So I've played the game a fair bit and come across a lot of distress beacons. I love these things as they each have a unique, and often times tragic, backstory to them that you can see how they unfold when you arrive at the destination. However, I can't help but feel like there was a missed opportunity as it seems like every single one leads to either nothing or a corpse.

The ones I know right off are:

-Fallon's basemant girl. This one was probably the most tragic because she sounds so desperate and after fighting through all the Super Mutants in the mall to get there and she's a long dead corpse, probably from the start of the war. I can't help but feel like this would have been better if you could actually save her. If there was a time limit like say, if you don't get to Fallon's by November 1's in the game's time she will be dead after that point, but I guess it's pretty tragic as is.

-Train car family: A mother and her son Thomas escape ferals and get into the car only to get slaughtered when they are able to get inside. We know for a fact the mother is dead, but unsure about Thomas. It could have been a cool mini quest to then track down Thomas and let him know his mother is dead if he's alive or just find him if he's dead.

-Fiddlers bunker: The guy that escaped the creepy crawlers and I believe is dead. If I'm remembering correctly, he is recently dead so again it could have been cool to rescue him and add him to your settlement or something.

-Glowing Sea Raider: The guy is severely irradiated and died in a tunnel in the Glowing Sea leaving behind his Raider Power Armor. I'm alright with this one, mostly because he's a Raider, but it could have been cool to track down a friendly Raider group and let them know their friend is dead.

-Super Mutant captive: The one reading the script and also warning everyone that it's a trap by the muties since they are so dumb. If I remember correctly, she's either dead or there isn't anyone there. Again, could have been cool to mount a rescue mission for her.

-Boston City Works captive: The man talking to his friend that he's stuck after a reactor leak on a bridge. When you get down into the reactor area, he's gone. No signs of death or a struggle, so I assume his friend heard his message and got him out, but that's just it. This could have been pre-war too.

Any more of these out there? Again, I think these are really cool as is and I'm glad Bethesda included them, but I just feel like there could have been more. Maybe a modder will expand these in the future. That would be pretty neat.

could of been an opportunity to gain some more named settlers

There is one in the North near where you find a mirelurk queen west of Parsons insane asylum. Hard to find near the water's edge by a campfire.

I always laugh when hearing the super mutant captive girl. I've not found the location she's at, though. Is it the Shaw Highschool? Unless she ended up in a meatbag and there's nothing to find. Ew.


There seem to be a lot more to follow than in FO3. No matter the character I'm playing I'll go out of my way to track any down as they're usually have interesting stories.