Nick Valentine is the resident private detective of Diamond City and a potential companion in Fallout 4. He happily helps the Sole Survivor in finding Shaun, and the player can return the favor by assisting the synth detective through an identity crisis.
To unlock Nick as a follower in Fallout 4, the player must complete the Unlikely Valentine quest. After finishing this quest, Nick will become a potential companion for the Sole Survivor. Raising affinity with him to a certain point will also unlock his personal quest.
Life in The Institute
Nick Valentine was created in The Institute — a unique Generation 2 prototype and one of the first synths capable of independent thought. The scientists experimented on him, loading different personalities into his system, and seeing how he would process them. Nick would eventually escape The Institute with DiMA, another Gen 2 prototype who grew to resent the scientists and their continued experimentation. By this time, however, Nick would have already taken on the memories and personality of the human Nick Valentine and, thus, could no longer recognize DiMA. In a scuffle, DiMA knocked Nick out and abandoned him.
After an undisclosed amount of time, Nick woke up and wandered the wasteland, believing himself to be the pre-war Nick Valentine. However, he later realized that he was a machine and that the memories he had belonged to a pre-war cop of the same name. The wastelanders that he met during his travels were still unaware of The Institute and its plans, so Nick was met with wariness rather than blatant hostility. Even so, they kept him at arm’s length, until Nick met a young boy named Jim in an unnamed settlement.
Jim was the first person to ever speak to Nick, and the conversation — or, more fittingly, the interrogation — lasted an hour. When the settlers saw that Nick meant no harm, they warmed up to him. The local mechanic even offered to fix him up for no charge. It’s unclear how long Nick stayed in the small settlement, but eventually, he moved on to Diamond City.
Nick Valentine — Diamond City’s Ace Detective
By the time Nick arrived at the Great Green Jewel, people were already rattled from stories of synths and The Institute, which is why he was surprised that they even let him in. Though even with the townspeople’s suspicions, Nick managed to prove his goodwill when he rescued the former mayor’s daughter — a 15-year-old girl who ran off with a caravan who’d turned out to be a band of kidnappers. He stumbled upon them by chance, and when the kidnappers tried to kill him, he threatened to self-destruct and started beeping. To which, the kidnappers ran off.
When Nick brought the young girl home, the former mayor called him a hero and gave him his own place to stay in Diamond City, even when many of the townspeople protested. Nick admits to having trouble settling in at first, but the townspeople eventually got used to his presence. He started off by taking the maintenance jobs that nobody wanted but was later approached for missing persons cases. He’d garnered quite the reputation for finding people, after all.
Before long, people started seeing Nick as a skilled detective rather than a suspicious synth. He tells the Sole Survivor that he received so many missing persons cases that the townspeople stopped asking him to fix things altogether. Thus, Valentine’s Detective Agency was born.
Cracking Cases with the Sole Survivor in Fallout 4
When the player first visits the agency to ask for help with Shaun, Nick’s secretary tells them that the detective is missing. The player must then track Nick down and rescue him from a gang of mobsters who made him their prisoner. After which, Nick will agree to help with finding Shaun. By this time, he will also become available as a companion.
Becoming friends with Nick gets him to open up about his past as well as his thoughts on his existence. He admits that he feels lucky he ended up with the pre-war Nick’s personality because it kept him alive. After all, had he been loaded with the brain of a criminal, things would have likely gone much differently. What’s more, Nick’s personality is the reason he — a synth — gets to live a good life in Diamond City, while his fellow machines are shot on sight. In short, post-war Nick believes that he owes his entire existence to pre-war Nick.
Even so, post-war Nick can’t help but question his identity. He tells the player that he often recalls memories of places he’s never been and things he’s never seen. He’s aware that these memories aren’t his, and they’re a reminder that he isn’t human — just a machine pretending to be one. The same goes with his personality. His altruism and kindness were just programmed into him and, without them, he’s nothing but a synth.
This leads to Nick’s personal quest, which involves hunting down a pre-war mob boss named Eddie Winter. Winter killed pre-war Nick’s fiancé and eluded the cops until the bombs fell. Now, he’s supposedly sealed up in a personal bunker, and post-war Nick wants him dead. Should the player undertake this quest, they’ll be tasked with collecting Winter’s holotapes, which will reveal the code to open his bunker. With it, the player and Nick can confront Winter for his crimes.
Once Winter is dead, Nick comes to the conclusion that the good he chooses to do in the wasteland is something he can call his own. He may have a borrowed personality and even a borrowed body, but his actions aren’t borrowed — they’re his.
Later, the player can also bring Nick along to Far Harbor, where he can meet with DiMA again. Though Nick won’t recognize his “brother,” DiMA will reveal Nick’s origins and how they escaped from The Institute. To this, the detective will react with shock and disbelief, but he’ll still ask the player to help find proof of DiMA’s claim.
The proof that Nick needs comes in the form of a holotape, recovered after completing the Best Left Forgotten quest. This holotape contains a playback of the exact moment DiMA left Nick, who no longer remembered him after their escape. The player can give this holotape to Nick and then help him decide how the detective should treat his long-lost “brother.” This will result in Nick either treating DiMA more warmly or firmly keeping him at arm’s length.
This is where most of the content surrounding Nick’s character ends. There’s no doubt the synth detective is a fascinating character, and it’s interesting to see how he changes during his travels with the Sole Survivor. At the end of the day, however, what matters to him is doing some good for the wasteland and its inhabitants.
Fallout 4 is available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.