The 10 HARDEST Moral Decisions in Fallout Games

Like a lot of the decisions we’re going to mention, it’s important to remember that on a player's first playthrough, they can’t always be sure what the outcome of any particular decision is going to be. This was super evident in this particular tough decision in Fallout 1’s Junktown. In this divided town, Mayor Killian Darkwater is trying to uphold peace and justice, while the fat cat casino owner Gizmo is trying to push for profit, prosperity and economic growth. You are left with the choice to kill both of them, or one of them; the latter resulting in the living leader taking control of the town. On the surface, Killian represents good, but Gizmo could have genuine benefits for the town’s economy and the player’s pocket. Who did you choose?

The White Wash

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Do two wrongs make a right? Can fire be fought with fire? Is a bird in the hand really worth an apple a day or something like that? I don’t know what I’m saying anymore. In Fallout New Vegas, after a collection of side quests, the player is presented with a problem. A community of farmers were siphoning water from the NCR to help nurture their own crops. An NCR corporal by the name of White was trying to work out where the water was going and was in turn murdered by a member of the farming community. Although the NCR is questionably evil, White (as far as we can tell) seemed like a stand up guy. After discovering the community member guilty of the murder, the player is left with a few options. All outcomes either end with a murder being covered up, a murderer running free, or a whole community losing water access. Tough choices.

Would you sacrifice the few for the many? I bet you would, you monster. Vault 34 has undergone some substantial interior damage leading to a leak in radiation that has both turned the majority of the inhabitants into ghouls and also leaked radiation into the water of nearby Sharecropper farms. After pushing through the Vault and discovering that in an unreachable and closed off section of the vault, there is still a family and vault dweller by the name of Horowitz alive, the player is left with two options: Shut down the reactor and save the Sharecropper farms, essentially writing a death sentence for the family of 3 and Horowitz. Or, reroute power to Horowitz so the family can escape but leave Sharecropper farm doomed. It’s the classic trolley problem. Walk away and doom the many, or take action and doom the few. Your call, courier.

Here is another moral quandary for you. You come to a location where the richest and most elite are squandering a much needed resource, whilst making sure that the lowest and ugliest members of society don’t get a single piece. If you help the rich and elite take the resources for themselves you’ll get yourself a nice little cut, but if you convince the elite to share their resources with the castaways you receive less for yourself. This is Tenpenny Tower in New Vegas. The tower is the resource and the ghouls are not allowed inside. The decision seems pretty straight forward, but the leader of the ghouls, Roy Phillips, seems somewhat blood thirsty. Can peaceful living really ever be achieved? …The answer is no. If you decide not to kill the Ghouls’ leader and instead negotiate peace and cooperative living between the ghouls and humans of Tenpenny Tower, in only a short few days the ghouls will murder and loot the humans, dumping their naked bodies in the basement.

In Fallout 3, the now mutated human known as Harold has grown and twisted so badly that he has become rooted to the ground and evolved into a now greatly grown tree. Although his new tree form is fantastic news for the wasteland (as he is the only living tree around), he is also suffering a great torture as he can no longer eat, sleep, or do anything except watch time pass by as slow as eternity moves. Harold begs the player to kill him, which would in turn save an innocent man from his unending torture. Others would prefer to see Harold grow further and bring the possibility of life back to the wasteland. I for one burnt Harold so fast his screams were heard all across this great nation.

One of the coolest twists in Fallout 4 came in the form of our futuristic racist, Paladin Danse. Danse hates Synths with all his core, from his eyeballs to his jingle bells he hates ‘em. Deep into the game, the player and Danse both discover that he is in fact a Synth himself. After escaping, the player must track down Danse with orders to execute him. When the player finds Danse, he all but begs us to execute him as he is disgusted by his own existence. Now sure, Danse is fairly egregious in his hate towards Synths, and he’s just kinda the worst. But, does he deserve to die? Probably not. Does he want to die? Sure. Do we euthanize our dear Danse as he requests, or convince him that there is still life to live? I don’t know, I’m not your Mom.

Who Controls New Vegas

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We’ve hardly got the time to explain the events that lead to the ending of New Vegas, so let's cut to the chase. At the end of Fallout New Vegas the player has to make the decision of who will take control of the wasteland. Almost all options have pros and cons, the main three resulting in a different speed of progression towards civilisation. Mr House being the fastest, but essentially damning the land as a dictatorship. The NCR being the centralized option, a mediocre and moderately speedy return to traditional America, but it’s also the bureaucratic and corrupt NCR, who are more NQR really. And finally, Caesar's Legion who will incredibly slowly bring the wasteland back to present day America... They are massive A**holes though! Of course there is the 4th option of independence which requires you to drive everyone out of the picture, by any means necessary … Hmmm, interesting choices.

Lily Bowen has not had a good life. Born in Vault 17, she lives till the ripe old age of 75. These were her simple years. After a raid by the Unity, she was dragged outside of the vault where she saw the sun for the first time, she was tortured and dipped in a vat of Forced Evolutionary Virus, the same virus that turned Harold into a tree. The FEV turned Lily into a night stalker, and she was forced to become an assassin for the Unity. When the player discovers Lily, she is deep in schizophrenia, the schizophrenia manifesting as a voice that tells her to do terrible and awful things. The player guides Lily to one of three options, taking her medication at an accelerated rate and forcing her to lose her final memories, those of her grandchildren which she holds dearly. Stay on her current medication quantity letting her live her current existence between the two worlds in a fog of confusion. Or, stop medication, making her go fully feral and become a ravening beast. I wish there was a 4th option where you could just give her a big cuddle and make the booboo go away.

The Pitt

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The Pitt is an incredibly interesting moral debate. At the center of their world you have Lord Asher, the man who built the Steel City into what it has become. With the use of slaves, he keeps the city's mills running in order to facilitate a safe city and environment for his wife to study their daughter Marie and find a cure to the TDC disease that has plagued the Pitt and the slaves, a disease Marie is immune to. You then have Wernher, a slave who is planning an uprising to steal “the cure” from Lord Asher and bring it back to them to study themselves - of course this is after overthrowing The Pitt and killing many. On one side, you’ve got the dodgy Wernher who omits many details: a) The cure is a human child - you don’t learn this until you’re there and ready to steal it. b) he used to be a Pitt raider. He’s a big liar. On the other side you have Asher, who is clearly trying to do something good, but he’s using slaves to do it. You know what? I think I’ll just play Peppa Pig.

At the end of Fallout 4, you are left with 4 options for the ending. Siding with The Minutemen results in the least bloodshed with you having to only eliminate The Institute. This does mean you’ll have to kill your son (who is kind of an a**hole now anyway). It is worth pointing out that The Minutemen are (for lack of a better word) very vanilla. Technologically and firepower wise, they are the Fallout equivalent of untoasted white bread. Siding with the Brotherhood of Steel, The Railroad, or The Institute results in an ending where you have to brutally murder the other two choices. This can be particularly hard if you’ve spent your time in the wasteland doing all the quests for every faction, as you now have to walk up to your old friends and shoot them right in their stupid faces. Deciding who dies, whilst also deciding who is the best to lead is not an easy decision. All I do know is, you should throw a grenade into your son's bed.