Good and Good = Bad

I would rather have it be a bit more refined and have individual actions define him if that were the case as opposed to it being based solely on your good or bad character

I personally hope the family is just a set-piece, especially the kid, as I can see that story ending up horribly corny in the hands of BGS. If they do have the kid pop up later (and the op is right, the big focus on the family and the unique way the kid is based off of your characters looks point heavily that he will) I think I would prefer the major reveal to be that he survived, died long ago, but was a big player in the redevelopment of the Boston area.

I just really hope the story doesn't devolve into the corny and overdone long-lost family reunion trope. Even with a twist, that whole thing has been done to death and I would really prefer we didn't have to go down that route with Fallout.

Man, a board of dead beat moms and dads.

OP, I don't think we know anything...

The quests name is "Shaun of the Dead"

This.

But most likely this.

Still another child raised in a vault, stupid twist if you ask me. Can't even make a backstory if that is how it plays out. Ugh, I'll wait for the next Fallout.

That'd be more like Obsidians approach.

Also, the thread derailing gets better and better each day.

Agreed, but it's Bethesda so I wouldn't be so surprised if that were the case anyway.

A shame though as there are a lot of interesting ideas already posted in this thread that go against this trope and do something far more intricate to the plot and the role of the player character's family.

Nope.. Your son is an android... everyone's an android. The whole game is nothing more than a vault experiment to see if androids could survive in a post war world. At the end you'll be dismantled and turned into a toaster.. and thus begins the saga of Talky Toaster.