I will never ever buy a bethesda game again in the first wave after the release.

First I have to make sure, that the story is not so horrific like the one on Fallout 4.

Some will say: "Then go, dont let yourself be stopped."

But some will want to know why I hate this game so much now.

I played it a long time. Many hours and even days.

Yes it was a bother with all this bugs, etc. But that was not the point.

I have a son. Now 1 year old. Can you believe that I had nightmares right after the beginning of the story?

And after I found out that "my son" (the one in the game) was far older than me, I only felt pain and pure horror.

There was no childhood to see, no education I could give him, nothing.

There was an old man, but this "father" could not be my son, so I gone mad and killed him.

That was only a man that pretended to be my son, but even I he was right and not lying,

he was only a madman from an evil organization that had some of my genes...

if he would have been my son, I would have known him longer than a few months.

But all doors were tightly shut down und all I could do was to leave the facility.

Then I thought about it and deleted the game. I will never reinstall it and I didnt slept well the next 3 days.

NEVER AGAIN!!! Bethesda, whatever your writer intended, you only made me suffer. So I wish you all ill I got, but seven times more.

Bye forever....

Yeah, my son just turned two before Fallout 4 came out. The beginning made me sick to my stomach, when I stumbled onto some spoilers and found out that my entire mission was futile, I had to re roll a female character, just to disconnect from the trauma in the male characters voice.


Hell, I even rewrote part of it as a DLC Idea just to easy my nerves....



"I'd like to see another twist to the main storyline, that keeps your quest for your son from being pointless.


Shaun is still alive. Father was a synth, and an imperfect one at that. The female scientist, shown in memory, who assisted Kellogg in the abduction had a crisis of conscience. She had known they were going to collect a clean “sample” from a vault, but did not count what that would entail. Wrapping a child from the arms of his parents and then seeing them shot while the other watched on in horror took its toll on her. Knowing the rest of the inhabitants would be left to die was too much. She had to do something….anything.


On returning to the institute she was instructed to begin harvesting DNA from the child, as much as possible even if it meant killing him. Unable to bear the thought of now murdering a helpless infant she came up with a plan. Telling the Old Man it would take a while to prep for extraction, she began her work. Using some old date on advanced cloning techniques and cancerous cell growth she was able to extract a small sample of cellular material and accelerated its growth exponentially.


Now, the infant, Shaun. He wouldn't be safe in the institute, they would corrupt him or kill him it they knew he survived. With help from her husband a small cryogenic chamber was constructed, fueled by several dozen fusion cores, and transported to room in a collapsed wing, sealed off long ago during a construction accident.


The old man referenced in the memory is the same as father. But why does he look like you and your spouse? The Doctor, now experimenting with Shaun’s DNA, was tasked with creating a new body for the Old Man who was dying, and could no longer be sustained by implants. To do so, she would have to create a perfect Gen 3 synth. She succeeded, and in the process of transferring the memories of the Old Man into the new body, transferred some saved imprints from the infant Shaun. Images of his father and mother over his crib. This would help further her plan for at least partial redemption.


When the transfer was complete the Old Man took on a new moniker, calling himself Father. Years passed and some obvious health issues began to arise. While longer lived than most humans, Father still seemed to be getting ill. Upon completion of a thorough medical exam, the Doctor discovered the method used to quickly acquire genetic material and avoid harming the infant had damaged some strands of DNA. She was able to correct it in the samples she still possessed, but any synths created using Shaun’s DNA exclusively could not be saved, and would eventually die of an aggressive form of cancer.


When confronted by Father she blamed the problem on the rush to create a replacement body, and general scientific trial and error. Father,though angry, tasked her with growing a new body with the now supposedly greater understanding of the process. She set to work, but father had her cut short the growth of the new synth, intent on stretching it's potential life as long as possible before needing a new transfer.

The process began to transfer Father into the now 10 year old body of the synth. However, even to her surprise, the process failed. The damage that was causing the cancer was preventing the transfer as well. She discovered that it would also prevent the use of any implant suspended aging as well. Father was dooomed.


Father was furious, and probably afraid of death. Who could be worthy of running the institute after his passing? No one! The Doctor had a plan though. Everything she had done, every step she had taken over the years had been waiting for this opportunity. Father had left one of the infant Shaun’s parents alive. To be used as a backup plan. Slowly, over months of subtle manipulation and a few intentional remote stimulations of Father's synth brain, she was able to convince him to release the other parent. The constant flashes of the imprints from Shaun caused him to unconsciously begin to see infant's parent as a worthy successor.


But how could he convince them. He decided to play a role. Using his failed synth replacement body, he would lure the parent to the Institute, then he would claim to be the child they had lost so long ago, after seeing the devastation and brutishness of the wasteland he was sure they would take up his cause.


The Doctor, now well past 100, was beginning to feel the effects of old age. Her implants, prototypes of those given to Kellogg, could no longer sustain her. Nor did she want them to. In her final days she set messages and instructions to be delivered to the Sole Survivor when they finally made it to the Institute and after Father had passed. These would detail the what had been done, why so many details seemed forced, why the Sole Survivor still felt their son was alive somewhere out there. Finally, it would detail how, after all these years, and all the searching, to finally be reunited with their son. "

Wait they had a story writer? I thought they just had a chicken pecking at random words on a cell phone.

Honestly I think 1 person made the minute men missions, another made the railroad, another made the BoS missions, and another worked on the institute and main story and they tried to fit them all together like a puzzle made from parts of 4 puzzles and alot of scizors and glue.


The minute men are definitely out of place in the main story "lets protect the Commonwealth by um...... Killing scientists and blowing up a lab?"

Sounds to me like the writer did a good job. The writers job was to illicit an emotional response and leave you conflicted. I am sorry this was traumatic for you and was an unpleasant experience but much of the great literature produced throughout history does the same thing. It can be painful and gut wrenching and ironically that is why it has stood the test of time. Most people want a compelling story so they can be engaged in the game, book, movie etc. In your case it was too close to home and the emotional hooks in the game worked too well. I am sorry it effected you that way and in your case specifically, if you can't play this game with more emotional detachment, then you have already done the best thing for you and deleted it and moved on.

Anyone get the feeling a few people are making multiple accounts on here to post the same thing?

Mine I posted twice, once here, and once in the original, also a link to it in another thread. As far as the storyline goes and our issue with it, there are bound to be other players with young son's out there who are struck by the story as well.

There's a reason Bethesda put that mental health link at the bottom of the forum.

Some people should take advantage of it.

I think the realization of what happened to Shaun and who he became is one of the stronger parts of the story. It provides the needed pathos that makes choosing a faction a real struggle.


As a father I sympathize with your emotional reaction, but it is just a game.

LOL I just noticed that link! hahahaha Yea, I guess it would do some people some good!

@ Irradiatedchipmunk: I really like your story and it would be cool if that were true!! Even a 10 year old would be better and keep Catherine Bellamy (my character) much more sane than the truth. Plus, I wanted to slap Shaun anyway... I finally thought to thaw you out, just to see how you would survive in the wasteland... REALLY?

@ Taldrit: It IS a story. Many books affect me for days, after I finish the story, as do well told RPG stories. Still, we do have to remember that it is fiction. Nobody is going into Cryostasis in the near future, to avoid a nuclear disaster (at least I hope that won't happen... hehe)

so if you like what he does, he's "your son", otherwise he's "just a madman that has some of your genes"?

boy, am i glad i got no kids...

This is a joke right?

This.

If you sell the number of copies Bethesda has, law of averages says you are going to get a few 'extreme' reactions...

Yes it is just a game. But I'd rather be the one with an emotionally charged reaction to the story than one who is reacting because..."Oh god, the character in this story is in a heterosixual relationship and has a child, now I am forced to conform to this role." Or "I can't properly RP my character because I can hear them speak."


Honestly though, next play through, I'm going melee build on the guy and trashing the Commonwealth in search of my evil bastard offspring

That's about the size of it, although I wouldn't put Bethesda and great literature in the same sentence, not by a long shot.

That said, they set out to accomplish something with Fallout 4's story, and for all my complaints about it, I think they did a good enough job with what they intended on doing.

My main gripe with the story is for the simple fact that I literally cannot play the game as a guy who couldn't give a [censored] less about his dead wife and kidnapped son. At every turn in the main quest, it is impossible for me to tell the other person that I just don't care about the kid, all I want to do is end the threat posed by those who would want to take away what we've got by any means they can.

Not all of us playing the game are parents, and even some of us who may be, may not feel those emotional bonds that tie most families together. Some families just don't have those bonds, they just go their separate ways over time.

If the story affected you this badly, then I dare say the storywriter did a very decent job. Not exactly a Pulitzer Prize level job, but pretty decent. A writer who doesn't make his/her readers feel even the least bit moved by the events of the story is either a crap writer or isn't even trying. I couldn't have cared less if Alduin destroyed the world in 'Skyrim'. There wasn't really anything provoking me to WANT to care other than I was the Chosen One?.


Granted, this storyline probably hit you a little too close to home because you have an infant son, and could better relate to the protagonists more than those who have no children. It happens. Just remember that this is just a game. If you're disturbed, put it away and play something else for a while. It happens to everyone. There's that one story we will never touch because it just hits all the right emotional buttons, all a little too hard. For me, it's stories that involved sick/injured/dying animals. For you, it's a story about an infant boy being put in mortal danger and you're unable to stop it, and then later you find out that you've missed out on the boy's entire life.

I don't have kids, so I feel nothing. Basically, it has nothing to do with the story, but how it hits close to home. While the story is not that good, the quality of the story has nothing to do with why you dislike it.

You certainly CAN play the game as somebody who doesn't give a damn about his wife and son, it just doesn't make any sense for you to follow the main quest line in that case. IIRC, in most cases, you can simply not say anything about your son/wife to NPC's in the early part of the game (which is what you'd do in that situation). Do you really want the option to say, oh, some guy came and killed me wife and took my son but I don't actually care about that? That would be weird. Usually you have some option like "just passing through" or looking for work or none of your business. There's no particular reason for you to go to Concord at all, since that comes about because of Cotswold's suggestion. Maybe you'd drift south to Abernathy farm, deal with their monster problem and settle there as a farmer. Or maybe you'd eventually wind up in Diamond City as the place with the most opportunities, but since you're not going to talk about your son/wife, there's no reason for anyone to tell you about the detective agency, and no reason to stop into it if you notice the sign because you' have no need of a detective. If you don't care about them, why would you go in there in the first place?

It's impossible to create any sort of main story line that accommodates every possible protagonist personality. In this case, it's rather firmly established in the opening scenes that your character is strongly emotionally attached to his family. I had a harder time following the main quest line in FONV because I couldn't see anything to be gained in pursuing Benny. The only motive there at all was revenge and he didn't do me any permanent harm, take anything from me that belonged to me, and since he got what he was after, no reason to think he'd try to kill me again. The main quest in Skyrim stops dead (main quest wise) if you decided you didn't really care about this Dragonborn crap and refuse to climb an enormous mountain to consult the Greybeards about some stupid Nord superstition. Every game that has any kind of storyline at all requires you to buy into your character being motivated to take certain actions to progress in it. I'd say the motivation here was established very early on and isn't difficult to understand unless you've never felt any emotional attachment to any other human being.

Hope you never get shot, I can only imagine nightmares FPS games will give you then.

You are weird dude....

@OP

seriously? again

I actually felt for the protag and I don't even like children. I think the story and dialogue writers did a good job portraying the trauma some characters go through and the whole "Oh god what the hell is going on" throughout the Sole Survivor's awakening, going through Vault 111, seeing what happened in sanctuary hills and adapting to the world were all well done.

Also helps they had some pretty strong VAs

There's a lot to criticize aboout the story, but not taking into account each and every sensibility, isn't part of it. If they did, they couldn't write any story at all. When Fallout 3 came out, I had just lost my father. So losing the father ingame was kind of close to home. But I'm able to make a distinction between a game and reality.

To be fair, we can't really say how a story will affect us. When I was a child, I bawled like an infant when reading 'Where The Red Fern Grows', yet I watched the ending to 'Titanic' and my only thought was: 'That had to svck, why didn't they put in enough lifeboats for everyone?' No shame in feeling this way. That's kind of the goal writers want to achieve: make an emotional connection between characters and the readers.

Yea it's really not the fault of the writer not the fault of anyone really but just how it effects you personally. For instance Dues Ex: Human Revolution has a lot of good writing but personally I couldn't feel any kind of connection with Adam Jensen or what he was going through, not the fault of the writer but just I couldn't see his PoV.