...Since when?

Say that my wife and two kids and I board a train and then later they get off at a stop while I stay on the train.

If the train then derails and I'm the only one to survive then I'm the sole survivor of the train wreck.

nice anology. if the spouse and kid got out of the vault before the cryo experiment killed everyone but you, you'd still be the sole survivor of vault 111.

My bet is that the son survives.

They made a point that he will look like a combination of the Lone Survivor and the Spouse, and babies don't look like any thing but another baby.

So we will likely see him when he is older.

For the Spouse, I'm only giving about a 33% chance that he or she survives.

They could very well decide to have the Spouse die to leave the Lone Survivor free and grieving the loss.

Part of the Lone Survivor's tale would be coming to terms with the loss and moving on.

Also one way to make the Lone Survivor more invested in the son, is to include time spent with the spouse/other parent of the son.

The son would still be out there to provide motivation to find him or at least find out what happened to him.

Between that, and the impact of seeing before the war and the destruction after the war, it would be totally worth the pre war setup.

On the other had they are setting it up for the protagonist to be either the wife or husband.

That means they would have a lot of the voice work done if they decided to run with the Spouse being alive.

It would be great if done right but it would be very difficult to pull off which doesn't play to Bethesda's strengths.

I think Bethesda wants to up their story telling game, but they realize their limitations and will focus on other areas of the story that would be a little easier to pull off.

Like a long hunt to find the son and the reunion.

So that is why I'm not expecting the spouse to survive.

But I'll still betting that a year or two after they release the modding tools, someone will create a mod where the spouse survives and you can be reunited with them after an epic quest.

And it is exactly the sort of logic Bethesda would use if they are trying to keep the first part of the Lone Survivor's journey under wraps in order to not spoil it.

there not dead

Sole survivor as far as the protag knows.

Todd wouldn't really spoil things and say , "Oh btw, you meet your son later on in the game"

And they shouldn't have forced two characters and two relationships on the player in the first place. Which is why I'm planning to kill both off one way or another in my games (unless I see they fit for a character of mine).

I think wife/husband died protecting the boy years before you defrost ( I'm thinking escaping slavers that stole them from 111) the boy as grown up by the time you get out (30 ish I think) and is in a leadership role if not the boss in a faction , he blames you for the other parents death but still has a family photo (how he knows it's you)

I'm confused, the human race has two genders, male, and female. In the beginning of the game, you can select the male character, or the female character. So, gender selectability IS in the game.

Because everyone here is assuming that Sole Survivor is a male. That's why references to Sole Survivor has been with the male pronouns in this thread.

Most people in this thread are only talking about a male player-character, and exclusively using wife/she for the spouse. MadCat221 finds that annoying. It is rather lazy, and may betray a degree of sixism among the posters... but how careful should people be about their language when discussing this about a game? I dunno .

I seriously doubt that this is any intended slight on the fairer six. Most likely, it is simply easier to just type "he".

Ah, speculation is such fun! Especially when we have so few solid facts to work with.

Everyone seems to be assuming that the baby will be a boy, but is it not possible that if the player chooses a female PC the child could be a girl? What implications would this have if they do indeed survive vault 111?

I think it was confirmed that the baby was a boy. In the demo, the wife said, "I've got Shaun!" when the War started.

His choice of words leave it possiable for alot.
Maybe your child was taken from the vault years ago with his captors thinking only he survived and your kid had grown up, had his own children and died leaving your character to stumble upon his legacy years later
Your character would awaken believing only he survived still.. Genuinely dont see why they'd spend the time putting the child generation in if you only saw him for 5 seconds at the beggining as a baby

Yes, but in that demo the baby boy - Shaun - only appears after you have chosen your character.

Most likely misdirection from Todd to keep from spoiling the story. No way you are the sole survivor from 111 as Todd claims. Due to the fact that Todd said a baby is generated based on your character creation for the parents, I wouldn't be surprised if you run into an advlt version of your child, who most likely left Vault 111 before you thawed out, later in the game.

Yes, but if 200 years had passed it's a pretty good guess that they would have lived out their lifespan. Were you frozen in time on that train?

Oh, I'm sure no slight was or is intended, and it's just habit of speech. But some people do find that sort of thing exasperating, and it's always polite to make the slightest of efforts to avoid annoying people for no reason .

There is a gold mine of what Bethesda could do with with this story ark with the wife and child. If my wish list is to be granted with Interesting Companions with Developing story lines and Leveling; I'm sure they could write in some kind of story ark where you leave vault 111 with the belief you're wife and son are dead - in your travels you meet up with a companion, maybe rather similar to the Mod Willow, that though the right story development ark becomes your new partner - you get separated from her during an event, fear for dear life that your not going to loose her/him to death, then out of the grave comes you're wife appears before you, and your left with a struggle of morality between your old world vows, or your Oasis rose in the wasteland who has had your back. And I'm sure you'll get to meet your son Shaun in a DLC where he becomes some kind of war lord in another Place, like Detroit or maybe you turn up In the Capital waste land to find him, or maybe you'll bug out and find him dead and you'll keep hitting a button to shout Shaun like in Heavy Rain.

I agree. Personally i choose to believe that they are dead, after fallout 3 i just think it would be kinda expected/lame/lazy for them to more or less reverse the beginning circumstances. The fact that they have the PC voiced now so that they can get the emotion of a voiced PC vs read dialog also leads me to this. I think they will have it be about his coping with the new world and the loss of the wife and child.

I find the idea of a tear jerking story more interesting than a "Your the only one that can save us" story, i just think they have done it to many times. Even if the former has an element of the lesser.

Oh I definitely agree with you there and I hope my character becomes a widow right off the bat

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y65/Bukubuku/neveraskedforthis.jpg

Well if my Cryo Chamber is the train, and my family got out of their Cryo Chamber at the last stop then I'm likely only a decade or two after them.

Posts have been removed.

Some of you need to read the rules now and then.