So first, unless the title didn't give it away, this is a spoiler...

I don't see any way to get a good ending in this game. Let me explain first about me at very least in a game sense: I am not liberal by any means. I kill enemies, criminals, and people who are a threat. I hated for example in KOTOR (liked the game overall) when you got Dark Side points for killing those 2 criminals who were about to rob and kill you... you kill people all the damn time, why was that bad?

On the other hand, I take trust in friends and allies very seriously. If I give my word I keep it, and I expect the same from others. I don't like to be stabbed in the back. I suppose I would be "lawful neutral" or "Lawful evil" I would kill the criminal a contract was put out on, kill his son for shooting at me even though he was just a teenager, but wouldn't kill everyone who ever met him just to be evil. I would take the agreed price for the bounty, and not black mail or threaten the one who gave me the mission for more. That's an example of my type.

So all that said, I see no good ending, nothing that I would actually do. My choices are, as I see it:

1) Side with the Brotherhood. Kill the brightest minds the planet has and wipe out 200 years of science. In the process, betray the railroad, betray Deacon (who I liked) kinda give the middle finger to Hancock by supporting the BoS.

2) Side with the Institute. Betray the BoS and Railroad. Give the Middle finger to Dance and Valentine (both I like) Support science, but replace humans with synths, which i don't agree with... I support developing synths but not replacing people completely. Destroy the BoS who while wrong on some issues, are needed to beat back Super Mutants, and other threats that may arise. Who knows? Chinese may still be a threat, more violent mutants, or a faction like The Legion might need to be fought off.

3) Side with Minutemen and Railroad. Betray BoS/Institute. This is the... how to say it... most Disney ending route, the "Nicest" I suppose. However, its still awful. Destroy science and tech, which is a bad thing. Continue to live in rags and garbage.

Why can't I ally these sides? Why can't I kill trouble makers in both the BoS and Institute and then have them work together? Why cant I kill a handful that oppose me in the Institute (like in House Divided) and then have the Railroad agree that synths who want to leave can, and syths who want to stay with the Institute can? I havn't had a chance to try every angle, but I have seen one ending and when I reload a save a ways back, all options I try eventually lead to "Doing this will make X hostile, are you sure?"

Every route requires spitting in someones face who trusted you, they all require wiping someone out who had good qualities, even if I don't agree with all of it. I honestly feel slimy no matter what route I try. Maybe I missed a better solution somewhere? But these are all the options I see.

The Institute is not planning on replacing humanity with Synths. Not sure why people think that. Unless you're just referring to the Synth Infiltrator program.

Either way, you become Director of the Institute upon conclusion of that questline. With full power to implement any changes to policies as you like. Ending the infiltrator program or ending the Gen-3 program completely would be within The Director's prerogative.

War never changes.

I'm glad that they did not make it possible for some nice and tidy ending. The current options are more realistic - the BoS, the RR and the Institute are all philosophically opposed and fear each other - making peace between them is impossible given the leaders personalities (Maxson, Des and Father).

Wrapping it up and putting a bow on it would be a disservice to the gritty truth that war always has consequences and casualties.

This. It's the only reason why I chose Institute over all other factions. It has the capacity for great good for the people of the Commonwealth, AND you are in a position to move it in that direction. The only real downside is that such a thing is beyond the scope of the game.

I'm not asking for it to be a nice fairy tail ending. But the fact that you have to kill everyone. Like say you choose the institute, you cant just make a deal with the rail road, kill Maxson and have some of the BoS ally with you? You need to utterly wipe out both those sides.

I actually liked the BoS ending, I have complaints as stated but i felt that based on my character's judgement and observations what she did was the good ending. The whole point is the factions are moral ambiguous, there are no straight up good guys and that's good, we need to break away from the idea that someone can only be bad or good.

The whole point of what being the good ending is entirely based on the player from their interactions with the faction and how they operate. Form an opinion instead of just being handed one and saying "support these guys they're the good/bad guys."


Railroad absolutely hates the Institute, most of the BoS are supportive of Maxson and here comes some knight turned traitor and randomly kills Maxson. What you are asking is yes, a fairy tail ending where all bad was destroyed and everyone gets along through friendship built on...nothing really.

It's Bethesda listening to their customers and giving out the grey that a bunch of people have been screaming for since Fallout 3. Now we must all live with that choice and those consequences.

The Brotherhood would never agree to a peace treaty with The Institute. Maxson or otherwise. They're all techno-religious nutcases that would find some excuse to wage war against The Institute regardless of what you said or did. Any advanced technology has to be contained and controlled by them. And The Institute's technology surpasses their own in every respect. Which is no-bueno for them.

The Railroad isn't much better in that regard. The only possible way I could see even a temporary treaty beginning with the Railroad is if The Institute agreed to free all the Synths and shut down Gen-3 production for good. But even then, they'd probably still find some excuse to try and take down "the big bad 'Stitute". Probably ranting about having to try all the scientists for crimes against Synthmanity or some such nonsense.

Needless to say, no reasonable peace could be achieved. And if it could: it wouldn't last long.

Besides, as The Director of the Institute, the player has a job to make decisions to protect the people sheltered within its domed walls. The Brotherhood are a mobile invading army, bent on destroying The Institute. And the Railroad are Synth-crazed terrorists, also bent on bringing down The Institute. Why would you try and make peace with either of these people who want nothing more than to destroy you and your new people?

We don't need the BoS to deal with super mutants, synths can do the job and no one is going to cry when they get destroyed. While the Fallout 4 brotherhood seems a bit more open to recruiting than in previous games they can not replace their fallen anywhere close to the Institute. Attrition is their true enemy.

I agree with you to some extent, i mean, the whole story of commonwealth is pretty much rounded around undercover-intel-double agent perspective, not everyone might like it, i do, but i realise it might feel a bit of moral-twisting to be like "hey, yesterday we were friends doing things together and backing up each other, but today i am going full out war on you" "but ehm why?" "because reasons".

Expecially for the BoS which i liked far more than the one in FO3, it was too much narrowminded and whiteknight-ish.

However fighting them is more challenging and enjoyable than cutting through waves of Synths which are, except the coursers, rather weak and underpowered and well, BoS is invading the institute's land, not the other way around, and their recurring to nuke them, scrapping all the progress they obtained in a century within' the blink of an eye it gets.... rather debateble.

The other thing is that if they'd get a deal with both Railroad and the BoS would be seen as a capitulation , Railroad's doesn't exactly grasp the whole thing of freedom for the synths may have negative consequences on the non-synths people around and they aren't exactly an easy deal for the average guy in the wastes, while the BoS would hardly accept that somebody else from themself can handle advanced technology without asking them.

Also you would've to convince BoS and RR to don't fight each other, and while you're at it, you would've to establish a kind of balance, lets say we would be allowed to make a deal with everyone, maybe we can have Preston being the middle-man for everyone in a peace agreement, but then nobody shall be spying on the others, would require a costant and continuous confrontation to have it work , and even if it would work , it would be just for a while, at best it would last as long as the Sole Survivor lives, then the hell would break lose because there'd be too much powers in a small area of common interests.

^

Agreed with him.

The Institute isn't a purely good neither a purely evil choice, but its still (imho) the brightest hope for the future of the human kind.

Synths are more likely being on the surface and the infiltrator program won't be necessary anymore as they would be the winning force they might (or might not) get over the past issues and work with the surface once again considering how close they went to be destroyed and how their isolationism wouldn't pay out well.

Thats why you're at it, as a director, drive them out the underground thing, the synths might be scary at first, but they won't turn red on traders or innocents, they'd not be raiders-like nor they would confiscate your laser rifle you need to actually defend your home from raiders and ferals.

My Minuteman ending destroyed the Institute but left all the other factions intact. Never had to destroy the Brotherhood, or even conflict with them.

I also think the Brotherhood was probably right about the mass creation of synths. One of these days synths would end up in charge and when synths start creating synths and improving on the design with each generation, humanity is probably doomed.

It was a good ending, as far as I was concerned.

This pretty much sums up my issue... if you didn't have to get to know a side, I wouldn't mind gunning them all down. My issue is they all get to like and trust you (way too easily, which I have complained about in other threads) and then you choose a side and come in guns blazing the next day "because reasons" I wouldn't mind gunning down an opposite side but I would not like to be a spy who gets to know a side for year then has to kill people he made a bond with later.

If you're careful you can end the game with the Minutemen, and manage to keep the Minutemen, Railroad, and Brotherhood of Steel intact. That's basically the most peaceful route. As far as I can tell, keeping the Institute alive is going to involve wiping out the Railroad and the Brotherhood of Steel no matter what.

I would have preferred a brief introduction to all of the factions, but not being allowed to actually join or do quests at all until you have proved your loyalty to that faction. While other factions may not become immediately hostile, they wouldn't work with you if you were already working for someone else. That way, if you end up having to massacre every other faction besides your own, you're not also gunning down half of your trusted friends.

(And it's not like Deacon didn't know about my character's BoS status as he accompanied her all over the Prydwen a few times and was there during a number of the quests.)

My first character was an actual Paladin in the BoS, the General of the Minutemen, a full heavy Agent of the Railroad, and Director of the Institute by the time she had to suddenly start killing off everyone for "reasons" and causing mass destruction.

While I enjoyed the factions and the storyline overall, the above scenario is just too much.

This is something that I like and dislike at the same time. I like the fact that we can go so far in all of the faction quest lines before having to commit to one. This keeps the game more exciting because all of the factions have fairly different quests. However, there really isn't a way of siding with either the Institute or Brotherhood and not, at the very minimum, killing the Railroad, and either the Institute or Brotherhood. Siding with the Minutemen leaves them, the Railroad, and the Brotherhood of Steel still intact, but the Minutemen is honestly the last faction I'm going to choose. I can appreciate their goals and methods probably more than any of the other factions, but their quest line is the most boring of all of them. It's very brief, and aside from Defend the Castle and the Minutemen version of the Nuclear Option, the quests aren't that exciting. With the Institute and the Brotherhood we've got some really cool and exciting missions. Mass Fusion/Spoils of War is a cool quest on either side of it. Ad Victoriam is an awesome quest. Within the Railroad, the quest where you have to steal the Vertibird is really fun. Taking down the Prydwen is fun whether you're with the Railroad or the Institute.

The Minutemen quests just...lack. Honestly I feel like the Minutemen in general had the potential to be so much better than they really are. Aside from Preston, the other settlers from Concord, and Ronnie Shaw, the entire Minutemen faction is an autonomous group of 'settlers'. Even Preston and the other settlers from Concord are either incredibly dry or just really irritating. Preston doesn't express emotions and is really just annoying because of the onslaught of the "help this settlement" quests. Ronnie Shaw is the only one with any personality, and aside from Old Guns and the beginning part of Form the Ranks and Defend the Castle, she plays no real part in the game. The Brotherhood has Paladin Danse, Paladin Brandis, Proctor Quinlan, Proctor Ingram, Proctor Teagan, Scribe Haylen, Scribe Neriah, and Knight Rhys. The Railroad has Desdemona, P.A.M., Tinker Tom, Deacon, Glory, and Drummer Boy. The Institute has Father, synth Shaun, Doctor Ayo, and all of the other various scientists that you can get side quests from. These three factions all have a wide range of people that actually have a personality and some interesting dialog. They make the faction feel more like a real thing.

I feel like the Minutemen were on some sense tacked on to this game. The settlement system was obviously planned during the whole creative stages of the game, and it doesn't feel tacked on. But it almost feels like the Minutemen quest line was just tacked on to go along with the settlement system. It lacks depth, and for the most part the Minutemen are irrelevant to the actual main story of the game. It's not necessarily that I dislike the Minutemen faction, because I don't. I just feel like it could have been done much better.

@Cruor

Yea, i understand your feelings, but you know, the nature of two out of 3 factions being underground based it was a necessary approach to meet them.

Both Institute AND Railroads are purely secreted out of what their beliefs are.

One is simply unreachable , the other requires to gather enough infos and then follow a path in which most likely they will know who you are, what you want, and ultimately decide whether they want or not to meet you.

BoS is just the BoS, they don't mind it, but imho, they are prepared and organised to fight down supermutants or other large fully-blown advanced armies for example the Enclave or the NCR, fighting who doesn't want you to find him going to be a whole different matter.

Then , whoever you'd side with, you still (for gameplay reasons) gotta stick a bit and also with your future enemies, but that might be something like gather further intel about how these guys do what, and how to better counter them.

Obviously would be better that if you get into the institute through a railroad-powered-machine they'd be waiting you with weapons in hand, recluding you somewhere, you just breached down their security, i can imagine everyone screaming at the poor Ayo, blaming him for how he did just let that happen.

Infact, he asks you "how did you killed a courser?", making me believe that before it, nobody had killed one.

Same as when you get within' RR HQ, Deacon knows well who you are, what are you doing, he even vouches for you to get in.

And now i'll get back to something like... clothing:

In NV there was this thing that if you were wearing something like legion's outfit, they would overlook you.

You could dress as an NCR soldier and sneak within' their lines pretty much easily.

I imagine, i just imagine, if such a system wouldve been implemented in FO4, the commonwealth, land of spies and double agents, and the hero gets known everywhere without possibly ever changing outfit, wouldn't actually sound weird?

That'd be actually the best pick this game could've did, giving reasons except roleplaying or collecting uniforms, would a double agent, not necessarily a good one, wear a distinctive uniform of his nation among enemy lines without getting rolled over? some quests should like force this a bit into you, and it would also increase challenge in combat if you had to actually dress up properly during certain missions.

My2c but i hope beth guys mind it taking into consideration for a future dlc.

Yes and no at the same time . While I don't see Maxson, Des and Father holding hands together, it still feel quite artificial that the SS has to wipe out any faction. No faction gave me a reason for doing so. In fact you are even in a perfect position where you could try do make a deal between those hostile factions. All 4 factions thrust me, and none of them can advance without my help. And the only reason I can't at least try to do so is, because the option is missing :-/.

IMHO it should be at that point at least be possible to try. Don't get me wrong, it should not be easy, it should be the most difficult way to end the game. Or, if Beth don't want it for storytelling reasons, you should never be in the position, that all factions thrust you at the same time ( this is unrealistic anyway ) FO4 is missing some sort of faction reputation system, that would be helpful for both solutions ( some sort of armistice only if you have maximum faction standing for BOS,Institute and RR - and this should be extremely or difficult to reach or even be impossible )

I leave all factions hanging at a point I control.

Saving many lives...

At the same time, if you invest yourself deeply into each faction it's only natural to have to betray some of them at some point. If you trully want a "loyal" ending, just stick to one faction and don't join the others, or perhaps only do the introduction quest. With my Institute character, I "joined" the BOS but as soon as I got the chance I killed Maxson and all his top officers. The fact that you can do this and that they are not essential is great.

As for companions, don't become friends with people you know you're going to backstab down the line. Don't know what else to say. If you join the Brotherhood, you probably shouldn't be friends with Strong, Hancock, Deacon, Curie, etc. If it bothers you, then perhaps you should ditch the Brotherhood and align with the RR.

I like the options the game gives, but you can also do a "pure playthrough" and stick with one faction all the way.

A problem with this approach is that you pretty much have to metagame in order to do it. The quests for the other factions *will* go into your journal as you walk around places like Diamond City, talk to Traders on the road, and hear distress signals when out and about. The game is practically pushing you to join every faction, and if you didn't already know the final outcome of the story, you really have no reason not to do it. You may even be thinking that since the game allows you to progress so far in the faction quests that there *will* be some way of diplomatically doing things, or only having to kill some existing leaders and replacing them with more "amenable" replacements. Surely, there is no way of knowing that you would be required to wipe out *everyone* depending on faction chosen....and for "reasons". Only in hindsight do we know these things.

Please explain, in detail, why you believe the Railroad are terrorists. That buzzword gets thrown around a lot in today's world, and the meaning gets clouded due to that. Can you name one act of terror they have performed?

How many bombings? How many mass shootings? Targeted political assassinations? Terroristic threats?

My tally currently stands at.... 0. They free enslaved sapient beings and smuggle them away from their former masters. That's not a terroristic action, not even in the realm of it.

The reason why there can't be peace with the Institute (but it is possible to have peace between the other three factions), is a result of the Institute's own past actions. They have thoroughly discredited themselves as a legitimate oranization through the use of:

1. Mass murder of defenseless civilians (University Point and Vault 111)
2. Targeted political assassination and kidnapping (Robert McDonough, the CPG)
3. Unwilling human (and synth) experimentation (the FEV lab, use of synths as guinea pigs)
4. Mass enslavement of sapient beings (Gen3 Synths, some rare Gen2s such as Nick)
5. Kidnapping and murder of individual civilians (Roger Warwick, Art, etc)
6. Terroristic threats (listen to the audio tapes of the University Point town council meeting)
7. Use/employment of known criminals and mercenaries (Kellogg)
8. Release of dangerous creatures/monsters into the Commonwealth (Supermutants)
9. Development of biological warfare agents (aka WMD, aka the FEV virus)

No matter how forward thinking an incoming Sole Survivor is as director, he or she has a complete inability to see to it that the Institute answers for any of their crimes beyond removing Ayo as SRB acting director (and ZImmer is still out there, and he's a whole other level of evil over the banolly evil Ayo). There is no recourse within the bounds of the game that any of these things are fully resolved other than Kellogg's death.

In the end, the Institute has a list of crimes that Mengele would nod approvingly at. It's a tainted, twisted organization and needs to be put down. There's no coincidence that the opening video to the game talks about fighting the Nazis, because there's a group of them hiding under the C.I.T.

(Here's a hint, if the Enclave and Vault Tec would look approvingly at your work and go "these guys have some good ideas", you are the villain.)

Actually grey is cool when you have a chance to at least discuss the grey and persuade, even if having to use intimidation, such as being able to say to Maxton or the Institute that if they don't want to compromise they'll be dead instead because you have powerful allies.

Actually it would even be possible to find in game the exact line which would calm down a faction, such as a Mama Murphy vision who would say to say to Maxton something like:"Come On! You don't wan't another NCR war, don't you?"

I agree with you. I'm also a high ranking member of each faction and Father also made me the Director of the Institute, which I actually declined, but he insisted... Shouldn't we first fight for each faction, before they bestow us a new title or the leadership, AFTER everything has been said and done? Like you said, we should first prove our loyalty.

I read somewhere that the Minutemen are the "Yes-Man" (Independent route in New Vegas) in Fallout 4. I also wish that they would be more involved in the Commonwealth and have more quests pertaining to the faction than just the "re-take the Castle". I don't really consider the radiant settlement quests as fundamental Minutemen quests per se. Plus, the whole dialogue around these quests needs to be more refined. I help an established settlement for the "umpteens" time and when I talk to Preston, I tell him that they agreed to join the Minutemen, which they have already done like 50 hours ago!!! *sigh*

There are definitely some missed opportunities here.

So, I finally entered the Institute and met Father this weekend. I was both overwhelmed and impressed by the clean and beautiful environment. However, talking to Father really made Cat angry (Catherine Bellamy, my character lol).

She asked the poignant question: "Is that all I am to you? An Experiment?" After everything she has been through to get to this point, she meets this callous old man. It almost feels like a Synth has more emotions that Father (sure, sure, sterile environment, being raised by scientists, etc.)

And tell me this, if the Institute is so concerned about humanity, what help have they provided during the 200+ years they have been in hiding? Father sounds rather dismissive of everything above ground. So, if not to repopulate the earth with Synths, what does he then mean, when he says the Institute is the best hope for humanity? They haven't cared for what goes on topside in centuries, besides sending spies up and replacing some humans with synths?

I was in awe when I first entered the Institute and no wonder they can keep it so immaculate, they have an army of slaves to clean and run the place. Bravo! /sarcasm

The Railroad, sure, they mean well and are rather misguided by JUST focusing on Synth and not considering the humans that might get harmed in the process. However, they have also suffered heavy losses at the hands of the Institute, who ruthlessly hunt down the railroad agents and kill them. I would not call the RR Terrorists, because they help Synths that are already on the surface. The RR just fights back and/or stands in the Courser's way, to protect sentient beings. It's not like they stole the Synths in the first place.

If the Institute didn't want the Synth to have "free will", then why did they create the Gen-3s?

BoS is BoS. I don't want to fight them, but I'm done doing their work, after the way Maxson flipped out about Danse (my honey ) 20+ years of loyal service and it doesn't count for anything? I cleaned out Danse's room and took his PA off the Prydwen and moved with him to my fortress on Spectacle Island. (Maybe that was a cruel move, since we have a clear view of the Prydwen lol).

One of the biggest complaints about Fallout 3's story was that it was 'black and white' with the mustache twirling evil Enclave on one side, and the virtuous Brotherhood of Steel on the other. People wanted shades of gray and moral ambiguity.

I guess Bethesda was listening, after all.

My legacy character Princess Cathy chose Independence in NV. She realises that soon, she has to choose yet again to determine the future of another wasteland.

In Fallout 4, it's a lot more difficult for her to choose.

Minutemen - This was her first choice, but she starts to deny if they would be powerful enough to help the entire Commonwealth.

Institute - She played people along the way and played the "I need to find my son" card, just to find the mystical Institute that Dr Zimmer once told her. On one hand, they have great technology which could benefit humankind. On another hand, they are doing things which she disapproves of. The faction is doing more good than Caesar's Legion, while also doing more evil.

BoS - She has a rose-tinted view on them because of Lyons, but that didn't stop her from blowing up the Mojave chapter. She finds that under Maxson, they're worse than Lyons' chapter but better than the Mojave chapter. Decisions, decisions.

Railroad - Nothing that she can criticise, at the moment, except for being too small to affect much for the Commonwealth.

In NV, it was easy. The CL had to go as they had no redeeming features in my character's eyes and the obvious choice was to go Independent and remain allied with the NCR.

Have to give props to Bethesda for making this a lot more difficult.