He's the sole survivor of the vault disaster, whatever it is, yeah. If somebody got out earlier are they also "survivors"? Not really.

Hey, now.... the husband and kid are dead!

I disagree on the wife, since the whole husband/wife thing is part of the choice of M/F player character. The kid, on the other hand, seems like it could be important.

More pointless speculation I'll add to this thread.

If nothing else they have you do the spouse so that the baby will be a merge of both your appearance.

And since a baby doesn't look much like anyone at all, it suggests that you will see your son when he is older.

Certainly Codsworth would tell you the last time he saw your spouse if you asked him.

One thought I had was that the vault 111 occupants are test subjects for the Cyro Chambers.

Well it makes sense to see how well they survive the Cryosleep process by waking one up regularly.

You know find out if there is a use by date.

So what do you do with them now?

You would also want to see how well their mental faculties survived the process.

No use trying to travel between the stars if 90 percent of the crew is going to awaken as vegetables or serial killers.

So how do you test them once they are awakened?

One way would be to tag them with a tracker/monitor and send them out of the vault with some supplies and a few weapons.

Lack of food and water would force them to leave and you could just close the vault behind them.

That vault looks like it would be almost impossible to force so once they are out they are out for good.

If they manage to survive for any length of time then you know that their mental faculties survived intact.

I'll give you five to one that if the spouse doesn't survive as part of canon, someone will do a mod where the spouse does survive and you have an epic quest to be reunited in less than two years after the release the modding tools.

Oh totally- definitely a toss-up. But it would be cool if, say, your son emerged 30 years before you did, and now you meet him as an advlt (it would be crazy if he was a villain too). And I have a hunch that Bethesda is going to use that emotional connection you make with your family in the beginning (beyond feeling a sense of loss, of course) later on in the game.

And I had no idea that FO3 matched the player's looks with the dad- that is pretty cool!

It isn't just the father. You can design the mother whether you use her as the protagonist or not. The child's looks are based off both parents. The spouse could be dead, but the child's level of detail is too hard to ignore. And, yes, I would love for our son to be the villain too. No matter how cliche.

I think they're alive, there theories that they were frozen. So I'm putting my money that they're alive.

Correction for the OP and all the video game journalists who have a somewhat sixist assumption about the PV and the family:

The FATHER and child may be dead. Since I am the wife, I am most definitely alive.

(In other words, you have some journalists assuming the PC will be male which only shows their own sixist assumptions).

maybe your wife's personality was uploaded into a computer like GLaDOS :0

Or a robot like Chappi!

Or the OP maker is going to play as a male and wrote it that way to reflect that fact, so no correction needed. Not everybody is an evil sixist out to get you so chill.

Personally i chose to take the comments from Todd literally. I think the wife and kid will be dead but if they are alive i bet will be one heck of a plot.

Not to be rude, but did you take him literally when he said the Fallout 3 protagonist was born in the vault? And that no one ever enters or leaves vault 101? He said that numerous times when talking about that game.

I came into the series after fallout 3 had been released. So i never saw such comments. Before i actually bought the game my only exposure had been what friends had told me about it on our hunting trip.

This seems like a lame thing to lie about to me though.

My guess is they made it, the protagonist gets put on ice for some reason and I suspect we'll see time sequences like in Fallout 3. The kid grown up the hubby/wife older and so on. I honestly can't wait to see what the hell happens in that vault.

I think that either both mom and son are alive or they are both dead.Having the baby survive alone won't make sense,I mean how will you know is your son if last time you saw him was as a baby and how he know you if never met you. Unless mom/dad survive to tell him about you,your not going to meet him.

Who says they're dead? You may be the lone survivor when you are revived but what about those people before you?

My theory is that they also enter the vault, they was removed some years before you wake up.

Something happens as you wake up who involves fighting, internal fight or the ones who took your family comes back, or simply raiders.

Everyone except you dies.

Yes another low probability solution is that your family dies during the fight after waking up. This creates some emotional impact.

Having them die because of the bomb or stasis pod malfunction before waking up on the other hands makes no sense as it generate far less impact. Has to use Hollywood logic here.

Your mother in FO3 is just backstory, you grew up in the vault but your father was known outside.

Or, you know, they could just die of old age while the protagonist is suspended in stasis or whatever. Seems like the more sensible outcome.

It's still possible for one or both of them (perhaps just the son) to be present - they just could never have entered the Vault (as then you would not be the Sole Survivor). Perhaps they preserved themselves like House, or in the VR pods like Braun, or have ghoulified and thus survived the 200 years fully concious. What with the detonation occuring even before the door is opened, its possible that not everybody got in before the Vault had to be resealed.

I'm on the fence about which is more likely. The family could easily just be a way to remind the player of what SS has lost, rather than necessarily be returning characters.

That's a bad habit, as he's known to lie or make things seem greater than what they are.

Speaking of kids in one of the concept arts I saw what looked like a young blonde haired kid on the side of a vertibird using the gatling gun while the dog is behindthe him its at 1:48 of the concept art video. It might just be the same guy we see with the dog in all the videos but it looks like he's younger.

You should really do your own research before you know, you uh, do that kind of thing. Trusting people, I mean. Life gets harder that way. No offense.

Quoting this. So you'll read it again and let it sink in. You can believe what you want. No one knows. But don't base it on what Howard said. Seriously. They aren't going to give away the plot. His speech at E3 was prepared for that sole reason.

Hate to burst your bubble but i have seen all the same videos that yall have and i still came the the conclusion that the kid and wife being dead is the likely outcome. Fallout 3 had to similar a plot (family based) and i think it would be lame for them to do it again. It makes more sense to me for them to just be there to get us attached to the PC.

To have the family die off early in the game is a terrible starting point for writing quality. We're supposed to care and bond with these things called "Wife/Husband and baby" but we don't even get to really know them before "lolmushroomclouds" start happening. Therefore it's a waste of time and resources on both sides of the playing field (Devs and gamers), while also breaking the immersion a bit and people spotting the lousy writing. Hopefully, they won't go down that rabbit hole.....RIGHT?!

Well, yeah, it's lame that they'll do it again - but lame plots are a Bethesda specialty.