Ahh well, I don't disagree with that.

But I will say it would be rather pointless to have the baby dynamically adapt to the couple you make only to kill it off in 5 minutes. The wife/husband may die, but the child will likely survive.

What im getting at is that if they had them survive it would defeat the purpose of titling them the Sole survivor.

That would be so messed up lol.

I agree with this, it just seems like a waste of resources if they kill the kid off immediately. The wife I can understand since we edit her appearance and what not. The kid is a different story.

I also mentioned I felt like it would be pointless if only the robot says our name in the game. Why waste the resources on that kind of encounter?

PC already reserved a place in the vault for their whole family and the couple was already let through by the guards and were on top of the elevator waiting to be let down. They said the elevator lowers and you go into the vault. Why would your spouse be like "nah I'll just sit around up here with the baby and wait to die or try to go to a different vault miles away." Why would the PC let them?

I think it's tricky wordplay. Everyone else in the vault is dead which makes you the sole survivor but that doesn't mean your family was among them. If five people live in a house, person 1 moves away, and the next day there is a house fire that kills everyone except person 2, person 2 is the sole survivor of the house fire even though person 1 was there the day before.

Todd does say "events transpire and YOU get lowered into the Vault" implying SOMETHING important happens between the bomb going off, and you getting into the vault, which could lead to the separation.

They deliberately faded the screen out in the E3 video right before we saw what happens right after the bomb, and started saying they didn't want to talk about the story too much.

Something happens between the bomb and you getting into the Vault, what that is, who knows.

I guess i can see that. I just think its more likely they were used as a story telling device to make us more attached to the PC

He may have said that you are the sole survivor of Vault 111, but that doesn't mean that you were the only person in Vault 111 to successfully go through the cryonics process to wake up in the future. It could also mean that other people woke up before you did and are no longer in Vault 111 - my guess is that's going to be the case. Maybe your wife and child are dead, but their descendants aren't - but more likely they woke up before you and, for some reason, left you.

That said, it's possible that your wife and child are dead and you'll only see them in flashback portions of the game (maybe entered into at the Memory Den, enabling you to putt around pre-war America).

I also want to apprise everyone that purportedly nobody ever entered or left Vault 101 when the door shut for good (rough paraphrasing of Ron Pearlman's intro).

It's not unlike Bethesda to set up a spurious pretense.

Edit:

Todd Howard also says it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8l3U8h1EeQ

Ahh yes "Because, in Vault 101: no one ever enters, and no one ever leaves."

Except all those times when it was open and people did enter and leave.

Not saying your wrong and they didn't die in the vault, but the character's game nickname isn't really good proof for that. The lone wanderer could have a good number of companions, the courier didn't do a ton of... couriering after the start of NV, etc. its just a catchy wastleland title for the character to be addressed as. Can't look at it as this set in marble 145% true cause a word was in it kind of thing. maybe you get labeled the sole survivor because nobody has seen any other 111 dwellers ever and assume you're the only one who made it? if the cryo pods theory is true, maybe someone took your family for [inesert plot reasons] and sabatoged the rest but failed messing up yours? you'd still be a pretty singular example of a sole survivor then, but there's no way to know until the game comes out

That's my point, up until the major events in the game transpired the player was under this presupposition, from the coverage of Fallout 3 pre-release and through the game's beginnings, possibly akin to Fallout 4's "sole survivor".We can't say with certitude that Todd isn't selling another fallacy.

That is kind of the point though. Keep the story under wraps, don't reveal to much. I am glad for it, some games show so many trailers that you know the plot long before release. Same goes with movies.

The quote is "you do survive and get lowered into the vault, events transpire and you emerge 200 years later as the sole survivor of vault 111." So whatever shennanagins happen, they happen after you get into the vault and I repeat, why would the spouse refuse go into the vault when you're already right at the door and they have a spot reserved? Even if they were insane, why would the PC let them do it and why would the PC let them take the baby? Even if for whatever stupid reason the vault opens and the people in charge are like "actually we changed our mind, bring in one parent only, the other parent and baby can go die." Why would the PC just go in alone and save their own skin, especially after being shown as someone who loves their family by default?

Oh I definitely think they'll be used as a plot device and a way to try and make us feel more emotion. I hope they die in the intro but I just don't see it happening. I feel like your son will survive (and possibly be a teen or advlt when you find him) if not the spouse.

I wasn't disagreeing, merely join in on the joke of the phrase.

I realize now that may not have been clear due to the lack of tone in text.

I don't have a problem with it, but we can't accept whatever pretense Todd offers as unequivocal fact, as some are doing...

I probably should have realized, but the forums are typically of a pugnacious environment not a jocose one (still i'll remember to lighten up).

There are, of course players who would do just that quite cheerfully but I don't see gamesas giving you a story option to do it. No hero worthy of the name would choose to leave his wife and baby to die and save himself. If all three couldn't go, the order would traditionally be 1)baby, 2) wife, 3) husband. Either the baby and spouse die up there....freeing the PC to go or be carried unconscious into the Vault....or they all go in, and then events happen.

That's the entire internet in a nutshell, can't really fault you for seeing things that way,

I'm guessing that when Todd Howard said "you emerge as the sole survivor", he is saying that from the perspective of what you know at the time you emerge (that is, as far as you know, you ARE the only survivor). I strongly think that we will be seeing our son (and perhaps husband/wife) later in the game. Especially since Bethesda went to the trouble of making your son an amalgamation of the looks of your character and husband/wife.

If PC finds wife/husband and child dead, I think the conversation with Codsworth would be a little different. An infant skeleton would be extremely identifiable. No chance of the PC not recognizing his skeletal family. Like most believe, the spouse and child are probably taken long before you wake up from cryostasis. 'Sole Survivor' is merely a title, and everyone knows that. I certainly wasn't 'The Lone Wanderer' or a 'Courier'. You start out as that person, but you come to realize you are more than that.

I didn't say to stop making that stew, Codsworth. Get to it.

(I pose a question to OP. If spouse and child are dead, what do you think the purpose is? What is the main quest? It would be a silly narrative direction if you walk out of the vault, do a little this and that, then you discover grand quest is…. well, that's the question. Why would we care to help, say, the people of the wasteland? Our family. That is what we know, and that is what the PC would care about; Discovering what happened to them and if his/her child is alive. Because, seriously, it's pretty darn obvious your spawn plays a decent role.)