In a gameplay vid, the male PC speaks to Codsworth as though he'd just went into the vault, which suggests that our player character has been uncounscious in some sort of cryostasis state within the vault.
Way I see it, Vault 111 releases it's cryogenized inhabitants one at a time at set intervals of years. Player character happened to be the last one exactly 200 years after the apocalypse.


Our son will have been released alongside the NPC mother/father decades before the player, and we will meet him as an advlt. His appearance will be generated based on the mother and father we created [I believe Todd said as much in the gameplay vid].

It feels like a rather obvious thing to do if they're gonna bother giving the player a set backstory with a family. It feels pointless to introduce the family with all these gimmicks and then kill them off 5 min into the game.

We're gonna be seeing way more of that family, or at the very least, of Shaun. They did say they wanted to do a dramatic story this time around, having a grown up Shaun going about seems somewhat dramatic.

Yeah, I'm pretty much expecting to meet them in the future, at least Shaun.

There is a lot of speculation on this, some say that our son will be a protagonist in the story, some say we'll end up going off to rescue our spouse and son. But I don't really recall anything that says more then that the main character survives the blast. He was very careful to point out our main character survives. That doesn't mean that the spouse or our son does...

And surviving may not mean what we think it means either.....

My speculation is that we survived, though badly damaged and was taken into the vault and our consciousness was downloaded into a android body and that is the Vault 111 experiment, or that our damaged body is STILL in the vault and we are exploring the wasteland in a replica that we control (without us being aware of the fact)

I'm hoping he ends up being a major villain instead of a good guy. Nothing quite as dramatic as being forced to kill your own son.

I go more for a auto doc as been fixing us while in cryosleep, which could explain why we survived when most/all others died. I really hope they don't go for the synthetic download as it is to expected.
I think the baby will be a faction leader and be the bad guy or hate us for letting his mother die

That is what I feel as well, Shaun will end up not being a good person.

An antagonist, an anti-hero, something like that. Our player character will conflict with him somehow.

The Irish translation of Shaun is "Gift from God." I really want that to develop the character into being the complete opposite of a gift

Am I the only person who wants to kill their son, regardless of whether they are good or bad?

It does seem pretty logical.

If we do consider this bit of story, I wonder if we will have a varied interaction with sonny boy, depending on whether we choose a male or female PC.

This is horrible! But it has me wishing we could say, "You were an accident!", right before pulling the trigger.

I just want him and the spouse to disappear from the game and never be mentioned again...does that count?

No, Shaun, I am your mother! So go back to your damn room, you little bastard and leave those poor raiders alone!

I would like the idea of the son being tied to a certain faction...so he could be the villain, or we might be able to join him in whatever it is he's doing.

Ruling Boston...as Father and Son...

Well said. Well said indeed.

I am the only one he who wishes he lived and died, never knowing who is missing parent is?

I'm fully expecting us to be given a choice between two factions (or on our own) and unwittingly force a series of events that leads our son to take the opposing faction/make opposite decisions to counteract our own.

Why does everyone want this? Lol. I'm hoping it is a cathartic, heart warming meeting and our son can then be a follower. Since my name is Shawn, we'll be a dynamic duo lol.

And my name is Shaun. [censored] yes.

He will be an advlt and the main antagonist.

Or a really old man.

This is what I was thinking, your son actually appears to be older than you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jRM45yO9Rg

I would prefer they didn't do that, sounds so bad.

It seems very obvious that Shaun will be an important character since as you said his appearance changes depending on how you alter the appearance of your character+spouse and it would be an extremely useless feature should Shaun be dead or really old.

Shaun being at a matching age with the player or younger is quite likely and is possible to be an antagonist hating you while saying something along the lines of "Where were you when Mom/Dad died? Oh right! You were too busy staying safe as a human popsicle!"

Of course this is under the assumption the player's spouse does not live. Though it is also possible for Shaun to be on your side too and staying alive,which Id honestly prefer as the "family member that shows up in the story dies for an emotional twist" is an extremely dried up thing and would be extra boring since FO3 already did the "family member that shows up in the story dies for an emotional twist".

There ain't no breaks on the cliche train.

Thanks Kilo.

I hated the possibility of the story being a reversed F3, with you looking for your son and save him and then rainbows, cakes and unicorns. If the story is that your son becomes a primary antagonist, then this seemingly lame plot suddenly became interesting.