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Recap / Survivalist

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The game begins with a short Wall of Text explaining who Joe Wheeler is and what he was doing. It's been exactly 365 days After the End and his bunker has run out of food completely. He emerges in search of food, and upon finding it, decides to follow an SOS that his radio caught in the bunker. In the nearby town of Dejado, he encounters Alice Ivers, whose sister was bitten by a Red-Strain infected and locked herself near the water tower. Joe kills his sister through the fence and gets the key, freeing Alice from the car park.

Guzzling some water, she begs Joe to help her get to the pharmacy in nearby town Sienna. It's there they meet Isham Seely, who is extremely mistrustful of them. Alice manages to beg him to let her have the insulin that's left in his pharmacy for her type-1 Diabetes. Disappointed by the meager supply, Alice laments the fact that her sister died for nothing. Isham then offers to guide the duo to the nearby gun store to stock up on ammo and weapons.

Once fully armed and dangerous, Joe, Alice and Isham discuss future plans, before the latter two eventually agree that shacking up with Joe is the best idea. Joe reluctantly agrees, and sets out for the shanty-town Fort Kohai while Isham works on gathering wood and building defenses.

After becoming good enough friends and advancing the questlines, Isham will ask Joe to come help him look for an old friend of his - Charley - that had left a long time ago in search of soldiers that had been investigating nearby areas. Instead, they find a few humvees, a brain scanner, and numerous red-strain infected wearing hazmat suits. Isham seemingly gives up any hope of finding Charley.

After gaining a good enough reputation in Fort Kohai, Ida Marchbanks employs Joe's group to search for her missing husband in the overrun town to the southwest. Finding some evidence that he was there, she concludes that Los Ceros, the most powerful group in the wasteland, has kidnapped him.

Wyatt Ingalls, the leader of Fort Kohai, employs Joe's group once more to go meet Los Ceros and gather information under the guise of being a trader. Eventually, this leads to Joe's group aiding one of two siblings in their endeavors to get into the inner circle of Los Ceros. Owing Joe's group a favor, they go ahead and ask around about Lou Marchbanks, only to find out that he is in fact being held there.

Fort Kohai doesn't take this news very well. Some people - namely Bud Anderson - want to use the element of surprise to mount a rescue mission while they can. Others - like Wyatt - want to try and negotiate with Los Ceros to get Lou back. It is at that point an election is held.

Depending on how the election goes, Joe and company will either have to scout out the rear end of Los Ceros' fortress, resulting in Chris Kane - Fort Kohai's best soldier - getting sniped. If Wyatt remains the leader, he will call for a meeting in neutral territory with Felipe Espinoso's - the leader of Los Ceros - right-hand man. They overtly deny that they have anyone held captive, despite Wyatt clearly having none of it. Before they can discuss anything further, however, Wyatt is shot in the head by someone off in the distance with a sniper (Who was later revealed to be Ida Marchbanks, who was trying to set off a war, believing that they needed to do more than talking to save Lou.)

After either of these scenarios, the sibling Joe's group helped get into Los Ceros is executed and the surviving sibling runs to warn Joe about Los Ceros' impending attack.

Joe's group, in conjunction with any other shanty towns involved, fight off the attacking forces, leaving Los Ceros crippled. At that point, they lead a full-on assault that results in a majority of Los Ceros' defenders dead. The invasion soon breaks through to Felipe's house, at which point he surrenders and tries to tell Joe that they're not so different Joe delivers a Shut Up, Hannibal! in response, demanding to know where Lou is. Felipe tries to explain that the reason they held him was because he acted feral, as if he were infected, before they captured him. Lou reverted back to talking calmly when locked up, but regressed back to disturbingly primal behavior whenever meat was waved around in front of him.

Defeated, Felipe gives Joe and co. the keys to Lou's cell, at which point Lou eagerly comes back to Fort Kohai.

Ida is overjoyed to have her husband back, but he seems more aggressive as the conversation goes by... until he turns feral, just as Felipe had said. Ida is forced to put him down after kicking him off of herself, and is heartbroken.

Joe and co. head back to Los Ceros, surprised that Felipe was telling the truth. He explains that his late scouts used to report the occasional group of people in Hazmat suits going around the Southwestern area of the wasteland. Offering to come with you to investigate, Joe's group sets out to invade the compound.

At that point, it's revealed that FEMA has still been operating in the wasteland all this time, creating new antigens to fight the infection. Clara Allison, their leader, surrenders and reveals they had been kidnapping people forcibly and using them for experimentation, which has generally resulted in the infection becoming stronger.

Amongst the people who were kidnapped is Charley, whom Isham is overjoyed to see again... before he's forced to put her down when she lunges at him savagely.

Joe asks about how the infected are able to pretend to be people, to which Clara answers that they had assumed that the latest attempt at an antigen for the White-Strain infection had worked... people were regaining their ability to speak, and talk coherently, on top of even not lunging at other people like they'd used to. Subject 66-F in particular was really showing signs of improvement.

And then eventually, 66-F convinced them that she was completely fine... enough so to be allowed out of her cage. She soon freed the other "cured" people, at which point they escaped, littering the wasteland with many living infected.

Joe's group suggests hunting down the Living Infected and putting them down, which prompts Clara to note their one identifying trait: a need for insulin.

Alice promptly runs away, leaving the group.

After that bit of drama is settled, Joe demands that Clara stop kidnapping people from the wasteland. She retorts that he has no right to say what she does is wrong. Not only because he's a sociopath, but because his company, Wheeler Capital Management, caused the company that manufactured the virus by accident - Erekto-Tec - to go bankrupt, which allowed those who were already infected to go home without any proper screening. After dismissing that statement, Joe delivers his demand once more. Clara offers to leave anyone under his leadership alone if they leave FEMA and their operations alone. Depending on Joe's choice, FEMA is either eliminated from the Wastes or operates without interference from Joe's group.

Joe, still shocked by Alice's true identity, talks to Isham, confused because Alice 'never seemed malicious'. Isham tries to convince Joe that Alice was only trying to get close to him so that she could manipulate him into commiting violence on her behalf, but Joe defends Alice's actions, and declares that he will go to Vancouver to find her. Isham insists on going with Joe, and the two leave the desert together to an uncertain future.


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