Not in a video game where I could easily see the recycled "Find your family member!" from FO3.

LOL I like it! You certainly got your priorities straight! Junk over Kid!

I have 2 characters so far and neither "mom" was in a rush to find her kid. They both met him when they were around lvl 50ish. The wasteland isn't a forgiving place. Here, the motto is survival of the fittest and they had to make friends, help settlers, build settlements and get a feel for the land in general, before they could even THINK about tracking down Shaun. And both times, I wanted to slap him when I met him... LOL

Pre-game I thought he was going to end up being Hancock (before we found out he was just another companion).

What's JARRING is the spoken dialog. Hell we spend months just doing whatever, then we suddenly get into the Institute and we're all like "WHERE THE #&$%*@#^% IS MY SON!", and I'm like, where the hell did that come from? All the sudden the son is important again? I mean seriously I just spent a week adding walls and defenses to three settlements, and now all the sudden it's all about the son?

And what if you assumed your son is dead? Once you're in the Institute there's no option to assume that. Even Father is like "your here to find your son". What if I didn't want to assume the Synth boy was my son? Where was my option to tell little Shawn "Look I don't care who you are if you don't tell me who's in charge here I'm going to rip your throat out". I mean seriously, my SS had a rough day, being all moleculed apart and all that. He's not in the mood to mess with some snot nosed kid.