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* {{Squee}}: This is {{Adorkable}} NiceGirl Curie's reaction to a surprisingly large number of things in the devastated remains of the Commonwealth, from visiting famous landmarks ("Do you think they are still offering tours?") to finding the ruins of a pre-War mall overrun by [[AlwaysChaoticEvil Super Mutants]] ("Oh! Shopping!"). That last one can be especially funny if she's [[spoiler:still installed in her robotic Mr. Nanny shell instead of in a humanoid synth body that could actually get some use out of the stuff she might find in the shops.]]
** Everyone's favorite Nuka-Cola addict [[Fallout3 Sierra Petrovita]] makes a return at the Nuka-World theme park of all things. Needless to say she's geeked out pretty much constantly simply by being there, all the while completely ignoring the mortal danger she placed herself in by travelling to one of the biggest raider strongholds this side of the former US. Gets turned UpToEleven at the end of her quest when she realizes she's actually talking to [[spoiler:the disembodied but still living head of John-Caleb Bradberton, Nuka-Cola's inventor. Her overboarding ecstasy can instantly turn into a massive MoodWhiplash, however, should the player decide to honor Bradberton's wish of letting him die. [[MamaBear She]] [[BerserkButton doesn't]] [[WhatTheHellHero take]] [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge it]] [[{{Understatement}} well]].]]
** Everyone's favorite Nuka-Cola addict [[Fallout3 Sierra Petrovita]] makes a return at the Nuka-World theme park of all things. Needless to say she's geeked out pretty much constantly simply by being there, all the while completely ignoring the mortal danger she placed herself in by travelling to one of the biggest raider strongholds this side of the former US. Gets turned UpToEleven at the end of her quest when she realizes she's actually talking to [[spoiler:the disembodied but still living head of John-Caleb Bradberton, Nuka-Cola's inventor. Her overboarding ecstasy can instantly turn into a massive MoodWhiplash, however, should the player decide to honor Bradberton's wish of letting him die. [[MamaBear She]] [[BerserkButton doesn't]] [[WhatTheHellHero take]] [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge it]] [[{{Understatement}} well]].]]
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** After completing ''Far Harbor'''s main questline, nothing's stopping you from [[spoiler:immediately destroying the faction you chose to side with, betraying their trust. The options of telling the Institute/Brotherhood about the synth refuge, setting off the nuke in the Nucleus, and cutting off Far Harbor's power can still be taken.]]
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* ScareChord: Used occasionally when you round a corner in a dungeon to come face to face with something disturbing. One example would be in the parking garage maze near Fallon's Department Store, where you find two decapitated corpses, one hung from a meat hook, the other positioned upright, and two heads impaled on stakes. Also sometimes used for scripted enemy assaults, such as the one in Nuka-World's [[spoiler:Rob-Co Battlezone]].
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** Deciding to free Nuka-World's enslaved traders from their raider overlords requires the elimination of all four gang bosses, which means you have to storm their respective headquarters and take on an army's worth of heavily armed gangsters in the process.
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* SandWorm: A comparatively small example in Nuka-World's [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Bloodworms]], one of the primary reasons why even the resident raiders are reluctant to venture into the desert beyond the park walls. The worms are basically five-foot-long tubes of pink flesh with a gaping, triple-jawed maw full of razor teeth on one end that just love to [[JumpScare burst from the ground without warning]] all around their prey. Hope you brought a [[KillItWithFire flamer]].
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** The Nuka-World theme park as well as the surrounding areas are home to Radrats. These critters are much smaller than molerats and also bear far more optical resemblance to common pre-War rats, but that still doesn't stop them from being a disgusting menace.
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** The Nuka-World theme park as well as the surrounding areas are home to Radrats. These critters are much smaller than molerats and also bear a far more optical greater visual resemblance to common pre-War rats, but that still doesn't stop them from being a disgusting menace.
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** The Nuka-World theme park as well as the surrounding areas are home to Radrats. These critters are much smaller than molerats and also bear far more optical resemblance to common pre-War rats, but that still doesn't stop them from being a disgusting menace.
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** Preston Garvey goes ballistic on the Sole Survivor's ass if the latter took over a Commonwealth settlement for a Nuka-World raider gang.
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** In a perfect example of YouKillItYouBoughtIt, defeating Nuka-World's current Overboss at the start of the DLC's main story results in the three resident raider gangs naming you his successor while his mutilated corpse is still bleeding all over the place.
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* WeaksauceWeakness: Colter, the Overboss of Nuka-World by the time the player arrives there, has rigged his [[PoweredArmor power armor]] to a bumper car arena's energy supply, which for some reason makes him [[NoSell completely invincible to any kind of damage]]. Unless he gets hit by the awesome power of the Thirst Zapper, a retro-futuristic pistol that shoots... water. It's a 200-year old squirt gun. The boss of three entire raider outfits gets laid low by a child's toy that shorts out his defense mechanism for a short time after each hit and therefore allows the player to bring some real guns to bear on him. The Sole Survivor even lampshades the audacity of this plan when they're introduced to it.
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* WeaksauceWeakness: Colter, the Overboss of Nuka-World by the time the player arrives there, has rigged his [[PoweredArmor power armor]] to a bumper car arena's energy power supply, which for some reason makes him [[NoSell completely invincible to any kind of damage]]. Unless he gets hit by the awesome power of the Thirst Zapper, a retro-futuristic pistol that shoots... water. It's a 200-year old squirt gun. The boss of three entire raider outfits gets laid low by a child's toy that shorts out his defense mechanism for a short time after each hit and therefore allows the player to bring some real guns to bear on him. The Sole Survivor even lampshades the audacity of this plan when they're introduced to it.
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** For players who follow the raider path of the DLC, Nuka-World is practically "What the Hell, Hero?: The Game" if they were dumb enough to bring a good-aligned companion along for the ride. Pretty much everything the Sole Survivor does will earn dislikes at the very least, often even outright hate. Preston Garvey turns this UpToEleven due to raiders being one of his biggest [[BerserkButton Berserk Buttons]]. Claim a Commonwealth settlement for the raiders and his affinity will instantly drop to the minimal possible value no matter how high it was before and where he is currently located, [[TheAllseeingAI even if he's at the opposite end of the map at that moment]]. Upon talking to him the next time, he'll deliver an epic TheReasonYouSuck speech, cut all ties to the Survivor, refuse to accompany them any longer and eventually turn hostile on sight.
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* WeaksauceWeakness: Colter, the Overboss of Nuka-World by the time the player arrives there, has rigged his [[PoweredArmor power armor]] to a bumper car arena's energy supply, which for some reason makes him [[NoSell completely invincible to any kind of damage]]. Unless he gets hit by the awesome power of the Thirst Zapper, a retro-futuristic pistol that shoots... water. It's a 200-year old squirt gun. The boss of three entire raider outfits gets laid low by a child's toy that shorts out his defense mechanism for a short time after each hit and therefore allows the player to bring some real guns to bear on him. The Sole Survivor even lampshades the audacity of this plan when they're introduced to it.
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* YouBastard: By the time the ''Nuka World'' DLC was released, most players had probably finished the base game at least once, if not multiple times. That means there's a good chance they also allied themselves with pretty much every settlement in the Commonwealth and are familiar with their respective situation, as well as the general state of affairs in the game world. [[spoiler:Then the Sole Survivor gets named Raider Overboss of Nuka-World all of a sudden, with the not-so-surprising final goal of taking over the Commonwealth itself. Go ahead and try not to feel like a complete asshole while you gun down all those peaceful settlers with a gang of bloodthirsty killers at your side. It gets even worse, should the player choose the [[ALighterShadeOfBlack peaceful option]] of verbally persuading the settlers to hand over their land. The short speech they give the Survivor about being evicted from their home under the threat of a painful death is nothing but heart-rending. [[FromBadToWorse Gets worse yet again]] if the settlement in question is one the player brought into the fold of the Minutemen earlier.]] Needless to say, Garvey instantly and permanently loses all trust in you the moment you take over even one settlement, regardless of what it is.
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* YouBastard: By the time the ''Nuka World'' DLC was released, most players had probably finished the base game at least once, if not multiple times. That means there's a good chance they also allied themselves with pretty much every settlement in the Commonwealth and are familiar with their respective situation, as well as the general state of affairs in the game world. [[spoiler:Then the Sole Survivor gets named Raider Overboss of Nuka-World all of a sudden, with the not-so-surprising final goal of taking over the Commonwealth itself. Go ahead and try not to feel like a complete asshole while you gun down all those peaceful settlers with a gang of bloodthirsty killers at your side. It gets even worse, should the player choose the [[ALighterShadeOfBlack peaceful option]] of verbally persuading the settlers to hand over their land. The short speech they give the Survivor about being evicted from their home under the threat of a painful death is nothing but heart-rending. [[FromBadToWorse Gets worse yet again]] if the settlement in question is one the player brought into the fold of the Minutemen earlier.]] Needless to say, Garvey instantly and permanently loses all trust in you the moment you take over even one settlement, regardless of what it is.]]
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* YouBastard: By the time the ''Nuka World'' DLC was released, most players had probably finished the base game at least once, if not multiple times. That means there's a good chance they also allied themselves with pretty much every settlement in the Commonwealth and are familiar with their respective situation, as well as the general state of affairs in the game world. [[spoiler:Then the Sole Survivor gets named Raider Overboss of Nuka-World all of a sudden, with the not-so-surprising final goal of taking over the Commonwealth itself. Go ahead and try not to feel like a complete asshole while you gun down all those peaceful settlers with a gang of bloodthirsty killers at your side. It gets even worse, should the player choose the [[ALighterShadeOfBlack peaceful option]] of verbally persuading the settlers to hand over their land. The short speech they give the Survivor about being evicted from their home under the threat of a painful death is nothing but heart-rending. [[FromBadToWorse Gets worse yet again]] if the settlement in question is one the player brought into the fold of the Minutemen earlier.]]
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* YouBastard: By the time the ''Nuka World'' DLC was released, most players had probably finished the base game at least once, if not multiple times. That means there's a good chance they also allied themselves with pretty much every settlement in the Commonwealth and are familiar with their respective situation, as well as the general state of affairs in the game world. [[spoiler:Then the Sole Survivor gets named Raider Overboss of Nuka-World all of a sudden, with the not-so-surprising final goal of taking over the Commonwealth itself. Go ahead and try not to feel like a complete asshole while you gun down all those peaceful settlers with a gang of bloodthirsty killers at your side. It gets even worse, should the player choose the [[ALighterShadeOfBlack peaceful option]] of verbally persuading the settlers to hand over their land. The short speech they give the Survivor about being evicted from their home under the threat of a painful death is nothing but heart-rending. [[FromBadToWorse Gets worse yet again]] if the settlement in question is one the player brought into the fold of the Minutemen earlier.]]]] Needless to say, Garvey instantly and permanently loses all trust in you the moment you take over even one settlement, regardless of what it is.
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* YouBastard: By the time the ''Nuka World'' DLC was released, most players had probably finished the base game at least once, if not multiple times. That means there's a good chance they also allied themselves with pretty much every settlement in the Commonwealth and are familiar with their respective situation, as well as the general state of affairs in the game world. [[spoiler:Then the Sole Survivor gets named Raider Overboss of Nuka-World all of a sudden, with the not-so-surprising final goal of taking over the Commonwealth itself. Go ahead and try not to feel like a complete asshole while you gun down all those peaceful settlers with a gang of bloodthirsty killers at your side. It gets even worse, should the player choose the [[ALighterShadeOfBlack peaceful option]] of verbally persuading the settlers to hand over their land. The short speech they give the Survivor about being evicted from their home under the threat of a painful death is nothing but heart-rending. [[FromBadToWorse Gets worse yet again]] if the settlement in question is one the player brought into the fold of the Minutemen earlier.]]
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* WretchedHive: Goodneighbor is a town filled with the dregs and rejects of the Commonwealth, meaning either ghouls or criminals. As such, the city is a crime-riddled hellhole run by a mayor with limited interest in exerting overt authority, though he does appreciate efforts in getting rid of the worst of the lot.
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* WretchedHive: WretchedHive:
** Goodneighbor is a town filled with the dregs and rejects of the Commonwealth, meaning either ghouls or criminals. As such, the city is a crime-riddled hellhole run by a mayor with limited interest in exerting overt authority, though he does appreciate efforts in getting rid of the worst of thelot.lot.
** Nuka-World is an abandoned amusement park run by three different Raider gangs. The majority of the DLC is spent helping them conquer the remaining sections of the park that aren't yet under their control, making the place even ''worse''.
** Goodneighbor is a town filled with the dregs and rejects of the Commonwealth, meaning either ghouls or criminals. As such, the city is a crime-riddled hellhole run by a mayor with limited interest in exerting overt authority, though he does appreciate efforts in getting rid of the worst of the
** Nuka-World is an abandoned amusement park run by three different Raider gangs. The majority of the DLC is spent helping them conquer the remaining sections of the park that aren't yet under their control, making the place even ''worse''.
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* VillainWorld: Nuka World is run by various raider gangs as well as the usual mutants and robots. The "good" storyline of the DLC is to simply kill all the raiders in the park and go home.
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* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: Your potential companions are a sassy [[DeadpanSnarker and snarky]] news reporter, a stuffy British robotic butler, a NiceGuy professional soldier, a [[spoiler:200 year old prototype synth]] detective, a Brotherhood Knight who hates synths [[spoiler:(unaware that he's one himself)]], a charmingly naive medical robot, a breezy Railroad operative who's also a ConsummateLiar, a tough-as-nails female Irish pit fighter, a Ghoul drug addict who's modelled his new identity on John Hancock, a mercenary sniper with a surprisingly kind heart, a psychotic Super Mutant NobleSavage, [[spoiler:an Institute Courser]], a customizable robot with free will, an old cynical survivalist who has seen it all, and a dog. The only thing tying them together is loyalty to the Sole Survivor and some of them can only barely tolerate each other.
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* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: Your potential companions are a sassy [[DeadpanSnarker and snarky]] news reporter, a stuffy British robotic butler, a NiceGuy professional soldier, a [[spoiler:200 year old prototype synth]] detective, a Brotherhood Knight who hates synths [[spoiler:(unaware that he's one himself)]], a charmingly naive medical robot, a breezy Railroad operative who's also a ConsummateLiar, a tough-as-nails female Irish pit fighter, a Ghoul drug addict who's modelled his new identity on John Hancock, a mercenary sniper with a surprisingly kind heart, a psychotic Super Mutant NobleSavage, [[spoiler:an Institute Courser]], a customizable robot with free will, an old cynical survivalist who has seen it all, a one-eyed raider, and a dog. The only thing tying them together is loyalty to the Sole Survivor and some of them can only barely tolerate each other.
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** Nuka-World starts off with this, as a "wounded" guy urges you to get on the monorail to Nuka-World (and get trapped in their Gauntlet.) If you offer him a Stimpack, he refuses it and you can catch his game with that.
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* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: Your potential companions are a sassy [[DeadpanSnarker and snarky]] news reporter, a stuffy British robotic butler, a NiceGuy professional soldier, a [[spoiler:200 year old prototype synth]] detective, a Brotherhood Knight who hates synths [[spoiler:(unaware that he's one himself)]], a charmingly naive medical robot, a breezy Railroad operative who's also a ConsummateLiar, a tough-as-nails female Irish pit fighter, a Ghoul drug addict who's modelled his new identity on John Hancock, a mercenary sniper with a surprisingly kind heart, a psychotic Super Mutant NobleSavage, [[spoiler:an Institute Courser]], a customizable robot with free will, an old survivalist who has seen it all, and a dog. The only thing tying them together is loyalty to the Sole Survivor and some of them can only barely tolerate each other.
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* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: Your potential companions are a sassy [[DeadpanSnarker and snarky]] news reporter, a stuffy British robotic butler, a NiceGuy professional soldier, a [[spoiler:200 year old prototype synth]] detective, a Brotherhood Knight who hates synths [[spoiler:(unaware that he's one himself)]], a charmingly naive medical robot, a breezy Railroad operative who's also a ConsummateLiar, a tough-as-nails female Irish pit fighter, a Ghoul drug addict who's modelled his new identity on John Hancock, a mercenary sniper with a surprisingly kind heart, a psychotic Super Mutant NobleSavage, [[spoiler:an Institute Courser]], a customizable robot with free will, an old cynical survivalist who has seen it all, and a dog. The only thing tying them together is loyalty to the Sole Survivor and some of them can only barely tolerate each other.
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* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: Your potential companions are a sassy [[DeadpanSnarker and snarky]] news reporter, a stuffy British robotic butler, a NiceGuy professional soldier, a [[spoiler:200 year old prototype synth]] detective, a Brotherhood Knight who hates synths [[spoiler:(unaware that he's one himself)]], a charmingly naive medical robot, a breezy Railroad operative who's also a ConsummateLiar, a tough-as-nails female Irish pit fighter, a Ghoul drug addict who's modelled his new identity on John Hancock, a mercenary sniper with a surprisingly kind heart, a psychotic Super Mutant NobleSavage, [[spoiler:an Institute Courser]], and a dog. The only thing tying them together is loyalty to the Sole Survivor and some of them can only barely tolerate each other.
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* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: Your potential companions are a sassy [[DeadpanSnarker and snarky]] news reporter, a stuffy British robotic butler, a NiceGuy professional soldier, a [[spoiler:200 year old prototype synth]] detective, a Brotherhood Knight who hates synths [[spoiler:(unaware that he's one himself)]], a charmingly naive medical robot, a breezy Railroad operative who's also a ConsummateLiar, a tough-as-nails female Irish pit fighter, a Ghoul drug addict who's modelled his new identity on John Hancock, a mercenary sniper with a surprisingly kind heart, a psychotic Super Mutant NobleSavage, [[spoiler:an Institute Courser]], a customizable robot with free will, an old survivalist who has seen it all, and a dog. The only thing tying them together is loyalty to the Sole Survivor and some of them can only barely tolerate each other.
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* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: Your potential companions are a sassy [[DeadpanSnarker and snarky]] news reporter, a stuffy British robotic butler, a NiceGuy professional soldier, a [[spoiler:200 year old prototype synth]] detective, a Brotherhood Knight who hates synths [[spoiler:(unaware that he's one himself)]], a charmingly naive female medical robot, a breezy Railroad operative who's also a ConsummateLiar, a [[TheFightingIrish tough-as-nails Irish pit fighter]], a Ghoul drug addict who's modelled his new identity on John Hancock, a mercenary sniper with a surprisingly kind heart, a psychotic Super Mutant NobleSavage, [[spoiler:an Institute Courser]], and a dog. The only thing tying them together is loyalty to the Sole Survivor and some of them can only barely tolerate each other.
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* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: Your potential companions are a sassy [[DeadpanSnarker and snarky]] news reporter, a stuffy British robotic butler, a NiceGuy professional soldier, a [[spoiler:200 year old prototype synth]] detective, a Brotherhood Knight who hates synths [[spoiler:(unaware that he's one himself)]], a charmingly naive female medical robot, a breezy Railroad operative who's also a ConsummateLiar, a [[TheFightingIrish tough-as-nails female Irish pit fighter]], fighter, a Ghoul drug addict who's modelled his new identity on John Hancock, a mercenary sniper with a surprisingly kind heart, a psychotic Super Mutant NobleSavage, [[spoiler:an Institute Courser]], and a dog. The only thing tying them together is loyalty to the Sole Survivor and some of them can only barely tolerate each other.
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* RagtagBunchOfMisfits: Your potential companions are a sassy [[DeadpanSnarker and snarky]] news reporter, a stuffy British robotic butler, a NiceGuy professional soldier, a [[spoiler:200 year old prototype synth]] detective, a Brotherhood Knight who hates synths [[spoiler:(unaware that he's one himself)]], a charmingly naive female medical robot, a breezy Railroad operative who's also a ConsummateLiar, a [[TheFightingIrish tough-as-nails Irish pit fighter]], a Ghoul drug addict who's modelled his new identity on John Hancock, a mercenary sniper with a surprisingly kind heart, a psychotic Super Mutant NobleSavage, [[spoiler:an Institute Courser]], and a dog. The only thing tying them together is loyalty to the Sole Survivor and some of them can only barely tolerate each other.
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* RocketPoweredWeapon: The Super Sledge is now a sledgehammer with a miniature jet engine strapped to the back. Woe be to anything you hit with it.
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* RocketPoweredWeapon: The Super Sledge is now a sledgehammer with a miniature jet engine strapped to the back. Woe be to betide anything you hit with it.
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* TheSecretOfLongPorkPies: Theodore Collins, the owner of Longneck Lukowski's Cannery, has been serving more than just mole rat in his canned meat -- investigating the basement during the "Mystery Meat" quest reveals that he's been using the ghouls in there as meat as well. No wonder people have been getting sick from eating it!
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* TheSiege: [[spoiler:If you choose to side with the Minutemen in the endgame, you will have to help defend their main base from a ''massive'' invasion by the Institute and, depending on your choices, the Brotherhood.]]
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* TheSiege: [[spoiler:If you choose to side with the Minutemen in the endgame, you will have to help defend their main base from a ''massive'' invasion by the Institute and, depending on your choices, the Brotherhood.Brotherhood of Steel.]]
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** [[spoiler:The Vault-Tec Salesman from the prologue of the game shows up later as a ghoul, furious at how you managed to be physically preserved while he had to deal with absolute hell for over two centuries.]]
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** [[spoiler:The Vault-Tec Salesman Rep from the prologue of the game shows up later as a ghoul, furious at how you managed to be physically preserved while he had to deal with absolute hell for over two centuries.]]
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** Settlement defense missions get this treatment in ''Far Harbor'' expansion. In the vanilla game, these quests are rather easy (especially if you've built up the settlement's automated defenses and have equipped the settlers for combat) and really only annoying for how ''often'' they tend to occur. However, if you've built up a settlement on ''Far Harbor'''s "The Island" and show up for a defense mission expecting a few Raiders or Ghouls, you're in for a world of hurt. Instead, you'll have to face [[spoiler: ''waves'' of well-equipped Trappers or, worst of all, a ''Fog Crawler'' (which are on the level of a Mirelurk Queen or Super Mutant Behemoth) backed up by Gulpers and/or Yao Guai]] who are attempting to destroy your Fog Condensers. ''Much'' more challenging...
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* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Nick Valentine doesn't just tolerate your sarcasm; he usually finds it refreshing. However, in the Far Harbor DLC, if you're sarcastic if and when [[spoiler:Dima is executed for crimes against the Harbor]], he'll put you in your place.
--->'''Nick Valentine''': You know, why don't you just shut the hell up for once? I swear, you care more about sounding smart sometimes than you do about who has to listen to it.
--->'''Nick Valentine''': You know, why don't you just shut the hell up for once? I swear, you care more about sounding smart sometimes than you do about who has to listen to it.
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* TheUsualAdversaries: While different factions have different enemies, ''no one'' likes the Raiders. And like previous games, aside from a couple of TokenGoodTeammates, Super Mutants are always hostile to everyone else.
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* TheUsualAdversaries: While different factions have different enemies, ''no one'' likes the Raiders. And like previous games, aside from a couple of TokenGoodTeammates, Raiders or Super Mutants are always hostile to everyone else.Mutants
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* TheUsualAdversaries: While different factions have different enemies, ''no one'' likes the Raiders.
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* TheUsualAdversaries: While different factions have different enemies, ''no one'' likes the Raiders. And like previous games, aside from a couple of TokenGoodTeammates, Super Mutants are always hostile to everyone else.
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* WrongInsultOffence: One of the sarcastic dialog options after searching through [[spoiler:Kellog's home]] with Nick Valentine yields us this jewel:
-->'''Sole Survivor:''' What? The ''Clockwork Dick'' is stumped?
-->'''Nick Valentine:''' It's ''Synth Detective'', jackass. If you're gonna be that way, you might as well get the make and model right.
-->'''Sole Survivor:''' What? The ''Clockwork Dick'' is stumped?
-->'''Nick Valentine:''' It's ''Synth Detective'', jackass. If you're gonna be that way, you might as well get the make and model right.
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* RedEyesTakeWarning: Sentry Bots' 'eyes' now glow brightly with ominous red light, more apparent during the night. Probably as illuminator for their IR sensors. This includes sentry bots you can build in Automatron as follower or settler.
** Plot point for the 'Red Death' monster in Far Harbor [[spoiler: subverted because it is actually a little mirelurk.]]
** Bloodrage Mirelurks that can spawn if Far Harbor is installed have glowing red eyes as well, though not as bright as the Glowing Mirelurk variants.
** Plot point for the 'Red Death' monster in Far Harbor [[spoiler: subverted because it is actually a little mirelurk.]]
** Bloodrage Mirelurks that can spawn if Far Harbor is installed have glowing red eyes as well, though not as bright as the Glowing Mirelurk variants.
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[[Fallout4/TropesAToC Tropes A-C]] | [[Fallout4/TropesDToI Tropes D-I]]| [[Fallout4/TropesJToP Tropes J-P]] | '''Tropes Q-Z''' |
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!!!''VideoGame/Fallout4'' provides examples of the following tropes:
* TheQuisling: Clint, whom you can find in the Quincy Ruins. He was originally one of the Minutemen. But when he saw how few of them showed up to defend Quincy, mostly due to the severe infighting the group was going through due to lack of a charismatic leader, he saw the writing on the wall, and promptly defected to the Gunners. He also revealed the highway overpass above the town, which allowed the Gunners to quickly overwhelm the remaining Minutemen along with many of the citizens there, which later became known as the "Quincy Massacre" when Preston talks to you about it. As a result of this, he is given command of the Gunners stationed in Quincy. Though there's no actual quest or dialogue related to it, [[LaserGuidedKarma you can thankfully dish out a massacre of your own when you kill all the Gunners there, including Clint]].
* RadiationImmuneMutants: Ghouls, naturally. Your character can also become one of these with the endurance level 9 perk ''Ghoulish'', which makes the radiation poisoning of the wasteland actually ''heal'' you.
* RealIsBrown: [[AvertedTrope Averted]]. Unlike in previous ''Fallout'' games, much of the landscape in the Boston Wasteland is not stuck to a limited color palette. Things like Neon signs, a brightly-painted Vault door, vibrant pre-War vehicles and even toys add color to the blighted yet bright gray-brown scenery of the wasteland. The pre-war scenes are even more colorful.
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld:
** The protagonist is over 210 years old, thanks to becoming a HumanPopsicle inside their vault.
** As all ghouls are TheAgeless, you encounter a few who lived before the war.
** The entire Cabot family, due to a mysterious anti-aging serum.
** [[spoiler:Kellogg,]] due to cybernetic enhancements.
* RealSongThemeTune: ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiSTfT_AO98 It's All Over But The Crying]]'' by Music/TheInkSpots.
* RelationshipValues: All companions have actions they like or dislike. For example, cannibalism only sits well with a few of them. If you do enough actions that they approve of, it unlocks a unique companion perk.
* TheRemnant: The Minutemen are reduced to a single surviving member by the time the players encounter them. Preston says he's probably not "literally" the last member, though, but all other members are now inactive due to a NoodleIncident.
* {{Retcon}}:
** A minor one, if it even ''is'' one. In ''Fallout 2'', it's stated the Vertibird was in the early prototype stage when the nukes fell, being a full eight years short of expected deployment. This is re-stated in ''Fallout 3'' with the display at the museum of aerospace. The Enclave finished development, did the field testing, and mass-produced them. ''Fallout 4'' shows at least 2 Vertibirds in active service as of 2077: one seen during the prologue flying over Sanctuary and landing at Vault 111; another one, possibly the same one seen outside Vault 111, was in full deployment with US Army soldiers when it crashed over the Museum of Freedom thanks to the EMP from the nuclear detonation. However, since it's already been established that the prototype stage had limited production runs during the Anchorage Reclamation, there were also likely "homefront" prototypes during 2077.
** Power armor also suffers from this, for better and for worse. They ARE the walking tanks of destruction that they're made out to be, and you're immune to fall damage. But due to the integrated micro cold fusion reactor being completely out of fuel, you are limited to using Fusion Cores in order to make them work at full capacity. As a MythologyGag to the unreleased ''Van Buren'', the use of Fusion Cores are utterly energy inefficient and they drain within about 20 minutes depending on the activity. Not only that, but all six armor "pieces" have their own durability and can break off the frame once they're damaged enough. Calling back to the original ''Fallout 1 & 2'', the Power Armor Training perk is no longer a requirement to use it, which means anyone and everyone can and ''will'' use them if they find a suit that still has a fusion core in it.
** Another extremely minor one. Fallout 3's Wilson Automatoys, the company that produced the Giddyup Buttercup robot ponies, changed their name slightly to Wilson ''Atoma''toys, swapping out an automotive pun for an atomic one.
** Originally, the chem jet was invented by Myron, a companion in ''Fallout 2''. While ''Fallout 4'' doesn't imply a different inventor, it is mentioned as one of the drugs that Vault 95 was being sent a supply of during it's construction.
* RetiredBadass:
** The male protagonist is a recently retired soldier getting ready to go to a Veteran's Meeting before the world ended, explaining his ability to build turrets, houses, custom weapons and mix and match PoweredArmor. They even say that because [[ArcWords war never changes]], they're ready to tackle whatever the wasteland throws at them.
** The female protagonist is only explicitly stated to have gotten a law degree, though Vault-Tec rep's unwillingness to speak to your spouse about being selected for Vault 111 due to "your family's service to the country", and the female protagonist's matching skills imply a military or government background of some kind.
* {{Retirony}}: In the BADTFL offices, DaChief's computer has a journal entry that's looking forward to his retirement in 3 days... made on the day the bombs fell.
* {{Retraux}}: The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yuo7AuDGNN8 S.]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw21X2jKwCM P.]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paYU1neP3xM E.]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X95lZ56ddj4 C.]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6yt-43Vp1M I.]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ_okO2tLN0 A.]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bke9wvob8Ls L.]] videos are all done in the style of 1950s public service announcements, right down to the film rot.
* RewardedAsATraitorDeserves: If you side with the Scavengers and betray the ''USS Constitution'' crew by sabotaging them, the Scavengers tell you that they've decided to keep the reward for themselves before turning on you.
* {{Rewrite}}: There have always been some inconsistencies as to exactly when the Great War started throughout all of the Fallout franchise. The only solid fact is that it happened on October 23rd, 2077. All the clocks in the Capital Wastelands in Fallout 3 are frozen at 9:47, with log files suggesting the AM. Clocks in New Vegas are also frozen at 9:47, but this is a case of just reusing textures from 3. Log files in Little Lamplight suggest the bombs fell between 2-3 PM, and the Dead Money and Old World Blues DLC in ''New Vegas'' suggests the bombs fell at night on the west coast. This game reestablishes that the bombs fell on the east coast at 9:47 AM, though Pennsylvania and New York were hit at 9:42, 5 minutes earlier.
* RidiculouslyFastConstruction: Building structures involves gathering the necessary items, and constructing them is instantaneous.
* RidiculousFutureInflation: As evidenced by the terminal in Gwinnett Brewery, a pint of beer cost ''$39'' in 2077, and nearly $200 for a six-pack. Coffee and a donut was proudly advertised for $30, while printed magazines ranged from $30 to $39. Gwinnett Brewery sold shot-glasses and {{Fun TShirt}}s for less than the glass of beer.
** The Harbor Grand Hotel in ''Far Harbor'' charged $118,764.32 per day (including taxes and fees) for one of its rooms.
* RidiculouslyHumanRobots: The Institute's third-generation synths are ''Film/BladeRunner''-esque artificial humans, practically indistinguishable from regular people. They're so humanlike that the Railroad exists to emancipate them from slavery to the Institute, giving them memory wipes, cosmetic surgery, and new names to hide them from the Institute's coursers, while the Brotherhood finds them too dangerous to be allowed to exist. Heck, synths are so ridiculously human-like, there are some characters who ''aren't even aware they are synths!''
** Although they're obviously robotic in appearance, Assaultrons were apparently programmed to feel pain, for some reason.
-->'''Dying Assaultron''': [[BlackComedyBurst I can't...feel my legs...]]
* RoarBeforeBeating:
** Many Deathclaws perform one before engaging the player. This can work against them, as it's a prime moment to shoot at their [[AttackItsWeakPoint unarmored belly]].
** The Sole Survivor will do this every time they get high on Psycho, usually right before a fight.
* RockBeatsLaser:
** The Minutemen taking down the Institute. A squad of low-tech guys taking down hi-tech Synths and Coursers.
** In the Minutemen's PostClimaxConfrontation should they become enemies with the Brotherhood, [[spoiler: the Brotherhood's high-tech airship Prydwen is taken down in a CurbStompBattle by the Minutemen's rather low-tech artillery]].
** The easiest way to uncloak stealthed enemies like Coursers, Assaultron Dominators, or even Chameleon Deathclaws? Toss a MolotovCocktail at them.
** If siding as the Railroad, the Brotherhood inevitably decide to knock down your door with a bunch of knights in power armor. Desdemona tosses you a Railway Rifle, and the damage on it is so obscene it can easily destroy most power-suited [=BoS=] enemies in three shots, two if you've leveled up the "Rifleman" perk. It's a ''steam powered'' railgun.
* RocketPoweredWeapon: The Super Sledge is now a sledgehammer with a miniature jet engine strapped to the back. Woe be to anything you hit with it.
* RobbingTheDead:
** The player takes their Pip-Boy from the wrist of a skeleton before leaving Vault 111, not to mention all the looting that is doable on other dead [=NPCs=].
** The wasteland around the Commonwealth is built upon this. Violence is law and [[YouKillItYouBoughtIt you get to keep what you take from whomever you kill]].
* RodentsOfUnusualSize: Mole rats return and are much smaller than in ''3'' and ''New Vegas'', though still fairly large. They also attack in packs, tunneling through the earth and pop out at will to surprise you. Then there are the glowing ones.
* RomanceSidequest: The player is able to romance some of their companions, [[EveryoneIsBi regardless of gender.]]
* RomanticismVersusEnlightenment: The Brotherhood of Steel are romantic traditionalists who sought to restore/preserve humanity and value the pre-War society, their society is even built around similar to medieval Europe. The Institute falls more into the enlightenment side as they value technological progress and completely disregard the pre-war society and wish to built an enlightened society with more advanced technology beyond the pre-War technology. Mind you that both sides are very secretive, racists in some degree, and view Wastelanders as inferiors.
** The local factions, the Minutemen and the Railroad are also this as well, but with slight variations. Both the Minutemen and the Railroad highly value the romantic view of freedom, but with different approach. The Minutemen are orderly BigGood who wish to [[WeHelpTheHelpless help the common man]] and want to bring the more positive aspects of pre-war America. The Railroad are enlightened RebelliousRebel who wish to change society so that humanity can accept the Synths as humans. [[spoiler: Both factions will work together to take down both the Brotherhood and Institute by the player's decision]].
* RousingSpeech: Elder Maxson gives one of these to all of the recruits. Unfortunately, it becomes a KickTheDog moment as it states all synths must be destroyed and the [=PCs=] have already made at least one friend among them.
** Hancock gives one to the community of Goodneighbor by stating that they will not take crap from anyone and stand up to the Institute by eliminating anybody who acts suspicious within the town.
* RunOrDie: In an early Railroad faction mission, Deacon gives this advice to the player regarding Coursers. Given that Coursers are basically Franchise/{{Terminator}}s, it's not bad advice.
* SadisticChoice: Which faction to side with in the game is one of the most divisive, and because of the GreyAndGrayMorality of the Commonwealth, ''every'' option will end with sympathetic characters dying as their factions are destroyed. For starters, [[spoiler:the only option that ''doesn't'' involve the player [[OffingTheOffspring consciously causing the death of their own son]] is the Institute, and that requires betraying the sympathetic, helpful Railroad that may have helped you find him in the first place.]]
* SavePoint: In Survival Mode, beds are this, since Quicksave and Manual Saving are disabled.
* ScaryScorpions: Radscorpions can ambush the player by burrowing themselves under ground, and [[JumpScare pop up unexpectedly]].
* ScavengedPunk: This game takes a step up from previous installments. The pipe weapons are basically scrap wood and metal fashioned into crude facsimiles of weapons. You may occasionally find turrets built out of shopping carts. Settlement structures you build look pretty cobbled together. Even power armor has been scavenged and modified by raiders with random junk like sheet metal and rebar.
* ScavengerWorld: Taken to the next level: previous ''Fallout'' games were full of junk; this one is overflowing with trash, but all that trash can be converted into useful building and crafting materials. Unlike in ''New Vegas: Old World Blues'' where you had to use specific stations to convert junk into useful crafting items, all items now have innate crafting materials hidden within them. You can scavenge entire towns and rebuild them!
* SceneryGorn:
** The game features half-decimated cities, cracked roads, bombed out suburbs, forests of dead trees, and so on in general.
** The Glowing Sea, an irradiated hellscape where the bomb that was supposed to hit Boston fell.
** Vault 111 is fairly pristine when you first enter it, but by the time you make your escape, it looks like bombs went off in it. The cryogenic pod room, alone, is littered with frozen corpses and dripping with thawed coolant.
* SceneryPorn: Urban environments are ''absolutely stunning'', with a large color palette, still intact skyscrapers, towering highways, Massachusetts monuments, and so on.
* SchizoTech: The ''USS Constitution'', a 1700s era wooden ship that is one of Boston's historical landmarks, has been outfitted with nuclear booster rockets.
* SchmuckBait:
** You will find signs pointing towards an old school that say things like "Fresh Water Ahead!" and "Traders Welcome!" The school is full of violent drug-addicted raiders.
** Meg, the little girl in Bunker Hill, offers to give you a tour of the place for 10 caps. [[spoiler:She essentially cons you by giving a "tour" that consists of naming the locations of various things. [[FridgeLogic Fitting for a child inside of a major trading post surrounded by merchants 24/7]]. The best part is that chances are you've only found Bunker Hill after Vault 81, in which [[TastesLikeDiabetes Austin]] gives you a genuine tour.]]
** With the Wasteland Workshop DLC, you can set your own Schmuck Bait in the form of Raider and Gunner Traps. Said traps consist of giant metal boxes with signs that say "Free Chems!" and "Free Caps, Guns, And Ammo!" respectively.
* ScratchDamage: Both regular damage and radiation will always affect you to some degree despite your protection.
* ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight: Vault 81 was originally meant to be used in the development of bioweapons and their countermeasures, with the Vault residents being turned into human guinea pigs. But the Overseer, hit with a bout of morality, cut off contact with the side the researchers were living on to prevent them from being able to carry out Vault-tec's plans. Vault 81 consequently thrived compared to virtually every other vault, and the three researchers ended up testing their bioweapons on molerats instead. One of them creates Curie, first to help them maintain their sanity after the Overseer stopped responding, and to continue on with the research after they pass away from old age.
* SequelDifficultySpike:
** In a manner of speaking. VATS no longer stops time completely; ammunition is much scarcer; Stimpaks are much rarer (no longer found in every bathroom), restore health over time, and only restore health based on a percentage; and monsters like Deathclaws are now able to endure a massive amount of punishment from a minigun. Perhaps exemplified by the treatment of Radroaches. You hunt them with a toy BB gun as a child in ''Fallout 3'', but the Sole Survivor reacts to them with disgust and horror when they first encounter them.
** Several old enemies are a lot stronger, such as protectrons and sentry bots (which are now essentially robo-tanks) who simply have huge amounts of health and damage resistance, and enemies like molerats and radscorpions have new mechanics that allow them to get the drop on you easily.
** The radiation system was previously a stat that all would ignore until it hit a certain threshold, at which point it was easy to fix with the abundant [=RadAways=]. In the new system, ''every single point of accumulated radiation directly lowers your max health''. Made all the worse by [=RadAways=] being far more rare this time around.
** The updated Survival difficulty is essentially this to the Hardcore mode in ''New Vegas''. In Hardcore mode, the player had to regularly eat, drink, and sleep, lest they would receive stat debuffs, as well as items like ammo having weight and healing items only healing over time. In the Survival difficulty of ''4'', not only does it have all of the above but damage is skyrocketed for everyone, the carry cap for the player and companion is much less, no fast travel, and the player can no longer quicksave or manually save, causing beds to essentially become save points.
* SequelEscalation: The crafting system now allows complete customization of numerous weapon parts, allowing the player to, say, take a basic laser pistol and retrofit it into a laser sniper rifle, or mix and match parts of different power armor models, like a brand new JetPack feature, on a single suit.
** Power armors are now humanoid tanks that you enter and exit, instead of a slightly fancier piece of clothing you put on and take off.
** [[spoiler:The restored and fully rebuilt Liberty Prime is technically Liberty Prime ''Mark II.'']]
* SequenceBreaking: Averted as you cannot skip to the end of the first act straight away unlike ''3'' and ''New Vegas''. Unless you have rescued Nick you cannot get to the elevator to Kellogg, until you take his brain to Amari you cannot find Virgil and without Virgil you cannot get into the Institute to kick off the second part of the game.
** The game does allow for a very minor degree of Sequence Breaking with the Minutemen. If you already have a suit of power armor when you go to Concord for the first time, the Minutemen have slightly different dialogue. Sturges even comments that his original plan (to retrieve the power armor and minigun from the roof) is irrelevant now.
*** A more minor break in the same quest -- you have to retrieve a power core from the basement to use the Armor, but if you show up already toting a core this Sub Quest will auto-complete. There's even a convenient one on the way to Concord, in the molerat den beneath the Red Rocket service station.
* SeriesContinuityError: Quantum returns from ''Fallout 3'' despite being specifically a local release in the DC area, but this can be waved off because ''Fallout 4'' takes place ten years later, which is more than enough time to move the product to other areas. Jet is present in the vaults, though it could just be that the current occupiers (Triggermen, Gunners, and Raiders) had placed them for later use.
** Jet itself is a ContinuitySnarl insofar as it's stated to have been invented by Myron in New Reno in ''Fallout 2''. It appears in vault loot tables in ''Fallout 3'' without explanation, but considering that Jet is little more than poop fumes and the crafting recipe in ''4'' involves little more than getting fertilizer and some plastic to make a Jet inhaler, Myron clearly wasn't the first person to make this connection.
* SeriousBusiness:
** The town hall in Jamaica Plains is rigged with tons of laser triggered explosives and turrets. The mayor in 2077 must really not have wanted anyone to open that time capsule any earlier.
** Overdue books are a serious concern for the Boston Public Library to have turrets and Protectrons roaming the halls. While useful against super mutants in the year 2287, one has to wonder what their pre-war use in the library was for.
* SeveredHeadSports: The final rank of the Big Leagues perk lets you hit "home runs" with your enemies' heads.
* ShaggyDogStory: The game retroactively makes Elder Lyons's entire crusade against the Super Mutants, Enclave, and evils of the Capital Wasteland into this. It's not a ShootTheShaggyDog one because some progress is made. However, the Brotherhood of Steel has reverted to the principles he ''crossed the entirety of the United States in order to get away from''. It's implied the citizens of the Capital Wasteland now exist as feudal subjects to the Brotherhood.
* ShowsDamage: Feral Ghouls and Second Gen Synths. With Ferals, you can sever their limbs. Second-gen Synths, on the other hand, gradually lose their artificial skin as they take damage, even completely losing it if they're damaged enough.
* TheSiege: [[spoiler:If you choose to side with the Minutemen in the endgame, you will have to help defend their main base from a ''massive'' invasion by the Institute and, depending on your choices, the Brotherhood.]]
* SightedGunsAreLowTech: In contrast to previous games, laser weapons avert this trope, being equipped with iron sights just like the more low-tech guns.
* SimpleYetAwesome:
** Normally, submachineguns aren't that hot as weapons due to low damage and high ammo consumption. Spray n' Pray (a unique SMG sold by Cricket) turns this upside-down. Thanks to its "Explosive" legendary effect, each bullet does an extra fifteen points of [=AoE=] explosive damage. The Commando perk buffs its base damage while Demolition Expert buffs the explosive damage; investing in those perks turns Spray n' Pray into an engine of devastation. To top it all off, the explosions have a chance to stagger the target. Did I mention that Spray n' Pray is a full-auto weapon?
** Ordinary projectile guns are just as effective as energy weapons if not moreso, due to the high availability of ammunition which is cheaper to buy and is far more common as scavenged loot. Even with all points in the Scavenger perk, the player will most often discover plain old bullets in crates, desks, lockers and such, rather than energy cells and plasma cartridges.
** The "Instigating" legendary effect doubles the damage the weapon does if the target is at full health. For most weapons, this is kind of pointless, as it just gives a little extra damage to the first shot and there are far more useful effects (such as "Explosive," mentioned above.) However, this is the best effect for a sniper rifle. Fully upgraded with mods and in the hands of a character with the right perks, that one shot will be all you need to drop nearly anything in the wasteland. A character who maxes out the Rifleman perk and has an Instigating Gauss Rifle ''will'' kill anything but the absolute strongest enemies in the game with a single shot. And they can be killed with a single Sneak Attack.
* SinisterSubway: While the remains of what is left of the Boston [=MBTA=] underground aren't as extensive compared to the DC metro in ''3'' (and the real life [=MBTA=] is [[TruthInTelevision indeed compact when compared to the other subway systems in the U.S.]]), the stations are still crawling with raiders, mutants, traps, and pockets of radiation just as ever. Fortunately, you no longer have to travel from station to station as the [=MBTA=] underground areas mostly have dead ends and no pathways to other stations.
* SkillScoresAndPerks: The Perk system underwent a big change. Perks are tied to SPECIAL stats, with ten perks for each stat. More advanced perks require a high-enough stat, and most perks have multiple ranks tied to the player's level -- for instance, a player with a high enough SPECIAL stat can take a powerful Rank 10 perk early on, but won't be able to upgrade it until they're, say, level 25. Then there are the magazine perks, which not only grant you a perk, but you need to keep finding more copies in order to level said perks.
* SlapOnTheWristNuke: The Unstable Nuke Launcher for robot companions in the Automatron DLC. It's the single most powerful weapon that can be added to one, but for balance purposes it's still limited to a couple hundred points of damage rather than the thousand or so that a Fat Man can deliver.
* TheSlowPath:
** Codsworth, your Mr. Handy, has been waiting 210 years for you to return. He can hardly believe his processors that you're still alive.
** [[spoiler:The Vault-Tec Salesman from the prologue of the game shows up later as a ghoul, furious at how you managed to be physically preserved while he had to deal with absolute hell for over two centuries.]]
** [[spoiler:Shaun himself, who was taken 60 years before the Sole Survivor escapes from Vault 111, and who has become the elderly Father of the Institute]].
* SmokingHotSex: The Lover's Embrace effect, which is earned by sleeping in a bed while a companion you've romanced is nearby, is depicted as a shirtless Vault Boy getting up from bed while taking a drag from a cigarette.
* SoleSurvivor: You play as the only remaining resident of Vault 111, who woke up after 210 years to find everyone else dead.
* SortingAlgorithmOfEvil: While not evil per se, the game notes that the further south you go the tougher enemies get. Justified as heading south means you get closer to [[DeathWorld the Glowing Sea]]. You start at the most northwestern point of the map, so you have to trek a while to find the really nasty enemies.
* SpotTheThread: The mad scientist kidnapping people to test which are synths discovers a psychological weakness: [[spoiler: during the SAFE test, when asked which type of baseball player they'd be, they almost always answer "catcher," even if they don't really know what a catcher does.]]
* StartsStealthilyEndsLoudly: Every time you attempt a stealth infiltration of an area full of enemies, there is the possibility of your sneak attempts failing and forcing you into a blazing firefight.
* StillWearingTheOldColors: [[spoiler:It's possible to come across the same Vault-Tec Salesman from the start of the game, long since become a ghoul. And still wearing his Vault-Tec standard outfit, or at least a post-apocalyptic approximation of it.]]
* StealthPun: The ''USS Constitution'' is a wooden ship literally crewed with [[WoodenShipsAndIronMen Iron Men]]
* StepfordSmiler: An entire environment. When you first show up at [[spoiler:The Institute]], you find a shiny beautiful place full of happy people. Explore just a little bit and what you find is blocked off hallways and rooms that are as degraded as the rest of the Wasteland and orders to everyone to be on their best behavior for you. UpToEleven with [[spoiler: the synth servants]], who are all terrified slaves.
** [[spoiler:Covenant]] also qualifies. An entire shiny settlement with a lot of nervous - but oh so friendly - smiling people with some sort of secret.
* StormingTheCastle: Done in "The Nuclear Option" quests, where you invade the Institute with whichever faction you side with and blow it up from inside.
* StoryBreadcrumbs: There are a number of areas where you can only conclude what happened through environmental clues. A lot of that has to do with the Railroad and their symbols. A dead Protectron with a Railway Spike on its body near a Relay antenna is a clear sign someone from the Railroad killed it at that location. Several hidden pointers show the way an escaping Synth was guided through a feral-infested train yard. And the railsign for "Ally" is marked on a hidden observation post overlooking Vault 111 and Sanctuary Hills... someone's been watching you.
* StuffBlowingUp: A given with the nuclear powered vehicles of the era, which have been abandoned in the open with no maintenance for over 200 years. Additional world objects such as propane tanks, fuel canisters, and oil slicks will also explode when shot at.
** Reaches new heights with trigger happy enemies wielding the Fat Man or missile launcher, as well as the new Super Mutant Suiciders who charge at the player with a live mini nuke.
** This trope becomes SchmuckBait for overeager looters with regular sentry bots and legendary robots, who explode after a short delay once they are killed (often while the player is busy looting the destroyed bot).
** Taken UpToEleven with legendary sentry bots, who explode '''twice''' when killed: once for being a sentry bot and a second time for being legendary.
** Honourable mentions go to the final questline for any of the factions, which inevitably leads to either [[spoiler:the destruction of the Prydwen]], [[spoiler:detonation of the Institute's main reactor]], or (in the case of [[spoiler:the Railroad]]), both outcomes.
* StupidityIsTheOnlyOption: In the final confrontation with [[spoiler:Kellogg]], he'll ask you to come out in the open peacefully to see if the two of you can't reach a diplomatic solution to your feud. A savvy player will quickly figure out that this very much looks like an obvious trap: he has [[spoiler:three Synths]] as backup, and all of them are positioned in such a way that engaging in dialog forces you to be flanked by them. And then the game ups the ante by throwing a bit of ViolenceIsTheOnlyOption on top of everything. Try as you might, but there is no option to get out of the encounter peacefully; no matter what option you pick, the conversation can only end with [[spoiler:the Sole Survivor declaring their intent to murder Kellogg]], and you will have to go through a boss fight with him, ''while'' he springs the aforementioned obvious trap on you. While it certainly is possible to cheese the encounter by various means, it doesn't change the fact that the game is asking you to willingly walk into an ambush.
* SubsystemDamage: Become more focused this time. Crippling the limbs of robots and feral ghouls will actually sever said limbs. Robots may attempt to self-destruct if damaged enough, while ghouls will make due with their missing limbs until you've killed them. This isn't the case with humanoid enemies, however, which works exactly like the previous games.
* SubvertedKidsShow: The holotapes of ''The New Squirrel'' the player can find scattered in the Fiddler's Green Trailer Estates. Played with -- to the player, it's probably pretty screwed up, but [[IntentionalValuesDissonance it accurately reflects the pre-Great War worldview other in-game sources establish]].
* SuddenlyVoiced: The PlayerCharacter now talks in conversations and comments on the world ''Franchise/MassEffect'' style, in contrast to previous protagonists in the ''Fallout'' series being {{Heroic Mime}}s who spoke through text boxes.
* SuicidalOverconfidence: The standard response by raiders if you're in power armor is to actually say ''"Power armor?? BRING IT ON!!"''. {{Justified}} because they're so zonked on Psycho and other chems that they're out of their minds.
* SuicideAttack: The aptly named Super Mutant Suicider, who has a Mini Nuke strapped onto his right arm and ready to charge at anyone for his mutant brethren. If he sees you, you better hope you take him down first and quickly, lest you become nuclear detritus.
** Some robots can also do this when they are near death, such as Mr. Gutsies, Sentry Bots and even Legendary Assaultrons.
* SuperNotDrowningSkills:
** The Endurance 5 perk Aquaboy/Aquagirl gives you the ability to breathe underwater at the ''first rank''. As an additional bonus, you also no longer take radiation damage from simply standing in water.
** Wearing a power armor helmet allows you to breathe underwater, which is just as well as wearing power armor makes it so you can't swim and have to trudge along the bottom of the lake/river.
* SuperPoweredRobotMeterMaids:
** The Mister Handy model of robot is advertised as being nothing more than a robotic butler, but they can be easily modified into a lethal combatant -- heck, the US Army used customized "Mister Gutsy" versions before the war.
** There are also a variety of non-combat Protectrons, such as Construction and Medical models, which can still be very lethal in a fight. Special mention goes to the Firefighter model with a built-in cryo gun, which is just shy of the Construction variant that fires railway spikes in terms of lethality.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute:
** The East Coast Brotherhood of Steel has become a great deal like the Neo-Feudalist Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel. This wouldn't qualify for this trope if not for the fact the Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel is BroadStrokes canon for the ''Fallout'' first-person shooter series. They exist, but in a far diminished state than ''Fallout: Tactics'' indicated. It should also be noted that the only difference between the two is that the Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel was egalitarian to nonhumans and offered its membership to Super Mutants, intelligent Deathclaws, and Ghouls, while the East Coast Brotherhood has adopted a KillEmAll policy toward nonhumans.
** The Minutemen meanwhile call to mind the New California Republic in the West Coast, or at least how the NCR started out. While the Commonwealth has no real "state" or "nation" to speak of, they still uphold justice, order and a more virtuous memory of Pre-War America while intentionally invoking symbolism from the Revolutionary War. Not to mention bringing the various settlements and communities in the Commonwealth together as partners in exchange for protection rather than lording over them like the Brotherhood and Institute would. [[spoiler:To the point of laying down the foundations for something like the NCR to emerge in the East Coast. And succeeding where the "Commonwealth Provisional Government" (which the Institute supposedly purged) failed.]]
* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: The Bosun on the ''USS Constitution'' proclaims his loyalty to the captain because he wants to and certainly not because he's been reprogrammed five times to do so.
* SuspiciousVideogameGenerosity:
** The game gives you a suit of power armor and a minigun to take down a bunch of raiders, who are pretty much no match for the weapon and armor. Then a deathclaw appears and you'll finally realize why you needed them.
** The National Guard training yard's secret armory contains a good amount of ammo, as well as a free power armor suit! You're going to need that when you leave, as opening the armory releases a sentry bot that will attack you immediately.
** In the Minutemen Castle, there's a missile launcher plus ammo just laying around on a table. Might come in handy if you weren't prepared for the [[spoiler: Mirelurk Queen]]...
* TacticalRockPaperScissors: There are several different damage types (ballistic, energy, radiation, and poison) and armor is strong or weak against said various attacks. Fortunately, with the exception of the gamma gun on radiation-immune enemies such as ghouls, you can generally kill everything with one weapon type. That said, it's still a good idea to carry several guns that can deal various damage as well as ammo. If nothing else, this helps reduce over-reliance on just one type of ammo, such as 10 mm rounds or fusion cells, as ammo is a bit scarcer and more expensive without the right perks.
* TakeAThirdOption: It's possible to get the moral end to "Hole in the Wall" by curing Austin ''and'' not contracting the disease. The first is to not let ''any'' mole rats hit the player or companions. The second is to use a certain {{Good Bad Bug}}.
* TakeYourTime: Zigzagged:
** Played straight with some missions, especially story-related ones. If you want to explore Boston, go right ahead. No need to go to Diamond City right after leaving Vault 111 if you decide you'd rather explore first.
** Averted with some missions, usually ones relating to a kidnapping or a "Defend a settlement" quest. Though you get quite a bit of time to respond, if you take too long the quest will fail, and in the case of a "defend the settlement" quest, your generators and turrets will be destroyed and need repairs when you revisit it.
* TakingYouWithMe:
** Super Mutant Suiciders attempt this, rushing you and spiking their mini-nuke if you fail to kill them or at least cripple their right arm in time.
** Sentry bots and any robot with destroyed arms will also attempt this if you're too close to them when they die. They usually explode upon death, making them tougher to fight for melee-based characters.
* TalkingIsAFreeAction: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLfIC9njdfU Not anymore!]]
* ATasteOfPower: Helping out the Minutemen early on gets you a suit of power armor and a matching minigun at nearly the beginning of the game... but its fuel and bullets limit how crazy you can go with these toys and you'll soon be back to hoofing it with scavenged gear shortly thereafter.
** Because weapons no longer degrade or suffer from penalties caused by lack of skills, you can use even the most ludicrously overpowered weapons as soon as you find them. In addition to the mini gun given to the player early in the game, you can find a Fat Man and a mini nuke in a junkyard a short stroll from Sanctuary Hills.
* TemptingFate: In the ''Boston Bugle'' office, you can find an article extolling the possibility of the Boston baseball team winning the first World Series in [[HistoricalInJoke 159 years]], which is to be played on October 23rd, 2077. The reporter finishes their piece with this HarsherInHindsight message:
--> ''"But on Saturday, October 23rd, 2077, the only thing that could snatch away victory is an act of God, or [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt some obscene calamity of man]]. [[CallForward Tomorrow my friends, the unthinkable will finally come to pass]]. [[{{Irony}} And life in Boston will never be the same again]]."''
* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill:
** The Big Boy is a unique Fat Man launcher which fires two mini nukes at the cost of one. And if you combine it with the MIRV mod, the Big Boy MIRV fires '''[[UpToEleven 12]]''' [[MacrossMissileMassacre nukes at once]], it is in doubt if anything can survive that.
** Legendary enemies have a trick where they return to full health stronger if they are reduced to below 50% health. An exception, however, is if you hit them once with such force that it's instantly lethal, which overrides the regeneration.
** If you have lots of turrets in your settlement, along with well armed settlers residing there, anything stupid enough to attack it will be subjected to this.
* TheyWalkAmongUs: Institute Synths started off clunky and plastic, but the latest model of synth, the Gen-3, are now so sophisticated they are nearly indistinguishable from humans, leading to a Massachusetts full of paranoia about who's real and who's a synth.
* ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman: Some perks have only very specific uses but you'll be damned glad you have them when you do. For (an almost literal) example, Aquaboy/girl, which makes you immune to the radiation of swimming in the water and able to breathe underwater. Suddenly rivers are no longer a deadly barrier but a viable avenue of approach.
* ThisIsADrill: the Railway Rifle's bayonet mod is a circular drill-bit that attaches over the barrel.
* ThisIsGonnaSuck:
** The very first trailer for the game uses the same "Pan out from the TV to a blasted hellscape of a 1950's style house". What theme song do they use? "It's All Over (But the Crying)" by the Ink Spots. Followed by a montage of all the overpowered enemies and [=NPCs=] that make the Capital Wasteland look like a black-and-white family picnic.
** During gameplay, higher level enemies can also invoke this when you're still underpowered, such as if you run into someone wearing power armor, enemies with a skull by their name, or deathclaws. Many human enemies also have grenades, and will use them liberally to prevent you from camping in one spot. And given the opportunity, some of them will also attempt to flank you, hitting you from behind while you're focused on their buddies.
** Getting ambushed from behind or one of your flanks can also do this. Ghouls tend to make liberal use of this, with some sneaking around you to attack from behind. The fact that they can lunge at you can make it worse for really unprepared players.
* ThoseWackyNazis: After a brief respite in ''Fallout 3'', where they were somewhat reasonable in their approach, the Brotherhood of Steel is back to this trope in full force. It's even lampshaded heavily, with about half of the Brotherhood's non-quest dialogue and NPC conversations being dedicated to how much contempt they have for the [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure sane approach]] of Elder Lyons and the other half dedicated to how much they're looking forward to brutally murdering any member of the inferior races that they can get their hands on.
* ThrowDownTheBomblet: Grenades are back. Notably, they no longer require you to switch away from your gun to throw them, and can be tossed as secondary weapons like in other shooters. Expect your enemies (and companions, if you make the mistake of putting some grenades in their inventory) to toss them with reckless abandon.
* TomatoInTheMirror: One of the many synth-phobic characters eventually finds out that they are in fact a synth themselves. [[spoiler:It's Paladin Danse of the Brotherhood of Steel, as you learn during the quest ''Blind Betrayal'']].
* TookALevelInBadass: Almost all of the old enemies from ''Fallout 3'' are TERRIFYING now.
** The basic Radscorpion is almost the size of a Giant Radscorpion, is about as strong, fast, and tough as one, and to top it off, it can also tunnel to reach you!
** Mirelurks are closer to the creature from ''Alien'', complete with Dagon-esque queens.
** Molerats are now pack hunters with tunneling abilities, making escape from them near-impossible.
** Sentry bots are twice the size and armed with missiles and a gatling gun, like an [[Franchise/{{Robocop}} ED-209]] on steroids. They will rush towards you if you try to flee. Also, they now explode like a mini-nuke on death.
** Protectrons were the weakest robot enemy in the previous games. Now they're tougher than most human enemies and pack a mean punch.
** Feral ghouls, while not tougher, are a hell of a lot more dangerous because they are almost always in huge packs and have unpredictable patterns of attack.
** All the animal mutant enemies have glowing variants. This includes everything from the lowly radroach to freaking ''deathclaws''.
** Raiders now have the know-how to construct their own power armor (albeit still a crude and improvised version), and thanks to the new system, can loot junk from fallen enemies. Given the right circumstances, they can even ''steal your own power armor and use it against you'' if you ever decide to exit your suit and not take the fusion core out.
** On a non-hostile note, the Brotherhood of Steel here in this game obviously have taken many levels in badassery after the events of ''Broken Steel'' now that they have access to their own personal fleet of Vertibirds and an ''airship''.
* TooAwesomeToUse:
** Power armor now turns you into a walking tank that can shrug off pretty much anything, but it comes with a high price. You can only carry the enormously heavy armor pieces with you and need a power armor station to swap them out and repair them. You must also climb into the armor to use it, you can't craft while wearing it, and now you need fusion cores to power it, which are rare and run out relatively quickly. Your days of strolling through the wastelands indefinitely in your powered armor are behind you now. The suit is still very useful against bosses and in particularly difficult dungeons, however, so it is more of a matter of conservation. Also, running in the suit is a terrible idea, because it drains the aforementioned fusion cores faster.
** Jet packs are an amazing addition to power armor which allow you to move around the city and get a serious edge in combat by repositioning quickly. They also suck away your action points in seconds and chew through fusion cores at an alarming rate.
** Rank three of the Nuclear Physicist perk allows you to eject fusion cores creating a timed small nuclear explosion, allowing you to clear out a lot of hostiles. Unless your fusion core is all but spent or you have ones to spare though, this is rarely worth the cost.
** The Mysterious Serum gives you +5 Strength (the next best buff item only gives a +3), an enormous +50 Damage Resistance, and it causes you to lose radiation for 3600 seconds. It's only possible to find it during a single quest in the game and you'll never find more than eight vials. Though you can get an unlimited supply (one vial at a time, and you can only get a new vial after having used your current one) depending on your choice at the end of the quest.
*** The Mysterious Serum Effect's duration stacks, meaning that if you are planing a marathon session, head to the unlimited supply and immediately use the ones you get, then get a new one and use that. Rinse and repeat.
** The homing beacon is essentially a fat man in grenade form, allowing the player to call down nuclear strikes without hefting thirty pounds of catapult around. You get three.
** The Fat Man can fall into this trope if you don't have a good stock of mini-nukes to use. Players may then also forget to bring it with them due to not wanting to lug that heavy weapon around, making it a situational weapon for a guaranteed boss fight instead, such as the Minutemen quest to retake the Castle from mirelurks.
* TooDumbToLive:
** During the pre-war rush segment, you encounter a neighbor who is [[SkewedPriorities preoccupied]] in packing up his luggage instead of running directly to the Vault, despite the fact that the bombs will fall any second. ''The player'' can also be this if they take too long dallying instead of getting to the shelter in time, leading to a NonStandardGameOver.
** Irish Pride Industries shipyard is home to a mirelurk nest. There is a repeating announcement on loudspeaker recorded by a guy named Rory telling the mirelurks that he loves them. Inside the boat is a computer terminal with log entries from Rory about how he's raising orphaned mirelurk hatchlings, including how they're becoming increasingly violent and his attempts to train them through ThePowerOfLove. Underneath the boat in drydock you'll find the horde of mirelurks with their eggs and hatchlings, along with Rory's decomposing remains.
---> '''Nick Valentine:''' Bet this guy wished he'd kept birds instead.
** There's a man near the Castle who sells "Charge Cards" that will supposedly bypass the need to spend caps when purchasing any goods from a vendor in the Commonwealth. Naturally, they do not. If the con weren't fairly apparent from the start, he's stupid enough to call you a "retard" straight to your face whether or not you accept his offer, which completely gives away his cover as a scammer, and which in the wasteland world is just asking for a bullet to the face. Furthermore, he's armed with a weak pipe gun and wearing only basic clothing in a region which has Super Mutants, raiders, and mirelurks. He's actually scripted as "[[InvulnerableCivilians essential]]" until you've spoken with him to make sure he lives long enough. For added {{laser guided karm|a}}ic {{Irony}}, if you have a Junk Jet launcher with you, you can kill him with his own Charge Card if you do accept his offer. The irony continues to drive the point home even further when speaking to him the first time eventually results in him saying, "Most conversations are like 'Hello' and then someone gets stabbed in the liver"[[note]]If you have visited Goodneighbor the first time, you'll quickly find out why this is HilariousInHindsight in-universe[[/note]]. This guy surely deserves a Darwin Award for his blatant stupidity.
** A ''lot'' of Raiders fall under this category, but a special mention must be made of the ones who try to shake the player down for caps to cross a bridge. They can be armed with pipe guns and wearing scrapped together armor and they player can be in full PowerArmor and aiming a Gatling Laser straight at them and they'll still try to threaten the player for caps.
* TookALevelInJerkass: After the death of the Lyons, the East Coast Brotherhood of Steel under the guidance of Elder Maxson has gone back to their roots of preserving technology over protecting the people, which the current members now see as wasteful. They have also doubled-down on their FantasticRacism against mutants and synths. It's also implied that the Capital Wasteland has become something of a feudal domain for the Brotherhood.
* TooMuchInformation: Actual unsolicited dialogue to the player from one of the Diamond City guards: ''"Yeah, it's true. I got ShotInTheAss last year. Long story."''
* ToServeMan: [[spoiler:"Handy Eats" is a diner staffed by robots. However, due to a programming error, the robots make the classic misinterpretation of the trope name. When asked about the bodies, the waiter robot refers to them as "satisfied customers" who "never leave".]]
** [[spoiler:A mod allows you to see the actual text of the responses, rather than just 'sarcastic', 'sympathetic' or whatever. Of the four responses to 'How can we serve you? Char-broiled? Diced? Mashed?', one is 'I'm not hungry after all', and all three of the others are 'Wait, what?']]
* TownWithADarkSecret: With concrete walls and turrets on the outside and overly-friendly people on the inside, it's a given that there's something really up with the people of Covenant. [[spoiler: They've been sizing up people passing by so they can kidnap them and perform gruesome tests to see if they're synths. Most good-hearted party members will agree that defeating the callous scientist in charge of this is a good thing, but that pisses off everyone in Covenant and you have to clear it out by force afterwards to resettle it. As a final twist, if the girl you rescue, Amelia Stockton, dies, you find a synth component on her body...]]
** [[spoiler:Amelia's father; Old Man Stockton is a prominent Railroad member. Amelia is a freed synth he adopted as his own daughter after she had her memory and appearance altered, if the player is a Railroad member and has completed certain missions, he will confirm it if asked.]]
* TraumaCongaLine: As if experiencing the nuclear destruction of the world wasn't traumatic enough, you also have to witness the murder of your spouse, the abduction of your son, without being able to do anything to stop it.
* TragicKeepsake: The player character can take [[spoiler: their dead spouse's wedding ring]] after they escape the cryo pod. Of course, there's nothing stopping you from hocking it off to the first merchant you find.
* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: [[spoiler:The launch trailer's narration is actually one of the ending narrations.]]
* TraumaInn: Like some of the previous games, sleeping in any bed will heal you to full HP and restores any crippled limbs. Still, this will not remove radiation.
* TrickBoss: The fight against Gristle and his raiders in Concord. Gristle ''is'' tougher than a normal raider, but still goes down quickly, especially if you turn your newfound minigun on him. The Deathclaw that appears after that, however, is the true boss.
* TroubledProduction: An {{In Universe}} example. You discover that Hubris Comics was trying to make the Silver Shroud radio serials into a successful TV show. Unfortunately, it was rife with infighting, drama, and backroom passions - which proved to be all for naught as the nuclear apocalypse put said show and its creators off the air permanently.
* TurnsRed: All [[BossInMookClothing Legendary Enemies]] have the ability to mutate at half health, making them stronger, more durable, and it also replenishes their health back to full.
* TyrantTakesTheHelm: The Sole Survivor can do this with the Institute, depending on their dialogue choices.
** It starts with members of the bio-sciences division sealing themselves away along with all the food in protest of Father's decision to name the player as his successor. You can infiltrate them and act like a ReasonableAuthorityFigure and talk them into giving you a chance as the new head of the Institute. Then after they agree to your terms and stand down, you can immediately order their execution as punishment.
** Meanwhile, you can be an abusive JerkAss to every department head, field operative, and named underling who answers to you.
** And to top it off, when Father asks you to record an announcement of the Institute's intentions to the Commonwealth, you can really play up the EvilOverlord bit. You can deliver an epic NewEraSpeech that the Institute is here and the master of everyone, cares nothing for the pathetic little lives of people on the surface, and will annihilate anyone who has a problem with it.
** After all this you can still side with one of the other factions and blow up the Institute, making you the ultimate BadBoss.
* UnbreakableWeapons: Played straight due to the removal of the repair system featured in ''3'' and ''New Vegas''; weapons and regular armor no longer degrade even after long periods of extensive use and wear. The only thing suffering from degradation is Power Armor.
* UnexpectedGenreChange: In the ''Far Harbor'' DLC, the quest to obtain [[spoiler: [=DiMA's=] stored memories]] has you go InsideAComputerSystem and hack into the files using digital bugs, blocks, and turrets in a sequence that looks like a cross between ''Film/{{Tron}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}''.
* UnfazedEveryman: The protagonist isn't terribly surprised by what the wasteland has to offer. They already fought in the Sino-American War, so they're prepared for future combat. {{Subverted}} all to hell by the part until meeting Codsworth where the protagonist acts like they're suffering a horrible nightmare - which is actually an option of dialogue to give the robot.
* UselessUsefulSpell: Like ''Fallout 3'' before it, some of ''Fallout 4's'' perks aren't as enticing to take as they may seem.
** V.A.N.S. uses VATS to display a path that's closest to your quest objective. You really don't need a perk to show a path to your objective when you can set a waypoint.
** Toughness gives 10 points of Ballistic Defense per rank, and its sister perk Refractor gives an equal amount of Energy Defense. By the time you can max out either perk, you likely have armor that averages around 350 in both categories, so that extra 50 doesn't have much of an effect.
** Lead Belly reduces the radiation you suffer from eating and drinking, nullifying it completely at rank 3. Food and water have minimal radiation to begin with, and by cooking it you can completely eliminate the radiation drawback in addition to making it even more effective. That said, it's still somewhat useful for items that can't be cooked, like pre-war foodstuffs and Nuka-Cola.
** Rad Resistant adds 10 points of Radiation Resistance each rank, totaling 30. If you're in an area where radiation poisoning is an actual concern, Hazmat Suits and Power Armor will reduce ambient radiation to almost nothing, and Rad-X provides better temporary defense.
** Cannibal allows you to eat corpses to restore a portion of lost health, but you have plenty of healing options in Stimpacks and cooked food.
** The Ghoulish perks causes you to regenerate health at a rate determined by how much you've been irradiated. Since radiation reduces max health, there's no point in being able to regenerate quickly if you can only do so to half or less of your maximum.
** The fourth rank of Lockpick prevents your bobby pins from breaking, and the fourth rank of Hacker keeps you from being shut out of terminals if you fail to hack them successfully. Bobby pins are so cheap and plentiful that you will almost always find more than you break, and you can avoid a terminal lockout simply by exiting and reentering to reset it. For that matter, both skills are unnecessary for story progression, only allowing you to bypass certain obstacles or access rooms with decent loot.
* TheUsualAdversaries: While different factions have different enemies, ''no one'' likes the Raiders.
* VehicularTurnabout:
** If you're quick and sneaky enough, you can pickpocket the fusion core from an active enemy power armor, kill the operator after they bail out of the powerless armor, reinstall the core, and then attack their allies in that armor. It's also a way to acquire the base frame, which otherwise is mangled beyond salvage if you have to kill the operator the direct way.
** For the same reason, don't ever leave fusion cores in your armor. Friendly and enemy [=NPCs=] can and will appropriate it for their own use if given the opportunity, though at least settlers can be told to get out.
** Near the end of the Railroad's main quest, [[spoiler:after massacring the Brotherhood of Steel members (including NiceGirl Scribe Haylen) inside the Cambridge Police Station, Tinker Tom will hijack a Brotherhood Vertibird to get you and Deacon aboard the ''[[CoolAirship Prydwen]]'' (the Brotherhood's mobile HQ). After the end of the main quest, the Vertibird can be summoned with a signal grenade to fly you to anywhere in the Commonwealth. If you destroy the Brotherhood as the Minutemen, they'll manage to salvage a Vertibird for transport purposes as well]].
* VendorTrash: Subverted -- pretty much every seemingly useless item can be broken down for crafting components. Around a quarter of the time you'll spend in any given location is picking the entire place clean of every last bit of junk.
* VideoGameCaringPotential: The game ''runs'' on this. While you can be a JerkassHero if you work at it, it's much easier to run in a more positive direction. From helping the Minutemen build and protect settlements, to [[spoiler: retrieving a child's final message to her toymaker (and now ghoulified) father]], to bucking up the spirits of your companions and even [[spoiler: the lonely ghoul Vault-Tec salesman]], there are chances to help and protect people everywhere across the Commonwealth.
* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: The potential for this is severely [[DownplayedTrope downplayed]] compared to previous games in the series. You can be something of an AntiHero if you choose, stealing stuff and doing whatever it takes to find your son, but you can't really play a full-on villain and a lot of innocents are [[InvulnerableCivilians essential [=NPCs=]]]. This can lead to some severe {{Railroading}} as the game can break down and be physically unable to cope if you attempt to play a [[AxeCrazy murdering]] [[ComedicSociopathy psycho]], as [[http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/11/13/fallout-4-killing-everyone/ one journalist]] from Rock Paper Shotgun [[http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/11/16/fallout-4-killer/ found out]] to his [[http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/11/18/fallout-4-bastard/ detriment]].
** That’s not to say there are no opportunities to be a complete asshole. For starters, pretty much everyone aboard the ‘’Prydwen’’, every member of the Railroad and everyone in the Institute is non-essential, meaning you can have lots of fun going on a murderous rampage. There’s a quest where you have the opportunity to sell a ghoul child to some slavers, or if you refuse, give up their entire family to them. In one Diamond City quest, you can ambush a chem deal, and then murder your partners to take all the chems and money for yourself. And then, of course, [[spoiler: you can join the Institute and announce to the Commonwealth you’re their new overlords and that their pitiful lives are meaningless. If you side against them, you have to blow them up, and you can choose to not sound the evacuation alert so that all the civilians and children living there get blown up with their home]].
* VideoGameCrueltyPunishment: Most of your companions will dislike or hate villainous actions, especially committing wanton murder. The only standouts are Dogmeat, who is [[CanineCompanion a dog]] and doesn't know better (so he loves you no matter what you do), [[TokenHeroicOrc Strong]], who loves violence, and the sociopathic X6-88. Even the last two have points where they'll disapprove for reasons [[EvenEvilHasStandards moral]] or [[PragmaticVillainy practical]]. Continuing to act like an ass or a psycho killer while they're travelling with you will cause them to dislike you and eventually [[LostForever leave you, never to return]].
* VideoGamePerversityPotential:
** Let's start with the fact that when you take a dead enemy's gear, that can include their clothing- so you could leave a trail of underwear-clad corpses across Boston and its environs. There's also Cait, who gives a "like" reaction to your Survivor fast-travelling from location to location while wearing no clothing. And, of course, there are nude mods.
** Although it's [[TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything usually impossible]] to get your Companion down to just underwear (the game won't let you unequip what they're wearing, just equip something new), there's currently a glitch that lets you do it to at least one on [=PS4=].
* ViolenceIsTheOnlyOption: Especially compared to the previous games, where there were almost always non-violent solutions. There are a few exceptions, but a large number of the game's quests require you to kill people. In particular, any quest to help out a settlement in trouble usually boils down to "go to the Raider/Super Mutant base and kill everyone and everything there".
** No matter what dialogue options you say to [[spoiler: Kellogg]], you will always end up fighting him in the end.
** Mostly played straight, but there are situations where no one has to get killed, depending on how you answer, such as the standoff between Trudy and Wolfgang. Though killing one or the other is much easier, you can find a peaceful resolution. Keeping both alive allows you to buy and trade with both as well, as a small reward for not blowing them away.
* WakeUpCallBoss: After clearing the raiders and Gristle at Concord with your PoweredArmor and [[GatlingGood Minigun]], a huge Deathclaw appears out of nowhere. [[LightningBruiser This thing can kill you within a few hits, soak up loads of damage from your Minigun, moves quickly, and even actively dodges your bullets!]]
* WeakTurretGun: Early on, hostile turrets are just a nuisance. Late game turrets are very dangerous however. You can also build your own to defend your settlements, and if you capture the Castle early, they actually do quite a good job at killing the surviving Mirelurks.
* WeirdWeather: The weather system (which mostly simulates normal weather) will sometimes subject the player to radiation storms, which randomly cause radiation poisoning while they're outside.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: the Director of [[spoiler: The Cambridge Polymer Labs]]. When the bombs fell he [[spoiler: locked everyone inside, seeking to protect them both from the radiation and from the knowledge that the world had ended and everyone they knew and loved was probably dead. After learning that he and his team would be shot if they tried to get aid or evacuation on their own, and that they would only otherwise be extracted if they were of military significance, he told everyone they were on mandatory overtime until they completed their work, to keep them safe away from the devastation and hopefully get them to complete the power armor coating that would make them worth rescuing by the military.]]
* WetwareBody / WetwareCPU: It's unclear what the breakdown of organic to inorganic parts in third generation synths is, but they look to be a mix of both. [[spoiler: Paladin Danse]] is outed by DNA records, implying that they have actual flesh and blood; Father confirms this inside the Institute, stating that Gen 3s were based on [[spoiler: Shaun's pre-War and thus unmutated]] DNA. However, they don't look to be entirely organic, as they exhibit some non-human abilities. For example, synths hidden among the general population can be detected either with the Awareness perk because of their telltale energy resistance, which is much higher than a normal human's, or if they randomly start acting paranoid (as if they're being attacked).
* WhatMeasureIsAMook:
** Codsworth goes a long way to humanizing the previously soulless and hostile robots encountered in other games. It seems, 210 years earlier, robots really were good friends of mankind.
** Almost all of the raiders you encounter are led by a named boss. They also have a lot more varied dialogue and even hold conversations when you're not detected. There's a good number of journal entries, too, which continue to humanize the enemies you fight. [[DevelopersForesight The various raider bosses even have their own power struggles]]; kill the raiders in the Federal Ration Stockpile and when you come to murder the boss of a rival gang, you'll find how he hoped to use the food in there to expand his influence and take on one of [[AlwaysABiggerFish more fearsome bosses]]. What also helps is that most of them have refrained from decorating their hideouts with the corpses of their victims.
** Super Mutants also like to chat with each other when you're not shooting them apart. Unlike the Mutants in the Capital Wasteland, they seem to be capable of reason, even if they still are usually idiots. Strong also gives us further insight into the life of the average super mutant.
** Travel south along one of the railroad tracks, and you'll come across a raider kneeling on the ground. As soon as they notice you, they'll attack, and you're forced to defend yourself. But when you approach to loot the body, you realize what they were doing: [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone grieving over a body dumped in a shallow grave]].
** The [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot Viking ghoul raiders]] who inhabit the ''FMS Northern Star'' are also unique from other raiders by the fact that they just want to be left alone. Translating their Norwegian dialogue reveals that they also long to return to their distant, likely irradiated homeland.
* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: A major theme of ''Fallout 4'' is you determining what qualifies as human or sentient, and the alliances you make will narrow based on your thoughts and choices. Both the Brotherhood of Steel and the Institute view synths as below human, with the former calling for their destruction, and the latter treating them as property despite the synths having potential sapience. The Railroad takes after The Underground Railroad and is dedicated to the liberation and equality of synths. By the time you have met any of the three factions, you have likely made a friend or enemy of different synth characters.
** Ghouls, supermutants, and robots are also under the thumb of this theme, but to a lesser degree to synths.
* WhatTheHellHero: Things you do and how you react in a situation can affect how other [=NPCs=] will react to you.
** Some minor stuff include stealing while accompanied by an NPC whose moral compass leans towards the good side, or refusing to help when asked. Or agreeing to help for the more AntiHero-oriented characters. And while Strong dislikes you getting into power armor, Danse likes it.
** Major incidents include murdering faction [=NPCs=]. Killing a lot of unnamed ones, or a named one, will immediately cause that faction to be hostile towards you, including companions belonging to that faction.
** Killing a settler will often turn the rest of the settlement against you. They may let it slide if you accidentally kill one during a firefight with hostile [=NPCs=]. But if you kill one in cold blood, the other settlers will quickly turn hostile, forcing you to kill them as well. This becomes problematic when a settlement is invaded by a synth, and you can't figure out which one of them is the synth.
** Father will have this reaction to you if you turn against the Institute. Even if you try to apologize as you prepare to blow their base, he tries to guilt trip you no matter how you respond.
* WholePlotReference: The town of Covenant serves a very similar role as Andale in ''Fallout 3'' and Hackdirt in ''The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion'', being a small settlement that is pretty obviously a TownWithADarkSecret and [[spoiler:putting you in a situation where you're likely to be forced to kill the entire town if making good[=/=]moral decisions]].
* WhyIsntItAttacking: You can choose to return the Deathclaw Egg obtained in the Museum of Witchcraft to its nest. When you get there, a high-level Deathclaw will pop up in front of you... and leave you alone, knowing that you're returning its egg, allowing you to get the nearby Deathclaw Gauntlet. [[MamaBear If you attempt to steal the egg back, however]]...
* WickedCultured: Somewhat implied with the Institute. [[spoiler: You eventually find out they're the ones broadcasting the classical music station.]]
* WitchHunt: Many settlements and organizations, up to and including the Brotherhood of Steel, are conducting witch hunts for "synths", androids who look and act human. For bonus points, this witch hunt just so happens to be in Massachusetts, home of the infamous [[SalemIsWitchCountry Salem Witch Trials.]]
* TheWorfEffect:
** In the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yuo7AuDGNN8 S.]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw21X2jKwCM P.]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paYU1neP3xM E.]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X95lZ56ddj4 C.]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6yt-43Vp1M I.]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ_okO2tLN0 A.]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bke9wvob8Ls L.]] video series, Vault Boy is a badass who gets his ass handed to him twice per episode. This is usually to explain (A) how dangerous having a DumpStat can be in certain situations, and (B) how your enemies (or allies, or even literal corpses) can beat the crap out of you if you fail a skill check.
** During your search for Kellogg, you'll find the remains of a curb-stomped [[LightningBruiser Assaultron]]. If you've had the pleasure of fighting one of those before, this should be a dead giveaway that this man means business.
** Later in the main questline you have to track down and kill an Institute Courser. You'll eventually find him making short work of dozens of Gunners, which are essentially better-equipped raiders.
** When visiting the Mahkra Fishpacking facility the first time, you'll notice an unusually large amount of Raider corpses laid both outside and inside the plant. Investigating the facility further inside reveals that a large group of Synths have invaded the place and are responsible for their deaths. Eventually, they turn their attention to you and start trying to kill you for presumably interfering with their operations, unless you've allied yourself with the Institute. Hopefully you don't try to explore this place until you're at a sufficiently high level because these Synths are armed well enough to quickly kill a low-level PC at a moment's notice.
* WorthlessTreasureTwist: The Treasure of Jamaica Plains is [[spoiler:a pre-war time capsule containing mostly junk and a World Series bat that may occasionally send those it hits flying]].
* WoundedGazelleGambit: When you approach Hardware Town for the first time, a settler will be outside screaming for someone to help. She will then lead you into the building, where her kidnapped friend is being held. [[spoiler:Once you go into the back areas however, it turns out to be a trap, and a few raiders attack you. You can avert the trope by killing the settler first, or purposely waiting outside for a long time, after which one of the raiders will kill her for failing to bait you inside. You can even pacify her with Intimidation rank 3 perk and use her to fight against the raiders.]]
* WrenchWhack: The Pipe Wrench is available as a melee weapon, there is even a unique one, Big Jim.
* WretchedHive: Goodneighbor is a town filled with the dregs and rejects of the Commonwealth, meaning either ghouls or criminals. As such, the city is a crime-riddled hellhole run by a mayor with limited interest in exerting overt authority, though he does appreciate efforts in getting rid of the worst of the lot.
* YouAreInCommandNow:
** Preston Garvey promotes you to general if you promise to help him rebuild the Minutemen.
** [[spoiler: Father names you as the next director of the Institute if you side with them. This title carries over after the story is completed.]]
* YouLoseAtZeroTrust: If your affinity with a companion drops too low, they will voice their concern. If it continues to drop, they will leave you for good unless you can pass a difficult speech check. If you convince them to stay, but continue to lower their affinity, you won't be able to convince them to stay again: they'll leave and not look back.
* YourHeadAsplode: Do enough damage to a target's head (or if Bloody Mess triggers) and it pops like a blood-filled melon.
* YourCheatingHeart: You can literally do this to a companion who you have a romantic relationship with, and not just by starting relationships with other companions. One quest involves asking an attractive singer in a seedy bar for information about a missing person. With a high enough level in charisma, you can flirt and go on a date with the singer which [[FadeToBlack fades out]] and then fades back in to the date ending in her bedroom. If your current companion is romantically involved with you, you get an onscreen message that they "hated" what you did. If you've completed the quest line with them and have them as a permanent companion, they don't even mention about how you just cheated on them and they're still completely in love with you.
** Remember though that this is about the dialogue only (and the associated perk which you cannot lose). You can and will lose affection and it can downgrade you to a lower level where you won't get the ''Lover's Embrace'' bonus anymore (which is basically the only way to find out about it). Normally you will be restored to lover level soon after, though, since travelling alone gives "good points", so you may also notice that your lover has broken up with you when s/he initiates a dialogue about getting back together like before.
* ZergRush:
** Mole Rats. What appears to be a single mole rat will call on a horde to rush the player once said mole rat is alerted or killed.
** Feral Ghouls now act like this. They initially "play dead", but as soon as one notices you (or is killed), the entire "horde" will wake up and then run straight for you.
** Mirelurks who don't have ranged attacks will attempt this on you as well.
----
!!!''VideoGame/Fallout4'' provides examples of the following tropes:
* TheQuisling: Clint, whom you can find in the Quincy Ruins. He was originally one of the Minutemen. But when he saw how few of them showed up to defend Quincy, mostly due to the severe infighting the group was going through due to lack of a charismatic leader, he saw the writing on the wall, and promptly defected to the Gunners. He also revealed the highway overpass above the town, which allowed the Gunners to quickly overwhelm the remaining Minutemen along with many of the citizens there, which later became known as the "Quincy Massacre" when Preston talks to you about it. As a result of this, he is given command of the Gunners stationed in Quincy. Though there's no actual quest or dialogue related to it, [[LaserGuidedKarma you can thankfully dish out a massacre of your own when you kill all the Gunners there, including Clint]].
* RadiationImmuneMutants: Ghouls, naturally. Your character can also become one of these with the endurance level 9 perk ''Ghoulish'', which makes the radiation poisoning of the wasteland actually ''heal'' you.
* RealIsBrown: [[AvertedTrope Averted]]. Unlike in previous ''Fallout'' games, much of the landscape in the Boston Wasteland is not stuck to a limited color palette. Things like Neon signs, a brightly-painted Vault door, vibrant pre-War vehicles and even toys add color to the blighted yet bright gray-brown scenery of the wasteland. The pre-war scenes are even more colorful.
* ReallySevenHundredYearsOld:
** The protagonist is over 210 years old, thanks to becoming a HumanPopsicle inside their vault.
** As all ghouls are TheAgeless, you encounter a few who lived before the war.
** The entire Cabot family, due to a mysterious anti-aging serum.
** [[spoiler:Kellogg,]] due to cybernetic enhancements.
* RealSongThemeTune: ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiSTfT_AO98 It's All Over But The Crying]]'' by Music/TheInkSpots.
* RelationshipValues: All companions have actions they like or dislike. For example, cannibalism only sits well with a few of them. If you do enough actions that they approve of, it unlocks a unique companion perk.
* TheRemnant: The Minutemen are reduced to a single surviving member by the time the players encounter them. Preston says he's probably not "literally" the last member, though, but all other members are now inactive due to a NoodleIncident.
* {{Retcon}}:
** A minor one, if it even ''is'' one. In ''Fallout 2'', it's stated the Vertibird was in the early prototype stage when the nukes fell, being a full eight years short of expected deployment. This is re-stated in ''Fallout 3'' with the display at the museum of aerospace. The Enclave finished development, did the field testing, and mass-produced them. ''Fallout 4'' shows at least 2 Vertibirds in active service as of 2077: one seen during the prologue flying over Sanctuary and landing at Vault 111; another one, possibly the same one seen outside Vault 111, was in full deployment with US Army soldiers when it crashed over the Museum of Freedom thanks to the EMP from the nuclear detonation. However, since it's already been established that the prototype stage had limited production runs during the Anchorage Reclamation, there were also likely "homefront" prototypes during 2077.
** Power armor also suffers from this, for better and for worse. They ARE the walking tanks of destruction that they're made out to be, and you're immune to fall damage. But due to the integrated micro cold fusion reactor being completely out of fuel, you are limited to using Fusion Cores in order to make them work at full capacity. As a MythologyGag to the unreleased ''Van Buren'', the use of Fusion Cores are utterly energy inefficient and they drain within about 20 minutes depending on the activity. Not only that, but all six armor "pieces" have their own durability and can break off the frame once they're damaged enough. Calling back to the original ''Fallout 1 & 2'', the Power Armor Training perk is no longer a requirement to use it, which means anyone and everyone can and ''will'' use them if they find a suit that still has a fusion core in it.
** Another extremely minor one. Fallout 3's Wilson Automatoys, the company that produced the Giddyup Buttercup robot ponies, changed their name slightly to Wilson ''Atoma''toys, swapping out an automotive pun for an atomic one.
** Originally, the chem jet was invented by Myron, a companion in ''Fallout 2''. While ''Fallout 4'' doesn't imply a different inventor, it is mentioned as one of the drugs that Vault 95 was being sent a supply of during it's construction.
* RetiredBadass:
** The male protagonist is a recently retired soldier getting ready to go to a Veteran's Meeting before the world ended, explaining his ability to build turrets, houses, custom weapons and mix and match PoweredArmor. They even say that because [[ArcWords war never changes]], they're ready to tackle whatever the wasteland throws at them.
** The female protagonist is only explicitly stated to have gotten a law degree, though Vault-Tec rep's unwillingness to speak to your spouse about being selected for Vault 111 due to "your family's service to the country", and the female protagonist's matching skills imply a military or government background of some kind.
* {{Retirony}}: In the BADTFL offices, DaChief's computer has a journal entry that's looking forward to his retirement in 3 days... made on the day the bombs fell.
* {{Retraux}}: The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yuo7AuDGNN8 S.]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw21X2jKwCM P.]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paYU1neP3xM E.]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X95lZ56ddj4 C.]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6yt-43Vp1M I.]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ_okO2tLN0 A.]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bke9wvob8Ls L.]] videos are all done in the style of 1950s public service announcements, right down to the film rot.
* RewardedAsATraitorDeserves: If you side with the Scavengers and betray the ''USS Constitution'' crew by sabotaging them, the Scavengers tell you that they've decided to keep the reward for themselves before turning on you.
* {{Rewrite}}: There have always been some inconsistencies as to exactly when the Great War started throughout all of the Fallout franchise. The only solid fact is that it happened on October 23rd, 2077. All the clocks in the Capital Wastelands in Fallout 3 are frozen at 9:47, with log files suggesting the AM. Clocks in New Vegas are also frozen at 9:47, but this is a case of just reusing textures from 3. Log files in Little Lamplight suggest the bombs fell between 2-3 PM, and the Dead Money and Old World Blues DLC in ''New Vegas'' suggests the bombs fell at night on the west coast. This game reestablishes that the bombs fell on the east coast at 9:47 AM, though Pennsylvania and New York were hit at 9:42, 5 minutes earlier.
* RidiculouslyFastConstruction: Building structures involves gathering the necessary items, and constructing them is instantaneous.
* RidiculousFutureInflation: As evidenced by the terminal in Gwinnett Brewery, a pint of beer cost ''$39'' in 2077, and nearly $200 for a six-pack. Coffee and a donut was proudly advertised for $30, while printed magazines ranged from $30 to $39. Gwinnett Brewery sold shot-glasses and {{Fun TShirt}}s for less than the glass of beer.
** The Harbor Grand Hotel in ''Far Harbor'' charged $118,764.32 per day (including taxes and fees) for one of its rooms.
* RidiculouslyHumanRobots: The Institute's third-generation synths are ''Film/BladeRunner''-esque artificial humans, practically indistinguishable from regular people. They're so humanlike that the Railroad exists to emancipate them from slavery to the Institute, giving them memory wipes, cosmetic surgery, and new names to hide them from the Institute's coursers, while the Brotherhood finds them too dangerous to be allowed to exist. Heck, synths are so ridiculously human-like, there are some characters who ''aren't even aware they are synths!''
** Although they're obviously robotic in appearance, Assaultrons were apparently programmed to feel pain, for some reason.
-->'''Dying Assaultron''': [[BlackComedyBurst I can't...feel my legs...]]
* RoarBeforeBeating:
** Many Deathclaws perform one before engaging the player. This can work against them, as it's a prime moment to shoot at their [[AttackItsWeakPoint unarmored belly]].
** The Sole Survivor will do this every time they get high on Psycho, usually right before a fight.
* RockBeatsLaser:
** The Minutemen taking down the Institute. A squad of low-tech guys taking down hi-tech Synths and Coursers.
** In the Minutemen's PostClimaxConfrontation should they become enemies with the Brotherhood, [[spoiler: the Brotherhood's high-tech airship Prydwen is taken down in a CurbStompBattle by the Minutemen's rather low-tech artillery]].
** The easiest way to uncloak stealthed enemies like Coursers, Assaultron Dominators, or even Chameleon Deathclaws? Toss a MolotovCocktail at them.
** If siding as the Railroad, the Brotherhood inevitably decide to knock down your door with a bunch of knights in power armor. Desdemona tosses you a Railway Rifle, and the damage on it is so obscene it can easily destroy most power-suited [=BoS=] enemies in three shots, two if you've leveled up the "Rifleman" perk. It's a ''steam powered'' railgun.
* RocketPoweredWeapon: The Super Sledge is now a sledgehammer with a miniature jet engine strapped to the back. Woe be to anything you hit with it.
* RobbingTheDead:
** The player takes their Pip-Boy from the wrist of a skeleton before leaving Vault 111, not to mention all the looting that is doable on other dead [=NPCs=].
** The wasteland around the Commonwealth is built upon this. Violence is law and [[YouKillItYouBoughtIt you get to keep what you take from whomever you kill]].
* RodentsOfUnusualSize: Mole rats return and are much smaller than in ''3'' and ''New Vegas'', though still fairly large. They also attack in packs, tunneling through the earth and pop out at will to surprise you. Then there are the glowing ones.
* RomanceSidequest: The player is able to romance some of their companions, [[EveryoneIsBi regardless of gender.]]
* RomanticismVersusEnlightenment: The Brotherhood of Steel are romantic traditionalists who sought to restore/preserve humanity and value the pre-War society, their society is even built around similar to medieval Europe. The Institute falls more into the enlightenment side as they value technological progress and completely disregard the pre-war society and wish to built an enlightened society with more advanced technology beyond the pre-War technology. Mind you that both sides are very secretive, racists in some degree, and view Wastelanders as inferiors.
** The local factions, the Minutemen and the Railroad are also this as well, but with slight variations. Both the Minutemen and the Railroad highly value the romantic view of freedom, but with different approach. The Minutemen are orderly BigGood who wish to [[WeHelpTheHelpless help the common man]] and want to bring the more positive aspects of pre-war America. The Railroad are enlightened RebelliousRebel who wish to change society so that humanity can accept the Synths as humans. [[spoiler: Both factions will work together to take down both the Brotherhood and Institute by the player's decision]].
* RousingSpeech: Elder Maxson gives one of these to all of the recruits. Unfortunately, it becomes a KickTheDog moment as it states all synths must be destroyed and the [=PCs=] have already made at least one friend among them.
** Hancock gives one to the community of Goodneighbor by stating that they will not take crap from anyone and stand up to the Institute by eliminating anybody who acts suspicious within the town.
* RunOrDie: In an early Railroad faction mission, Deacon gives this advice to the player regarding Coursers. Given that Coursers are basically Franchise/{{Terminator}}s, it's not bad advice.
* SadisticChoice: Which faction to side with in the game is one of the most divisive, and because of the GreyAndGrayMorality of the Commonwealth, ''every'' option will end with sympathetic characters dying as their factions are destroyed. For starters, [[spoiler:the only option that ''doesn't'' involve the player [[OffingTheOffspring consciously causing the death of their own son]] is the Institute, and that requires betraying the sympathetic, helpful Railroad that may have helped you find him in the first place.]]
* SavePoint: In Survival Mode, beds are this, since Quicksave and Manual Saving are disabled.
* ScaryScorpions: Radscorpions can ambush the player by burrowing themselves under ground, and [[JumpScare pop up unexpectedly]].
* ScavengedPunk: This game takes a step up from previous installments. The pipe weapons are basically scrap wood and metal fashioned into crude facsimiles of weapons. You may occasionally find turrets built out of shopping carts. Settlement structures you build look pretty cobbled together. Even power armor has been scavenged and modified by raiders with random junk like sheet metal and rebar.
* ScavengerWorld: Taken to the next level: previous ''Fallout'' games were full of junk; this one is overflowing with trash, but all that trash can be converted into useful building and crafting materials. Unlike in ''New Vegas: Old World Blues'' where you had to use specific stations to convert junk into useful crafting items, all items now have innate crafting materials hidden within them. You can scavenge entire towns and rebuild them!
* SceneryGorn:
** The game features half-decimated cities, cracked roads, bombed out suburbs, forests of dead trees, and so on in general.
** The Glowing Sea, an irradiated hellscape where the bomb that was supposed to hit Boston fell.
** Vault 111 is fairly pristine when you first enter it, but by the time you make your escape, it looks like bombs went off in it. The cryogenic pod room, alone, is littered with frozen corpses and dripping with thawed coolant.
* SceneryPorn: Urban environments are ''absolutely stunning'', with a large color palette, still intact skyscrapers, towering highways, Massachusetts monuments, and so on.
* SchizoTech: The ''USS Constitution'', a 1700s era wooden ship that is one of Boston's historical landmarks, has been outfitted with nuclear booster rockets.
* SchmuckBait:
** You will find signs pointing towards an old school that say things like "Fresh Water Ahead!" and "Traders Welcome!" The school is full of violent drug-addicted raiders.
** Meg, the little girl in Bunker Hill, offers to give you a tour of the place for 10 caps. [[spoiler:She essentially cons you by giving a "tour" that consists of naming the locations of various things. [[FridgeLogic Fitting for a child inside of a major trading post surrounded by merchants 24/7]]. The best part is that chances are you've only found Bunker Hill after Vault 81, in which [[TastesLikeDiabetes Austin]] gives you a genuine tour.]]
** With the Wasteland Workshop DLC, you can set your own Schmuck Bait in the form of Raider and Gunner Traps. Said traps consist of giant metal boxes with signs that say "Free Chems!" and "Free Caps, Guns, And Ammo!" respectively.
* ScratchDamage: Both regular damage and radiation will always affect you to some degree despite your protection.
* ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight: Vault 81 was originally meant to be used in the development of bioweapons and their countermeasures, with the Vault residents being turned into human guinea pigs. But the Overseer, hit with a bout of morality, cut off contact with the side the researchers were living on to prevent them from being able to carry out Vault-tec's plans. Vault 81 consequently thrived compared to virtually every other vault, and the three researchers ended up testing their bioweapons on molerats instead. One of them creates Curie, first to help them maintain their sanity after the Overseer stopped responding, and to continue on with the research after they pass away from old age.
* SequelDifficultySpike:
** In a manner of speaking. VATS no longer stops time completely; ammunition is much scarcer; Stimpaks are much rarer (no longer found in every bathroom), restore health over time, and only restore health based on a percentage; and monsters like Deathclaws are now able to endure a massive amount of punishment from a minigun. Perhaps exemplified by the treatment of Radroaches. You hunt them with a toy BB gun as a child in ''Fallout 3'', but the Sole Survivor reacts to them with disgust and horror when they first encounter them.
** Several old enemies are a lot stronger, such as protectrons and sentry bots (which are now essentially robo-tanks) who simply have huge amounts of health and damage resistance, and enemies like molerats and radscorpions have new mechanics that allow them to get the drop on you easily.
** The radiation system was previously a stat that all would ignore until it hit a certain threshold, at which point it was easy to fix with the abundant [=RadAways=]. In the new system, ''every single point of accumulated radiation directly lowers your max health''. Made all the worse by [=RadAways=] being far more rare this time around.
** The updated Survival difficulty is essentially this to the Hardcore mode in ''New Vegas''. In Hardcore mode, the player had to regularly eat, drink, and sleep, lest they would receive stat debuffs, as well as items like ammo having weight and healing items only healing over time. In the Survival difficulty of ''4'', not only does it have all of the above but damage is skyrocketed for everyone, the carry cap for the player and companion is much less, no fast travel, and the player can no longer quicksave or manually save, causing beds to essentially become save points.
* SequelEscalation: The crafting system now allows complete customization of numerous weapon parts, allowing the player to, say, take a basic laser pistol and retrofit it into a laser sniper rifle, or mix and match parts of different power armor models, like a brand new JetPack feature, on a single suit.
** Power armors are now humanoid tanks that you enter and exit, instead of a slightly fancier piece of clothing you put on and take off.
** [[spoiler:The restored and fully rebuilt Liberty Prime is technically Liberty Prime ''Mark II.'']]
* SequenceBreaking: Averted as you cannot skip to the end of the first act straight away unlike ''3'' and ''New Vegas''. Unless you have rescued Nick you cannot get to the elevator to Kellogg, until you take his brain to Amari you cannot find Virgil and without Virgil you cannot get into the Institute to kick off the second part of the game.
** The game does allow for a very minor degree of Sequence Breaking with the Minutemen. If you already have a suit of power armor when you go to Concord for the first time, the Minutemen have slightly different dialogue. Sturges even comments that his original plan (to retrieve the power armor and minigun from the roof) is irrelevant now.
*** A more minor break in the same quest -- you have to retrieve a power core from the basement to use the Armor, but if you show up already toting a core this Sub Quest will auto-complete. There's even a convenient one on the way to Concord, in the molerat den beneath the Red Rocket service station.
* SeriesContinuityError: Quantum returns from ''Fallout 3'' despite being specifically a local release in the DC area, but this can be waved off because ''Fallout 4'' takes place ten years later, which is more than enough time to move the product to other areas. Jet is present in the vaults, though it could just be that the current occupiers (Triggermen, Gunners, and Raiders) had placed them for later use.
** Jet itself is a ContinuitySnarl insofar as it's stated to have been invented by Myron in New Reno in ''Fallout 2''. It appears in vault loot tables in ''Fallout 3'' without explanation, but considering that Jet is little more than poop fumes and the crafting recipe in ''4'' involves little more than getting fertilizer and some plastic to make a Jet inhaler, Myron clearly wasn't the first person to make this connection.
* SeriousBusiness:
** The town hall in Jamaica Plains is rigged with tons of laser triggered explosives and turrets. The mayor in 2077 must really not have wanted anyone to open that time capsule any earlier.
** Overdue books are a serious concern for the Boston Public Library to have turrets and Protectrons roaming the halls. While useful against super mutants in the year 2287, one has to wonder what their pre-war use in the library was for.
* SeveredHeadSports: The final rank of the Big Leagues perk lets you hit "home runs" with your enemies' heads.
* ShaggyDogStory: The game retroactively makes Elder Lyons's entire crusade against the Super Mutants, Enclave, and evils of the Capital Wasteland into this. It's not a ShootTheShaggyDog one because some progress is made. However, the Brotherhood of Steel has reverted to the principles he ''crossed the entirety of the United States in order to get away from''. It's implied the citizens of the Capital Wasteland now exist as feudal subjects to the Brotherhood.
* ShowsDamage: Feral Ghouls and Second Gen Synths. With Ferals, you can sever their limbs. Second-gen Synths, on the other hand, gradually lose their artificial skin as they take damage, even completely losing it if they're damaged enough.
* TheSiege: [[spoiler:If you choose to side with the Minutemen in the endgame, you will have to help defend their main base from a ''massive'' invasion by the Institute and, depending on your choices, the Brotherhood.]]
* SightedGunsAreLowTech: In contrast to previous games, laser weapons avert this trope, being equipped with iron sights just like the more low-tech guns.
* SimpleYetAwesome:
** Normally, submachineguns aren't that hot as weapons due to low damage and high ammo consumption. Spray n' Pray (a unique SMG sold by Cricket) turns this upside-down. Thanks to its "Explosive" legendary effect, each bullet does an extra fifteen points of [=AoE=] explosive damage. The Commando perk buffs its base damage while Demolition Expert buffs the explosive damage; investing in those perks turns Spray n' Pray into an engine of devastation. To top it all off, the explosions have a chance to stagger the target. Did I mention that Spray n' Pray is a full-auto weapon?
** Ordinary projectile guns are just as effective as energy weapons if not moreso, due to the high availability of ammunition which is cheaper to buy and is far more common as scavenged loot. Even with all points in the Scavenger perk, the player will most often discover plain old bullets in crates, desks, lockers and such, rather than energy cells and plasma cartridges.
** The "Instigating" legendary effect doubles the damage the weapon does if the target is at full health. For most weapons, this is kind of pointless, as it just gives a little extra damage to the first shot and there are far more useful effects (such as "Explosive," mentioned above.) However, this is the best effect for a sniper rifle. Fully upgraded with mods and in the hands of a character with the right perks, that one shot will be all you need to drop nearly anything in the wasteland. A character who maxes out the Rifleman perk and has an Instigating Gauss Rifle ''will'' kill anything but the absolute strongest enemies in the game with a single shot. And they can be killed with a single Sneak Attack.
* SinisterSubway: While the remains of what is left of the Boston [=MBTA=] underground aren't as extensive compared to the DC metro in ''3'' (and the real life [=MBTA=] is [[TruthInTelevision indeed compact when compared to the other subway systems in the U.S.]]), the stations are still crawling with raiders, mutants, traps, and pockets of radiation just as ever. Fortunately, you no longer have to travel from station to station as the [=MBTA=] underground areas mostly have dead ends and no pathways to other stations.
* SkillScoresAndPerks: The Perk system underwent a big change. Perks are tied to SPECIAL stats, with ten perks for each stat. More advanced perks require a high-enough stat, and most perks have multiple ranks tied to the player's level -- for instance, a player with a high enough SPECIAL stat can take a powerful Rank 10 perk early on, but won't be able to upgrade it until they're, say, level 25. Then there are the magazine perks, which not only grant you a perk, but you need to keep finding more copies in order to level said perks.
* SlapOnTheWristNuke: The Unstable Nuke Launcher for robot companions in the Automatron DLC. It's the single most powerful weapon that can be added to one, but for balance purposes it's still limited to a couple hundred points of damage rather than the thousand or so that a Fat Man can deliver.
* TheSlowPath:
** Codsworth, your Mr. Handy, has been waiting 210 years for you to return. He can hardly believe his processors that you're still alive.
** [[spoiler:The Vault-Tec Salesman from the prologue of the game shows up later as a ghoul, furious at how you managed to be physically preserved while he had to deal with absolute hell for over two centuries.]]
** [[spoiler:Shaun himself, who was taken 60 years before the Sole Survivor escapes from Vault 111, and who has become the elderly Father of the Institute]].
* SmokingHotSex: The Lover's Embrace effect, which is earned by sleeping in a bed while a companion you've romanced is nearby, is depicted as a shirtless Vault Boy getting up from bed while taking a drag from a cigarette.
* SoleSurvivor: You play as the only remaining resident of Vault 111, who woke up after 210 years to find everyone else dead.
* SortingAlgorithmOfEvil: While not evil per se, the game notes that the further south you go the tougher enemies get. Justified as heading south means you get closer to [[DeathWorld the Glowing Sea]]. You start at the most northwestern point of the map, so you have to trek a while to find the really nasty enemies.
* SpotTheThread: The mad scientist kidnapping people to test which are synths discovers a psychological weakness: [[spoiler: during the SAFE test, when asked which type of baseball player they'd be, they almost always answer "catcher," even if they don't really know what a catcher does.]]
* StartsStealthilyEndsLoudly: Every time you attempt a stealth infiltration of an area full of enemies, there is the possibility of your sneak attempts failing and forcing you into a blazing firefight.
* StillWearingTheOldColors: [[spoiler:It's possible to come across the same Vault-Tec Salesman from the start of the game, long since become a ghoul. And still wearing his Vault-Tec standard outfit, or at least a post-apocalyptic approximation of it.]]
* StealthPun: The ''USS Constitution'' is a wooden ship literally crewed with [[WoodenShipsAndIronMen Iron Men]]
* StepfordSmiler: An entire environment. When you first show up at [[spoiler:The Institute]], you find a shiny beautiful place full of happy people. Explore just a little bit and what you find is blocked off hallways and rooms that are as degraded as the rest of the Wasteland and orders to everyone to be on their best behavior for you. UpToEleven with [[spoiler: the synth servants]], who are all terrified slaves.
** [[spoiler:Covenant]] also qualifies. An entire shiny settlement with a lot of nervous - but oh so friendly - smiling people with some sort of secret.
* StormingTheCastle: Done in "The Nuclear Option" quests, where you invade the Institute with whichever faction you side with and blow it up from inside.
* StoryBreadcrumbs: There are a number of areas where you can only conclude what happened through environmental clues. A lot of that has to do with the Railroad and their symbols. A dead Protectron with a Railway Spike on its body near a Relay antenna is a clear sign someone from the Railroad killed it at that location. Several hidden pointers show the way an escaping Synth was guided through a feral-infested train yard. And the railsign for "Ally" is marked on a hidden observation post overlooking Vault 111 and Sanctuary Hills... someone's been watching you.
* StuffBlowingUp: A given with the nuclear powered vehicles of the era, which have been abandoned in the open with no maintenance for over 200 years. Additional world objects such as propane tanks, fuel canisters, and oil slicks will also explode when shot at.
** Reaches new heights with trigger happy enemies wielding the Fat Man or missile launcher, as well as the new Super Mutant Suiciders who charge at the player with a live mini nuke.
** This trope becomes SchmuckBait for overeager looters with regular sentry bots and legendary robots, who explode after a short delay once they are killed (often while the player is busy looting the destroyed bot).
** Taken UpToEleven with legendary sentry bots, who explode '''twice''' when killed: once for being a sentry bot and a second time for being legendary.
** Honourable mentions go to the final questline for any of the factions, which inevitably leads to either [[spoiler:the destruction of the Prydwen]], [[spoiler:detonation of the Institute's main reactor]], or (in the case of [[spoiler:the Railroad]]), both outcomes.
* StupidityIsTheOnlyOption: In the final confrontation with [[spoiler:Kellogg]], he'll ask you to come out in the open peacefully to see if the two of you can't reach a diplomatic solution to your feud. A savvy player will quickly figure out that this very much looks like an obvious trap: he has [[spoiler:three Synths]] as backup, and all of them are positioned in such a way that engaging in dialog forces you to be flanked by them. And then the game ups the ante by throwing a bit of ViolenceIsTheOnlyOption on top of everything. Try as you might, but there is no option to get out of the encounter peacefully; no matter what option you pick, the conversation can only end with [[spoiler:the Sole Survivor declaring their intent to murder Kellogg]], and you will have to go through a boss fight with him, ''while'' he springs the aforementioned obvious trap on you. While it certainly is possible to cheese the encounter by various means, it doesn't change the fact that the game is asking you to willingly walk into an ambush.
* SubsystemDamage: Become more focused this time. Crippling the limbs of robots and feral ghouls will actually sever said limbs. Robots may attempt to self-destruct if damaged enough, while ghouls will make due with their missing limbs until you've killed them. This isn't the case with humanoid enemies, however, which works exactly like the previous games.
* SubvertedKidsShow: The holotapes of ''The New Squirrel'' the player can find scattered in the Fiddler's Green Trailer Estates. Played with -- to the player, it's probably pretty screwed up, but [[IntentionalValuesDissonance it accurately reflects the pre-Great War worldview other in-game sources establish]].
* SuddenlyVoiced: The PlayerCharacter now talks in conversations and comments on the world ''Franchise/MassEffect'' style, in contrast to previous protagonists in the ''Fallout'' series being {{Heroic Mime}}s who spoke through text boxes.
* SuicidalOverconfidence: The standard response by raiders if you're in power armor is to actually say ''"Power armor?? BRING IT ON!!"''. {{Justified}} because they're so zonked on Psycho and other chems that they're out of their minds.
* SuicideAttack: The aptly named Super Mutant Suicider, who has a Mini Nuke strapped onto his right arm and ready to charge at anyone for his mutant brethren. If he sees you, you better hope you take him down first and quickly, lest you become nuclear detritus.
** Some robots can also do this when they are near death, such as Mr. Gutsies, Sentry Bots and even Legendary Assaultrons.
* SuperNotDrowningSkills:
** The Endurance 5 perk Aquaboy/Aquagirl gives you the ability to breathe underwater at the ''first rank''. As an additional bonus, you also no longer take radiation damage from simply standing in water.
** Wearing a power armor helmet allows you to breathe underwater, which is just as well as wearing power armor makes it so you can't swim and have to trudge along the bottom of the lake/river.
* SuperPoweredRobotMeterMaids:
** The Mister Handy model of robot is advertised as being nothing more than a robotic butler, but they can be easily modified into a lethal combatant -- heck, the US Army used customized "Mister Gutsy" versions before the war.
** There are also a variety of non-combat Protectrons, such as Construction and Medical models, which can still be very lethal in a fight. Special mention goes to the Firefighter model with a built-in cryo gun, which is just shy of the Construction variant that fires railway spikes in terms of lethality.
* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute:
** The East Coast Brotherhood of Steel has become a great deal like the Neo-Feudalist Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel. This wouldn't qualify for this trope if not for the fact the Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel is BroadStrokes canon for the ''Fallout'' first-person shooter series. They exist, but in a far diminished state than ''Fallout: Tactics'' indicated. It should also be noted that the only difference between the two is that the Midwestern Brotherhood of Steel was egalitarian to nonhumans and offered its membership to Super Mutants, intelligent Deathclaws, and Ghouls, while the East Coast Brotherhood has adopted a KillEmAll policy toward nonhumans.
** The Minutemen meanwhile call to mind the New California Republic in the West Coast, or at least how the NCR started out. While the Commonwealth has no real "state" or "nation" to speak of, they still uphold justice, order and a more virtuous memory of Pre-War America while intentionally invoking symbolism from the Revolutionary War. Not to mention bringing the various settlements and communities in the Commonwealth together as partners in exchange for protection rather than lording over them like the Brotherhood and Institute would. [[spoiler:To the point of laying down the foundations for something like the NCR to emerge in the East Coast. And succeeding where the "Commonwealth Provisional Government" (which the Institute supposedly purged) failed.]]
* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: The Bosun on the ''USS Constitution'' proclaims his loyalty to the captain because he wants to and certainly not because he's been reprogrammed five times to do so.
* SuspiciousVideogameGenerosity:
** The game gives you a suit of power armor and a minigun to take down a bunch of raiders, who are pretty much no match for the weapon and armor. Then a deathclaw appears and you'll finally realize why you needed them.
** The National Guard training yard's secret armory contains a good amount of ammo, as well as a free power armor suit! You're going to need that when you leave, as opening the armory releases a sentry bot that will attack you immediately.
** In the Minutemen Castle, there's a missile launcher plus ammo just laying around on a table. Might come in handy if you weren't prepared for the [[spoiler: Mirelurk Queen]]...
* TacticalRockPaperScissors: There are several different damage types (ballistic, energy, radiation, and poison) and armor is strong or weak against said various attacks. Fortunately, with the exception of the gamma gun on radiation-immune enemies such as ghouls, you can generally kill everything with one weapon type. That said, it's still a good idea to carry several guns that can deal various damage as well as ammo. If nothing else, this helps reduce over-reliance on just one type of ammo, such as 10 mm rounds or fusion cells, as ammo is a bit scarcer and more expensive without the right perks.
* TakeAThirdOption: It's possible to get the moral end to "Hole in the Wall" by curing Austin ''and'' not contracting the disease. The first is to not let ''any'' mole rats hit the player or companions. The second is to use a certain {{Good Bad Bug}}.
* TakeYourTime: Zigzagged:
** Played straight with some missions, especially story-related ones. If you want to explore Boston, go right ahead. No need to go to Diamond City right after leaving Vault 111 if you decide you'd rather explore first.
** Averted with some missions, usually ones relating to a kidnapping or a "Defend a settlement" quest. Though you get quite a bit of time to respond, if you take too long the quest will fail, and in the case of a "defend the settlement" quest, your generators and turrets will be destroyed and need repairs when you revisit it.
* TakingYouWithMe:
** Super Mutant Suiciders attempt this, rushing you and spiking their mini-nuke if you fail to kill them or at least cripple their right arm in time.
** Sentry bots and any robot with destroyed arms will also attempt this if you're too close to them when they die. They usually explode upon death, making them tougher to fight for melee-based characters.
* TalkingIsAFreeAction: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLfIC9njdfU Not anymore!]]
* ATasteOfPower: Helping out the Minutemen early on gets you a suit of power armor and a matching minigun at nearly the beginning of the game... but its fuel and bullets limit how crazy you can go with these toys and you'll soon be back to hoofing it with scavenged gear shortly thereafter.
** Because weapons no longer degrade or suffer from penalties caused by lack of skills, you can use even the most ludicrously overpowered weapons as soon as you find them. In addition to the mini gun given to the player early in the game, you can find a Fat Man and a mini nuke in a junkyard a short stroll from Sanctuary Hills.
* TemptingFate: In the ''Boston Bugle'' office, you can find an article extolling the possibility of the Boston baseball team winning the first World Series in [[HistoricalInJoke 159 years]], which is to be played on October 23rd, 2077. The reporter finishes their piece with this HarsherInHindsight message:
--> ''"But on Saturday, October 23rd, 2077, the only thing that could snatch away victory is an act of God, or [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt some obscene calamity of man]]. [[CallForward Tomorrow my friends, the unthinkable will finally come to pass]]. [[{{Irony}} And life in Boston will never be the same again]]."''
* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill:
** The Big Boy is a unique Fat Man launcher which fires two mini nukes at the cost of one. And if you combine it with the MIRV mod, the Big Boy MIRV fires '''[[UpToEleven 12]]''' [[MacrossMissileMassacre nukes at once]], it is in doubt if anything can survive that.
** Legendary enemies have a trick where they return to full health stronger if they are reduced to below 50% health. An exception, however, is if you hit them once with such force that it's instantly lethal, which overrides the regeneration.
** If you have lots of turrets in your settlement, along with well armed settlers residing there, anything stupid enough to attack it will be subjected to this.
* TheyWalkAmongUs: Institute Synths started off clunky and plastic, but the latest model of synth, the Gen-3, are now so sophisticated they are nearly indistinguishable from humans, leading to a Massachusetts full of paranoia about who's real and who's a synth.
* ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman: Some perks have only very specific uses but you'll be damned glad you have them when you do. For (an almost literal) example, Aquaboy/girl, which makes you immune to the radiation of swimming in the water and able to breathe underwater. Suddenly rivers are no longer a deadly barrier but a viable avenue of approach.
* ThisIsADrill: the Railway Rifle's bayonet mod is a circular drill-bit that attaches over the barrel.
* ThisIsGonnaSuck:
** The very first trailer for the game uses the same "Pan out from the TV to a blasted hellscape of a 1950's style house". What theme song do they use? "It's All Over (But the Crying)" by the Ink Spots. Followed by a montage of all the overpowered enemies and [=NPCs=] that make the Capital Wasteland look like a black-and-white family picnic.
** During gameplay, higher level enemies can also invoke this when you're still underpowered, such as if you run into someone wearing power armor, enemies with a skull by their name, or deathclaws. Many human enemies also have grenades, and will use them liberally to prevent you from camping in one spot. And given the opportunity, some of them will also attempt to flank you, hitting you from behind while you're focused on their buddies.
** Getting ambushed from behind or one of your flanks can also do this. Ghouls tend to make liberal use of this, with some sneaking around you to attack from behind. The fact that they can lunge at you can make it worse for really unprepared players.
* ThoseWackyNazis: After a brief respite in ''Fallout 3'', where they were somewhat reasonable in their approach, the Brotherhood of Steel is back to this trope in full force. It's even lampshaded heavily, with about half of the Brotherhood's non-quest dialogue and NPC conversations being dedicated to how much contempt they have for the [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure sane approach]] of Elder Lyons and the other half dedicated to how much they're looking forward to brutally murdering any member of the inferior races that they can get their hands on.
* ThrowDownTheBomblet: Grenades are back. Notably, they no longer require you to switch away from your gun to throw them, and can be tossed as secondary weapons like in other shooters. Expect your enemies (and companions, if you make the mistake of putting some grenades in their inventory) to toss them with reckless abandon.
* TomatoInTheMirror: One of the many synth-phobic characters eventually finds out that they are in fact a synth themselves. [[spoiler:It's Paladin Danse of the Brotherhood of Steel, as you learn during the quest ''Blind Betrayal'']].
* TookALevelInBadass: Almost all of the old enemies from ''Fallout 3'' are TERRIFYING now.
** The basic Radscorpion is almost the size of a Giant Radscorpion, is about as strong, fast, and tough as one, and to top it off, it can also tunnel to reach you!
** Mirelurks are closer to the creature from ''Alien'', complete with Dagon-esque queens.
** Molerats are now pack hunters with tunneling abilities, making escape from them near-impossible.
** Sentry bots are twice the size and armed with missiles and a gatling gun, like an [[Franchise/{{Robocop}} ED-209]] on steroids. They will rush towards you if you try to flee. Also, they now explode like a mini-nuke on death.
** Protectrons were the weakest robot enemy in the previous games. Now they're tougher than most human enemies and pack a mean punch.
** Feral ghouls, while not tougher, are a hell of a lot more dangerous because they are almost always in huge packs and have unpredictable patterns of attack.
** All the animal mutant enemies have glowing variants. This includes everything from the lowly radroach to freaking ''deathclaws''.
** Raiders now have the know-how to construct their own power armor (albeit still a crude and improvised version), and thanks to the new system, can loot junk from fallen enemies. Given the right circumstances, they can even ''steal your own power armor and use it against you'' if you ever decide to exit your suit and not take the fusion core out.
** On a non-hostile note, the Brotherhood of Steel here in this game obviously have taken many levels in badassery after the events of ''Broken Steel'' now that they have access to their own personal fleet of Vertibirds and an ''airship''.
* TooAwesomeToUse:
** Power armor now turns you into a walking tank that can shrug off pretty much anything, but it comes with a high price. You can only carry the enormously heavy armor pieces with you and need a power armor station to swap them out and repair them. You must also climb into the armor to use it, you can't craft while wearing it, and now you need fusion cores to power it, which are rare and run out relatively quickly. Your days of strolling through the wastelands indefinitely in your powered armor are behind you now. The suit is still very useful against bosses and in particularly difficult dungeons, however, so it is more of a matter of conservation. Also, running in the suit is a terrible idea, because it drains the aforementioned fusion cores faster.
** Jet packs are an amazing addition to power armor which allow you to move around the city and get a serious edge in combat by repositioning quickly. They also suck away your action points in seconds and chew through fusion cores at an alarming rate.
** Rank three of the Nuclear Physicist perk allows you to eject fusion cores creating a timed small nuclear explosion, allowing you to clear out a lot of hostiles. Unless your fusion core is all but spent or you have ones to spare though, this is rarely worth the cost.
** The Mysterious Serum gives you +5 Strength (the next best buff item only gives a +3), an enormous +50 Damage Resistance, and it causes you to lose radiation for 3600 seconds. It's only possible to find it during a single quest in the game and you'll never find more than eight vials. Though you can get an unlimited supply (one vial at a time, and you can only get a new vial after having used your current one) depending on your choice at the end of the quest.
*** The Mysterious Serum Effect's duration stacks, meaning that if you are planing a marathon session, head to the unlimited supply and immediately use the ones you get, then get a new one and use that. Rinse and repeat.
** The homing beacon is essentially a fat man in grenade form, allowing the player to call down nuclear strikes without hefting thirty pounds of catapult around. You get three.
** The Fat Man can fall into this trope if you don't have a good stock of mini-nukes to use. Players may then also forget to bring it with them due to not wanting to lug that heavy weapon around, making it a situational weapon for a guaranteed boss fight instead, such as the Minutemen quest to retake the Castle from mirelurks.
* TooDumbToLive:
** During the pre-war rush segment, you encounter a neighbor who is [[SkewedPriorities preoccupied]] in packing up his luggage instead of running directly to the Vault, despite the fact that the bombs will fall any second. ''The player'' can also be this if they take too long dallying instead of getting to the shelter in time, leading to a NonStandardGameOver.
** Irish Pride Industries shipyard is home to a mirelurk nest. There is a repeating announcement on loudspeaker recorded by a guy named Rory telling the mirelurks that he loves them. Inside the boat is a computer terminal with log entries from Rory about how he's raising orphaned mirelurk hatchlings, including how they're becoming increasingly violent and his attempts to train them through ThePowerOfLove. Underneath the boat in drydock you'll find the horde of mirelurks with their eggs and hatchlings, along with Rory's decomposing remains.
---> '''Nick Valentine:''' Bet this guy wished he'd kept birds instead.
** There's a man near the Castle who sells "Charge Cards" that will supposedly bypass the need to spend caps when purchasing any goods from a vendor in the Commonwealth. Naturally, they do not. If the con weren't fairly apparent from the start, he's stupid enough to call you a "retard" straight to your face whether or not you accept his offer, which completely gives away his cover as a scammer, and which in the wasteland world is just asking for a bullet to the face. Furthermore, he's armed with a weak pipe gun and wearing only basic clothing in a region which has Super Mutants, raiders, and mirelurks. He's actually scripted as "[[InvulnerableCivilians essential]]" until you've spoken with him to make sure he lives long enough. For added {{laser guided karm|a}}ic {{Irony}}, if you have a Junk Jet launcher with you, you can kill him with his own Charge Card if you do accept his offer. The irony continues to drive the point home even further when speaking to him the first time eventually results in him saying, "Most conversations are like 'Hello' and then someone gets stabbed in the liver"[[note]]If you have visited Goodneighbor the first time, you'll quickly find out why this is HilariousInHindsight in-universe[[/note]]. This guy surely deserves a Darwin Award for his blatant stupidity.
** A ''lot'' of Raiders fall under this category, but a special mention must be made of the ones who try to shake the player down for caps to cross a bridge. They can be armed with pipe guns and wearing scrapped together armor and they player can be in full PowerArmor and aiming a Gatling Laser straight at them and they'll still try to threaten the player for caps.
* TookALevelInJerkass: After the death of the Lyons, the East Coast Brotherhood of Steel under the guidance of Elder Maxson has gone back to their roots of preserving technology over protecting the people, which the current members now see as wasteful. They have also doubled-down on their FantasticRacism against mutants and synths. It's also implied that the Capital Wasteland has become something of a feudal domain for the Brotherhood.
* TooMuchInformation: Actual unsolicited dialogue to the player from one of the Diamond City guards: ''"Yeah, it's true. I got ShotInTheAss last year. Long story."''
* ToServeMan: [[spoiler:"Handy Eats" is a diner staffed by robots. However, due to a programming error, the robots make the classic misinterpretation of the trope name. When asked about the bodies, the waiter robot refers to them as "satisfied customers" who "never leave".]]
** [[spoiler:A mod allows you to see the actual text of the responses, rather than just 'sarcastic', 'sympathetic' or whatever. Of the four responses to 'How can we serve you? Char-broiled? Diced? Mashed?', one is 'I'm not hungry after all', and all three of the others are 'Wait, what?']]
* TownWithADarkSecret: With concrete walls and turrets on the outside and overly-friendly people on the inside, it's a given that there's something really up with the people of Covenant. [[spoiler: They've been sizing up people passing by so they can kidnap them and perform gruesome tests to see if they're synths. Most good-hearted party members will agree that defeating the callous scientist in charge of this is a good thing, but that pisses off everyone in Covenant and you have to clear it out by force afterwards to resettle it. As a final twist, if the girl you rescue, Amelia Stockton, dies, you find a synth component on her body...]]
** [[spoiler:Amelia's father; Old Man Stockton is a prominent Railroad member. Amelia is a freed synth he adopted as his own daughter after she had her memory and appearance altered, if the player is a Railroad member and has completed certain missions, he will confirm it if asked.]]
* TraumaCongaLine: As if experiencing the nuclear destruction of the world wasn't traumatic enough, you also have to witness the murder of your spouse, the abduction of your son, without being able to do anything to stop it.
* TragicKeepsake: The player character can take [[spoiler: their dead spouse's wedding ring]] after they escape the cryo pod. Of course, there's nothing stopping you from hocking it off to the first merchant you find.
* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: [[spoiler:The launch trailer's narration is actually one of the ending narrations.]]
* TraumaInn: Like some of the previous games, sleeping in any bed will heal you to full HP and restores any crippled limbs. Still, this will not remove radiation.
* TrickBoss: The fight against Gristle and his raiders in Concord. Gristle ''is'' tougher than a normal raider, but still goes down quickly, especially if you turn your newfound minigun on him. The Deathclaw that appears after that, however, is the true boss.
* TroubledProduction: An {{In Universe}} example. You discover that Hubris Comics was trying to make the Silver Shroud radio serials into a successful TV show. Unfortunately, it was rife with infighting, drama, and backroom passions - which proved to be all for naught as the nuclear apocalypse put said show and its creators off the air permanently.
* TurnsRed: All [[BossInMookClothing Legendary Enemies]] have the ability to mutate at half health, making them stronger, more durable, and it also replenishes their health back to full.
* TyrantTakesTheHelm: The Sole Survivor can do this with the Institute, depending on their dialogue choices.
** It starts with members of the bio-sciences division sealing themselves away along with all the food in protest of Father's decision to name the player as his successor. You can infiltrate them and act like a ReasonableAuthorityFigure and talk them into giving you a chance as the new head of the Institute. Then after they agree to your terms and stand down, you can immediately order their execution as punishment.
** Meanwhile, you can be an abusive JerkAss to every department head, field operative, and named underling who answers to you.
** And to top it off, when Father asks you to record an announcement of the Institute's intentions to the Commonwealth, you can really play up the EvilOverlord bit. You can deliver an epic NewEraSpeech that the Institute is here and the master of everyone, cares nothing for the pathetic little lives of people on the surface, and will annihilate anyone who has a problem with it.
** After all this you can still side with one of the other factions and blow up the Institute, making you the ultimate BadBoss.
* UnbreakableWeapons: Played straight due to the removal of the repair system featured in ''3'' and ''New Vegas''; weapons and regular armor no longer degrade even after long periods of extensive use and wear. The only thing suffering from degradation is Power Armor.
* UnexpectedGenreChange: In the ''Far Harbor'' DLC, the quest to obtain [[spoiler: [=DiMA's=] stored memories]] has you go InsideAComputerSystem and hack into the files using digital bugs, blocks, and turrets in a sequence that looks like a cross between ''Film/{{Tron}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}''.
* UnfazedEveryman: The protagonist isn't terribly surprised by what the wasteland has to offer. They already fought in the Sino-American War, so they're prepared for future combat. {{Subverted}} all to hell by the part until meeting Codsworth where the protagonist acts like they're suffering a horrible nightmare - which is actually an option of dialogue to give the robot.
* UselessUsefulSpell: Like ''Fallout 3'' before it, some of ''Fallout 4's'' perks aren't as enticing to take as they may seem.
** V.A.N.S. uses VATS to display a path that's closest to your quest objective. You really don't need a perk to show a path to your objective when you can set a waypoint.
** Toughness gives 10 points of Ballistic Defense per rank, and its sister perk Refractor gives an equal amount of Energy Defense. By the time you can max out either perk, you likely have armor that averages around 350 in both categories, so that extra 50 doesn't have much of an effect.
** Lead Belly reduces the radiation you suffer from eating and drinking, nullifying it completely at rank 3. Food and water have minimal radiation to begin with, and by cooking it you can completely eliminate the radiation drawback in addition to making it even more effective. That said, it's still somewhat useful for items that can't be cooked, like pre-war foodstuffs and Nuka-Cola.
** Rad Resistant adds 10 points of Radiation Resistance each rank, totaling 30. If you're in an area where radiation poisoning is an actual concern, Hazmat Suits and Power Armor will reduce ambient radiation to almost nothing, and Rad-X provides better temporary defense.
** Cannibal allows you to eat corpses to restore a portion of lost health, but you have plenty of healing options in Stimpacks and cooked food.
** The Ghoulish perks causes you to regenerate health at a rate determined by how much you've been irradiated. Since radiation reduces max health, there's no point in being able to regenerate quickly if you can only do so to half or less of your maximum.
** The fourth rank of Lockpick prevents your bobby pins from breaking, and the fourth rank of Hacker keeps you from being shut out of terminals if you fail to hack them successfully. Bobby pins are so cheap and plentiful that you will almost always find more than you break, and you can avoid a terminal lockout simply by exiting and reentering to reset it. For that matter, both skills are unnecessary for story progression, only allowing you to bypass certain obstacles or access rooms with decent loot.
* TheUsualAdversaries: While different factions have different enemies, ''no one'' likes the Raiders.
* VehicularTurnabout:
** If you're quick and sneaky enough, you can pickpocket the fusion core from an active enemy power armor, kill the operator after they bail out of the powerless armor, reinstall the core, and then attack their allies in that armor. It's also a way to acquire the base frame, which otherwise is mangled beyond salvage if you have to kill the operator the direct way.
** For the same reason, don't ever leave fusion cores in your armor. Friendly and enemy [=NPCs=] can and will appropriate it for their own use if given the opportunity, though at least settlers can be told to get out.
** Near the end of the Railroad's main quest, [[spoiler:after massacring the Brotherhood of Steel members (including NiceGirl Scribe Haylen) inside the Cambridge Police Station, Tinker Tom will hijack a Brotherhood Vertibird to get you and Deacon aboard the ''[[CoolAirship Prydwen]]'' (the Brotherhood's mobile HQ). After the end of the main quest, the Vertibird can be summoned with a signal grenade to fly you to anywhere in the Commonwealth. If you destroy the Brotherhood as the Minutemen, they'll manage to salvage a Vertibird for transport purposes as well]].
* VendorTrash: Subverted -- pretty much every seemingly useless item can be broken down for crafting components. Around a quarter of the time you'll spend in any given location is picking the entire place clean of every last bit of junk.
* VideoGameCaringPotential: The game ''runs'' on this. While you can be a JerkassHero if you work at it, it's much easier to run in a more positive direction. From helping the Minutemen build and protect settlements, to [[spoiler: retrieving a child's final message to her toymaker (and now ghoulified) father]], to bucking up the spirits of your companions and even [[spoiler: the lonely ghoul Vault-Tec salesman]], there are chances to help and protect people everywhere across the Commonwealth.
* VideoGameCrueltyPotential: The potential for this is severely [[DownplayedTrope downplayed]] compared to previous games in the series. You can be something of an AntiHero if you choose, stealing stuff and doing whatever it takes to find your son, but you can't really play a full-on villain and a lot of innocents are [[InvulnerableCivilians essential [=NPCs=]]]. This can lead to some severe {{Railroading}} as the game can break down and be physically unable to cope if you attempt to play a [[AxeCrazy murdering]] [[ComedicSociopathy psycho]], as [[http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/11/13/fallout-4-killing-everyone/ one journalist]] from Rock Paper Shotgun [[http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/11/16/fallout-4-killer/ found out]] to his [[http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/11/18/fallout-4-bastard/ detriment]].
** That’s not to say there are no opportunities to be a complete asshole. For starters, pretty much everyone aboard the ‘’Prydwen’’, every member of the Railroad and everyone in the Institute is non-essential, meaning you can have lots of fun going on a murderous rampage. There’s a quest where you have the opportunity to sell a ghoul child to some slavers, or if you refuse, give up their entire family to them. In one Diamond City quest, you can ambush a chem deal, and then murder your partners to take all the chems and money for yourself. And then, of course, [[spoiler: you can join the Institute and announce to the Commonwealth you’re their new overlords and that their pitiful lives are meaningless. If you side against them, you have to blow them up, and you can choose to not sound the evacuation alert so that all the civilians and children living there get blown up with their home]].
* VideoGameCrueltyPunishment: Most of your companions will dislike or hate villainous actions, especially committing wanton murder. The only standouts are Dogmeat, who is [[CanineCompanion a dog]] and doesn't know better (so he loves you no matter what you do), [[TokenHeroicOrc Strong]], who loves violence, and the sociopathic X6-88. Even the last two have points where they'll disapprove for reasons [[EvenEvilHasStandards moral]] or [[PragmaticVillainy practical]]. Continuing to act like an ass or a psycho killer while they're travelling with you will cause them to dislike you and eventually [[LostForever leave you, never to return]].
* VideoGamePerversityPotential:
** Let's start with the fact that when you take a dead enemy's gear, that can include their clothing- so you could leave a trail of underwear-clad corpses across Boston and its environs. There's also Cait, who gives a "like" reaction to your Survivor fast-travelling from location to location while wearing no clothing. And, of course, there are nude mods.
** Although it's [[TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything usually impossible]] to get your Companion down to just underwear (the game won't let you unequip what they're wearing, just equip something new), there's currently a glitch that lets you do it to at least one on [=PS4=].
* ViolenceIsTheOnlyOption: Especially compared to the previous games, where there were almost always non-violent solutions. There are a few exceptions, but a large number of the game's quests require you to kill people. In particular, any quest to help out a settlement in trouble usually boils down to "go to the Raider/Super Mutant base and kill everyone and everything there".
** No matter what dialogue options you say to [[spoiler: Kellogg]], you will always end up fighting him in the end.
** Mostly played straight, but there are situations where no one has to get killed, depending on how you answer, such as the standoff between Trudy and Wolfgang. Though killing one or the other is much easier, you can find a peaceful resolution. Keeping both alive allows you to buy and trade with both as well, as a small reward for not blowing them away.
* WakeUpCallBoss: After clearing the raiders and Gristle at Concord with your PoweredArmor and [[GatlingGood Minigun]], a huge Deathclaw appears out of nowhere. [[LightningBruiser This thing can kill you within a few hits, soak up loads of damage from your Minigun, moves quickly, and even actively dodges your bullets!]]
* WeakTurretGun: Early on, hostile turrets are just a nuisance. Late game turrets are very dangerous however. You can also build your own to defend your settlements, and if you capture the Castle early, they actually do quite a good job at killing the surviving Mirelurks.
* WeirdWeather: The weather system (which mostly simulates normal weather) will sometimes subject the player to radiation storms, which randomly cause radiation poisoning while they're outside.
* WellIntentionedExtremist: the Director of [[spoiler: The Cambridge Polymer Labs]]. When the bombs fell he [[spoiler: locked everyone inside, seeking to protect them both from the radiation and from the knowledge that the world had ended and everyone they knew and loved was probably dead. After learning that he and his team would be shot if they tried to get aid or evacuation on their own, and that they would only otherwise be extracted if they were of military significance, he told everyone they were on mandatory overtime until they completed their work, to keep them safe away from the devastation and hopefully get them to complete the power armor coating that would make them worth rescuing by the military.]]
* WetwareBody / WetwareCPU: It's unclear what the breakdown of organic to inorganic parts in third generation synths is, but they look to be a mix of both. [[spoiler: Paladin Danse]] is outed by DNA records, implying that they have actual flesh and blood; Father confirms this inside the Institute, stating that Gen 3s were based on [[spoiler: Shaun's pre-War and thus unmutated]] DNA. However, they don't look to be entirely organic, as they exhibit some non-human abilities. For example, synths hidden among the general population can be detected either with the Awareness perk because of their telltale energy resistance, which is much higher than a normal human's, or if they randomly start acting paranoid (as if they're being attacked).
* WhatMeasureIsAMook:
** Codsworth goes a long way to humanizing the previously soulless and hostile robots encountered in other games. It seems, 210 years earlier, robots really were good friends of mankind.
** Almost all of the raiders you encounter are led by a named boss. They also have a lot more varied dialogue and even hold conversations when you're not detected. There's a good number of journal entries, too, which continue to humanize the enemies you fight. [[DevelopersForesight The various raider bosses even have their own power struggles]]; kill the raiders in the Federal Ration Stockpile and when you come to murder the boss of a rival gang, you'll find how he hoped to use the food in there to expand his influence and take on one of [[AlwaysABiggerFish more fearsome bosses]]. What also helps is that most of them have refrained from decorating their hideouts with the corpses of their victims.
** Super Mutants also like to chat with each other when you're not shooting them apart. Unlike the Mutants in the Capital Wasteland, they seem to be capable of reason, even if they still are usually idiots. Strong also gives us further insight into the life of the average super mutant.
** Travel south along one of the railroad tracks, and you'll come across a raider kneeling on the ground. As soon as they notice you, they'll attack, and you're forced to defend yourself. But when you approach to loot the body, you realize what they were doing: [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone grieving over a body dumped in a shallow grave]].
** The [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot Viking ghoul raiders]] who inhabit the ''FMS Northern Star'' are also unique from other raiders by the fact that they just want to be left alone. Translating their Norwegian dialogue reveals that they also long to return to their distant, likely irradiated homeland.
* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: A major theme of ''Fallout 4'' is you determining what qualifies as human or sentient, and the alliances you make will narrow based on your thoughts and choices. Both the Brotherhood of Steel and the Institute view synths as below human, with the former calling for their destruction, and the latter treating them as property despite the synths having potential sapience. The Railroad takes after The Underground Railroad and is dedicated to the liberation and equality of synths. By the time you have met any of the three factions, you have likely made a friend or enemy of different synth characters.
** Ghouls, supermutants, and robots are also under the thumb of this theme, but to a lesser degree to synths.
* WhatTheHellHero: Things you do and how you react in a situation can affect how other [=NPCs=] will react to you.
** Some minor stuff include stealing while accompanied by an NPC whose moral compass leans towards the good side, or refusing to help when asked. Or agreeing to help for the more AntiHero-oriented characters. And while Strong dislikes you getting into power armor, Danse likes it.
** Major incidents include murdering faction [=NPCs=]. Killing a lot of unnamed ones, or a named one, will immediately cause that faction to be hostile towards you, including companions belonging to that faction.
** Killing a settler will often turn the rest of the settlement against you. They may let it slide if you accidentally kill one during a firefight with hostile [=NPCs=]. But if you kill one in cold blood, the other settlers will quickly turn hostile, forcing you to kill them as well. This becomes problematic when a settlement is invaded by a synth, and you can't figure out which one of them is the synth.
** Father will have this reaction to you if you turn against the Institute. Even if you try to apologize as you prepare to blow their base, he tries to guilt trip you no matter how you respond.
* WholePlotReference: The town of Covenant serves a very similar role as Andale in ''Fallout 3'' and Hackdirt in ''The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion'', being a small settlement that is pretty obviously a TownWithADarkSecret and [[spoiler:putting you in a situation where you're likely to be forced to kill the entire town if making good[=/=]moral decisions]].
* WhyIsntItAttacking: You can choose to return the Deathclaw Egg obtained in the Museum of Witchcraft to its nest. When you get there, a high-level Deathclaw will pop up in front of you... and leave you alone, knowing that you're returning its egg, allowing you to get the nearby Deathclaw Gauntlet. [[MamaBear If you attempt to steal the egg back, however]]...
* WickedCultured: Somewhat implied with the Institute. [[spoiler: You eventually find out they're the ones broadcasting the classical music station.]]
* WitchHunt: Many settlements and organizations, up to and including the Brotherhood of Steel, are conducting witch hunts for "synths", androids who look and act human. For bonus points, this witch hunt just so happens to be in Massachusetts, home of the infamous [[SalemIsWitchCountry Salem Witch Trials.]]
* TheWorfEffect:
** In the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yuo7AuDGNN8 S.]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw21X2jKwCM P.]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paYU1neP3xM E.]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X95lZ56ddj4 C.]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6yt-43Vp1M I.]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ_okO2tLN0 A.]][[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bke9wvob8Ls L.]] video series, Vault Boy is a badass who gets his ass handed to him twice per episode. This is usually to explain (A) how dangerous having a DumpStat can be in certain situations, and (B) how your enemies (or allies, or even literal corpses) can beat the crap out of you if you fail a skill check.
** During your search for Kellogg, you'll find the remains of a curb-stomped [[LightningBruiser Assaultron]]. If you've had the pleasure of fighting one of those before, this should be a dead giveaway that this man means business.
** Later in the main questline you have to track down and kill an Institute Courser. You'll eventually find him making short work of dozens of Gunners, which are essentially better-equipped raiders.
** When visiting the Mahkra Fishpacking facility the first time, you'll notice an unusually large amount of Raider corpses laid both outside and inside the plant. Investigating the facility further inside reveals that a large group of Synths have invaded the place and are responsible for their deaths. Eventually, they turn their attention to you and start trying to kill you for presumably interfering with their operations, unless you've allied yourself with the Institute. Hopefully you don't try to explore this place until you're at a sufficiently high level because these Synths are armed well enough to quickly kill a low-level PC at a moment's notice.
* WorthlessTreasureTwist: The Treasure of Jamaica Plains is [[spoiler:a pre-war time capsule containing mostly junk and a World Series bat that may occasionally send those it hits flying]].
* WoundedGazelleGambit: When you approach Hardware Town for the first time, a settler will be outside screaming for someone to help. She will then lead you into the building, where her kidnapped friend is being held. [[spoiler:Once you go into the back areas however, it turns out to be a trap, and a few raiders attack you. You can avert the trope by killing the settler first, or purposely waiting outside for a long time, after which one of the raiders will kill her for failing to bait you inside. You can even pacify her with Intimidation rank 3 perk and use her to fight against the raiders.]]
* WrenchWhack: The Pipe Wrench is available as a melee weapon, there is even a unique one, Big Jim.
* WretchedHive: Goodneighbor is a town filled with the dregs and rejects of the Commonwealth, meaning either ghouls or criminals. As such, the city is a crime-riddled hellhole run by a mayor with limited interest in exerting overt authority, though he does appreciate efforts in getting rid of the worst of the lot.
* YouAreInCommandNow:
** Preston Garvey promotes you to general if you promise to help him rebuild the Minutemen.
** [[spoiler: Father names you as the next director of the Institute if you side with them. This title carries over after the story is completed.]]
* YouLoseAtZeroTrust: If your affinity with a companion drops too low, they will voice their concern. If it continues to drop, they will leave you for good unless you can pass a difficult speech check. If you convince them to stay, but continue to lower their affinity, you won't be able to convince them to stay again: they'll leave and not look back.
* YourHeadAsplode: Do enough damage to a target's head (or if Bloody Mess triggers) and it pops like a blood-filled melon.
* YourCheatingHeart: You can literally do this to a companion who you have a romantic relationship with, and not just by starting relationships with other companions. One quest involves asking an attractive singer in a seedy bar for information about a missing person. With a high enough level in charisma, you can flirt and go on a date with the singer which [[FadeToBlack fades out]] and then fades back in to the date ending in her bedroom. If your current companion is romantically involved with you, you get an onscreen message that they "hated" what you did. If you've completed the quest line with them and have them as a permanent companion, they don't even mention about how you just cheated on them and they're still completely in love with you.
** Remember though that this is about the dialogue only (and the associated perk which you cannot lose). You can and will lose affection and it can downgrade you to a lower level where you won't get the ''Lover's Embrace'' bonus anymore (which is basically the only way to find out about it). Normally you will be restored to lover level soon after, though, since travelling alone gives "good points", so you may also notice that your lover has broken up with you when s/he initiates a dialogue about getting back together like before.
* ZergRush:
** Mole Rats. What appears to be a single mole rat will call on a horde to rush the player once said mole rat is alerted or killed.
** Feral Ghouls now act like this. They initially "play dead", but as soon as one notices you (or is killed), the entire "horde" will wake up and then run straight for you.
** Mirelurks who don't have ranged attacks will attempt this on you as well.
