Bethesda games offer a degree of freedom that few RPGs can match. Their open landscapes and wide range of quests make their games immersive sandboxes that are hard to put down.
Games this open are prone to bugs and inconsistencies, however. Fallout 4 is a good example of this, allowing players to craft entire towns by themselves. The issue is the game's RPG systems suffered. The dialogue was massively streamlined and the main narrative is rather linear. This is even worse with the number of plot holes and nonsensical details the main story provides. Here are 10 reasons why the main story in Fallout 4 makes no sense. This article contains spoilers for Fallout 4.
10 No Railroad Random Encounters
The Railroad is one of Fallout 4's major factions players can side with. Their focus is on saving Synths since they view Synths as people. They stand by their morals in the main story, but they never stray from it past this arc.
When exploring the Commonwealth, players can find the Brotherhood of Steel soldiers roaming or even Minutemen when enough settlements are formed. Not the Railroad. This faction is fine staying underground despite the hundreds of roaming Synths in Fallout 4. There are random encounters players will stumble across that involve Synths, yet the Railroad is nowhere to be seen. Gen 3 Synths in the main story are never saved by the Railroad either.
9 Not Knowing You Were Refrozen
Maybe amnesia is a side effect of being frozen for over 200 years, but Fallout 4's opening makes it abundantly clear that you are unfrozen and then refrozen after Shaun is stolen.
You see it before the character's eyes, yet your character never acknowledges it. The protagonist goes around the wasteland asking people if they've seen a small child, likely thinking a few years have passed. When Fallout 4 drops its large plot twist that Shaun is over 60 and is the leader of the Institute, your character is forced to not believe it. It isn't much of a stretch to think Shaun is much older after being refrozen but it never crosses your character's mind.
8 Who Ordered Shaun's Capture?
Delving into Kellogg's mind to discover the Institute's method of transport is one of Fallout 4's best moments. With that said, the number of plot holes in this section is jarring.
One major plot hole is Kellogg's boss. He mentions "the old man" repeatedly in his memories while capturing Shaun, but who is this old man? The Institute makes no mention of this character past his memory. The only other character that's referenced as an "old man" is Shaun, but he's still a baby when Kellogg's taking him. It would make sense if this was simply another leader, but the leader at the time is heavily implied to be female based on Institute dialogue and terminal entries. Is there a time paradox in the narrative?
7 Kellogg's In Nick Valentine's Head
Yet another strange interaction after the memory sequence, Nick Valentine temporarily talks with Kellogg's voice and mannerisms. It's a strange byproduct of exploring Kellogg's mind that is never expanded on.
Talking to Nick right after you explore Kellogg's memories results in Kellogg possessing Nick for a line of dialogue. Nick more or less shrugs it off and the game never mentions it again. There might be long-term consequences for digging into someone's brain, but the game never expands on it.
6 Kellogg's Age
Isn't it strange that Kellogg, despite kidnapping Shaun nearly 60 years ago, looks the same in the intro and main campaign? It's a glaring plot hole that is poorly explained.
In a terminal inside the Institute, players can learn that Kellogg received extensive implants that extended his lifespan without augmenting his physical appearance. The fact this is never mentioned through dialogue implies that Shaun being Father was done very late in development and Bethesda hastily added an excuse to this inconsistency.
5 Uncurable Cancer
Fans of Fallout 4 were confused that the leader of the most technologically sophisticated faction in Fallout history died to cancer of all things. It is both shocking and nonsensical.
People are abducted and replaced by Synths all the time in Fallout 4, so why not use Father's DNA to create a Synth replica of himself? Instead, he puts the entire Institute in your hands even if the player has proven untrustworthy. This faction can create life-like machines and grow enough crops underground to feed hundreds of scientists, yet they can't focus any research on curing Father's cancer?
4 Brotherhood Of Steel's Goals
Anyone who has played Fallout 1 or 2 were in for a shock when playing Fallout 4. The Brotherhood of Steel is nothing like previous iterations. They are hell-bent on destroying the Institute by any means necessary.
Not only is it absurd to send an entire blimp of soldiers to take down a group of scientists, but this goes against everything they stand for. The Brotherhood in past games was founded to recover and preserve technology—mostly pre-war tech—to prevent humanity from destroying itself again. A group that can create machines indistinguishable from humans sounds right up the Brotherhood's ally to preserve, yet they spend the whole game trying to destroy the Institute instead.
3 Can't Persuade Shaun
Fallout 4's largest critique was its lack of skill and S.P.E.C.I.A.L. checks. These checks were key to keeping dialogue and roleplaying engaging. Its removal makes the game's narrative much more frustrating than other Fallout games.
Take Father for example. He believes that the Institute is doing its best to push humanity forward and reclaim the wasteland. Evidence in their own location reveals that they are experimenting with FEV against people's will and abduct citizens just to experiment on them. You can't bring these glaring unethical experiments to Father or show him the Super Mutant vats in his facility!
2 Ignoring Your Lost Son
While not an issue with the main plot itself, Fallout 4 is an open-world RPG first. Players will spend dozens of hours exploring ruins and creating settlements for their amusement.
Previous titles did this to great effect, but it feels out of place for the story Fallout 4 is trying to tell. Your child has been kidnapped and your significant other is dead, yet Bethesda wants you to collect scrap to make water purifiers instead of finding your missing child. It's hard to role-play or come up with a good excuse to ignore finding your missing son.
1 The Institute's Motives
Faction motives are critical to get right in any RPG. If players don't understand what a faction stands for, it results in disinterest and possibly confusion.
Nothing is more confusing in Fallout 4 than the Institute. The game tries to explain their motives as "helping humanity" or advancing science, but these themes are never expanded on. How is kidnapping innocent people and mutating them with the FEV advancing humanity? If it's about control, why does the Institute have a hierarchy of power? Their motives make no sense and make the game's themes around Synths fall flat.