Fallout 4/Characters/Companions

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


The Sole Survivor's Companions Only base game companions shown here - Left to right, from top to bottom - Top "row": X6-88, Paladin Danse and Codsworth Second "row": Strong, Preston Garvey, Piper Wright, Nick Valentine and Deacon Third "row": Curie, Robert Joseph MacCready, Dogmeat, John Hancock and Cait (Fan Poster Property of KerriAitken)

Main Game

Like Fallout: New Vegas, companions are a lot more than just expendable meat shields and many have their own greater or lesser connections to the story at large.

Tropes they all share
  • Arc Welding: While they all are met at various points of the game, their own arcs tie into the overall story to some greater or lesser degree, with a few exceptions.
    • Ada from Automatron doesn't really have a greater impact on the larger story, her arc being mostly self contained to the titular DLC's (rather short) plot, but the abilities she unlocks can have a great impact on certain quests, since the robot building can greatly influence settlement defense and even make certain quests like the Minutemen "Defend the Castle" Quest much easier.
    • Old Longfellow is mostly confined to relevance in Far Harbor and its associated DLC quests, though he does have some commentary for the Commonwealth in general, and his arc intersects with Nick Valentine's own plot arcs, which have implications for the Commonwealth in general.
    • Porter Gage is mainly Nuka-World centric, but his designs and intentions, should the player go full raider boss, will have a big impact on the Commonwealth, and will be one of the very few ways to make an open enemy of Preston Garvey and the Minutemen. Interestingly enough, he also will voice some opinions on the Island's inhabitants if brought to Far Harbor, but doesn't comment on any plot developments.
    • Strong has the least impact on the overall plot in general, but does show that the Brotherhood of Steel's blatant racism against his kind is not entirely merited, while at the same time highlighting how Super Mutants are largely victims of their creators, which does tie back into the Institute plotline and can affect how the player decides to deal with them.
  • Bi the Way: The Sole Survivor can flirt with Preston, Piper, Cait, Danse, Curie, Hancock, MacCready and Gage regardless of gender. This partly seems to be for player freedom for romance options, as they all respond in kind. However, Cait, Hancock, Piper and MacCready all have dialogue that makes them explicitly/"canonically" bisexual.
  • Central Theme: Loss, and how it defines who you are. All of the Sole Survivor's companions are in some way traumatized by something they've lost, struggling to reinvent themselves, working through some serious baggage from whatever they've lost, or some combination of the above. Each of them are struggling to building new lives for themselves that either incorporate who they used to be or completely discard what they've lost.
  • Dysfunction Junction: The Sole Survivor's companions are anything but a normal, well-adjusted group.
  • Four-Philosophy Ensemble: All of the companions can be categorized in one of the five different philosophies.
    • The Optimists
      • Preston:
      • Curie:
      • Nick:
    • The Realists
      • Piper:
      • Hancock:
      • Deacon:
    • The Cynics
      • Cait:
      • X6-88:
      • Old Longfellow:
    • The Apathetics
      • MacCready:
      • Codsworth:
      • Dogmeat:
    • The Conflicted
      • Danse:
      • Strong:
      • Ada:
      • Gage:
  • Gameplay Ally Immortality
  • May-December Romance: Only Curie is near the same age as the Sole Survivor, what with being a 200 years old robot. All of the other romance-able companions are roughly two centuries younger then them.
  • Optional Party Member
  • Permanently Missable Content:
    • Turning the Brotherhood of Steel, the Institute, the Nuka-World Raiders or the Railroad hostile too early will prevent Paladin Danse, X6-88, Porter Gage, and Deacon, respectively, from becoming an available companion.
    • Once a companion leaves due to low approval, they will never rejoin you, even if you do things they like near their vicinity as they no longer gain or lose approval from your actions.
  • Polyamory: In what has been stated by Word of God to be intentional, it's possible to carry on multiple romantic relationships with your Companions. Apparently, they don't sweat this sort of thing in the Commonwealth.
  • Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: You have a companion from every major faction, and almost every walk of life. The only thing they have in common is their willingness to follow the Sole Survivor.
  • Really 700 Years Old
  • Relationship Values: All characters save for Dogmeat and Ada have either positive or negative reactions towards your actions. By getting them to "Idolize" you, you earn a special perk from them.
  • Smoking Is Cool: Almost all of them have an Idle Animation where they smoke a cigarette.
  • Surprise Incest: An ambiguous case.
  • True Companions: All of the companions (bar X6-88, who doesn't really process things like friendship, but can still express Undying Loyalty towards you if you play your cards right) end up feeling this way with the Sole Survivor over time, and to a lesser extent, with one another (as evidenced by their interactions). Piper and Nick actually even played the trope straight before the game began, as they both worked together on investigations and get along very well.
  • Undying Loyalty
  • Vitriolic Best Buds
  • What the Hell, Hero?: All of them (expect Dogmeat) will call the Sole Survivor out if they start to dislike and/or hate him/her.
  • Worthless Yellow Rocks: Many of your companions will either be bemused or irritated that you're picking up all this "garbage", not realizing, or caring, that players need a lot of junk for crafting and building settlements. If you get over-encumbered, then they'll mention that you should toss some of that junk away or give it to them to carry. Piper and Gage noticeably avert this by either complimenting your resourcefulness for seeing beyond it's low worth, or trusting that you know what to do with such things.
  • You Lose At Zero Trust: Get their approval low enough or oppose their chosen faction, and they'll want nothing more to do with you.


Dogmeat

Can be met as soon as you step outside of Sanctuary Hills, just down the road at the Red Rocket station. Like his predecessors in the other Fallout games, he's a loyal canine companion who will travel and fight alongside you.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • Assist Character: His fighting style. Against human opponents, he will latch onto their arms and legs, allowing you to dispatch them more easily, and against animals and larger opponents he will attempt to distract them them so you can launch an uninterrupted assault on them.
  • Badass: He's Dogmeat, Fallout's canine poster dog for this.
  • The Nose Knows: Dogmeat's ability to sniff out a trail is integral to tracking down Kellogg.
  • Undying Loyalty: The only base-game companion who can never decide to leave you at zero trust.

Codsworth

The Mr. Handy that was intended to be the family butler for the Sole Survivor's family, but who comes to view their family as his own. Can join you as soon as you return from Concord.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot: He laments this about other, simpler robots with more rudimentary programming, though it ranges from sympathy, such as in the case of the broken Takahashi in Diamond City, to annoyance, such as with Deezer in Covenant - who tries to offer him, of all beings, lemonade.
  • American Robot: Is quite proud of his US producer, General Atomics, even makes snide remarks about communists in certain areas.
  • Badass: Downplayed. He admits he's no Mr. Gutsy, but will fight alongside you anyway, and while useful in the early game, other companions quickly outclass him him without the Automatron DLC.
  • Cerebus Retcon: In a sense, there's his explanation of what he had been doing for the past 210 years while waiting for someone to emerge from Vault 111. At first, his dialogue is darkly hilarious, what with him shouting about the futility of trying to get radioactive fallout out of vinyl wood. However, getting into later conversations with Codsworth has him reflect far more seriously on the intervening decades, with him then mentioning to the Sole Survivor about how he's seen countless people either get torn apart by the Wastes or resort to horrific means to survive, and how utterly impressed he is by the Sole Survivor staying a good person.
  • Crutch Character; Falls into this without Automatron. While initially a strong melee fighter and a decent ranged fighter due to the built in buzz saw blade and flamethrower, he drops off in power very quickly. Averted with Automatron because you can keep upgrading his arsenal.
  • Moral Myopia: While his morality is easily mistaken for that of a Lawful Good type, Codsworth has some odd deviations from this norm:
    • Unlike most other companions with a similar code of morals, he's rather indifferent to cannibalism, though since Codsworth doesn't consider this a crime to a living, innocent being, he doesn't view it with anything other than dispassionate indifference.
    • While he approves of helping organizations like the Minutemen, he has reservations about the Brotherhood of Steel, which makes sense since the Minutemen define their role as selfless servants of others like Codsworth himself, while the Brotherhood defines itself as guardians who enforce their rules on others.
  • Nice Guy: By default, he's unerringly polite to anyone who isn't hostile.
  • Pride: In regards to his own machine nature, he's quite proud of his own robot type and the company that made him. He tends to be scornful of RobCo derived machines most of the time, but he does show them occasional sympathy, like in the case of the broken Takahashi in Diamond City.
  • Pungeon Master: A standard feature of his robot type is to offer these sorts of jokes when he doesn't have anything else to say, also a Call Back to your Mr. Handy servant in Fallout 3.
  • Robot Buddy: Quite proud of this status, though he considers himself just as much a friend and ally to the player as those who look humanoid. And the player can tell him they feel the same way.
  • Sliding Scale of Robot Intelligence: Fairly high up on the scale, rather surprisingly since he's a mass produced model of robot easily purchasable before the Great War, but it's implied he may have learned to grow beyond his limited programming in the interval since the prologue. He still adheres to many basic principles of his stock programming, and thus even at zero trust he will not turn hostile and attack the Sole Survivor, but he will become disgusted enough with them he refuses to actively aid them in combat.
  • What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Some Mister Handy robots are more aware than others. Codsworth is on the high end of the scale, and bringing him to other, more narrowly-programmed bots like Deezer in Covenant will have him express mild annoyance at the fact that they can't do anything besides their most basic function.

Preston Garvey

Met in Concord, trying to defend a bunch of settlers from some Raiders. One of the last Minutemen after their organization started to fall from its heyday, he hopes you can turn their fortunes around.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • Acceptable Breaks From Reality: While his supplying of radiant quests can get very aggravating real fast, it serves as a replacement for the Sole Survivor having to sit and individually sort out/solve countless disagreements between the Minutemen's various officers - all of which would get insufferably boring and be (arguably) much worse than Preston's radiant quest supplying.
  • Adorkable: Has shades of this.
  • Badass: He's been a Minutemen for a long time now - and is the last one still standing for a damn good reason.
    • Badass Normal: He has no special advantages to his credit whatsoever. He has no backing of a powerful organization when you first meet him, lacks Piper's and Deacon's guile, and no raw strength beyond that of an average human, merely a Laser Musket and the ability to use it.
    • Beware the Nice Ones: Garvey is very affable, but has no problem disintegrating hostiles with his laser musket.
    • Submissive Badass: He's no leader, but he will happily support a more competent one in his stead.
  • Berserk Button: Utterly hates the Gunners with a fervent passion. This is implied to be due to that many Gunners are Minutemen who gave up on their mission to protect the people of the Commonwealth, and instead decided to conquer and pillage them. By extension, he also hates Raiders.
    • To a much lesser extent, he has a profound dislike for the Brotherhood of Steel. It says something about his animosity towards them that he seems to have a warmer view on the Institute in comparison to the BoS.
    • However, when the Brotherhood's interests line up squarely with those of the Commonwealth's welfare, such as mission to exeterminate threats like Super Mutants and Feral Ghouls, he does show profound respect for that.
  • Broken Pedestal: The Minutemen as an organization nearly went through this in Garvey's eyes, since he looked up to them as his heroes and was heartbroken to see many of them degenerate into being Gunners/Raiders. Thankfully, the Sole Survivor can rebuild the Minutemen, bringing them up to new heights (rebuilding Garvey's respect for the organization in the process).
  • Child Soldiers: He first joined the Minutemen when he was only sixteen years old.
  • Chronic Hero Syndrome: The entire reason he initially joined the Minutemen is because he wants to make the Commonwealth a better place.
  • Death Seeker: Surprisingly enough.
  • The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: The Sole Survivor will normally lose him as a companion if they side with the Nuka-World Raiders and ravage the Commonwealth. However, there's a way out of this: If the Sole Survivor hasn't met Preston in Concord yet until after they become the Overboss, then they can save him and get the "Open Season" quest to kill off the Nuka-World Raiders and become the Minutemen's new General, allowing you to get both quest-lines! What makes this option this is that the quest to save Preston - "When Freedom Calls" - is usually given right at the start of the game, meaning that the player will have to do quite a bit of back-tracking to do both quest-lines.
    • There is also a much more mundane way to have your cake and eat it too: You won't make Preston mad until you lead the Raiders outside of Nuka-World, so you can do everything within the confines of Nuka-World, but so long as you don't decide to invade the Commonwealth, you can still enjoy all the benefits of being the Overboss insofar as they are available within Nuka-World.
  • A Father to His Men: Even when the people he's charged with protecting have dwindled from 20 to 5, Preston will still stand with them to the very end.
  • Foil: To Deacon. Preston sticks out among the companions as relatively normal and for having a professional soldier's personality. Deacon's an utter enigma - in no small part due to his near-constant lies - who speaks in a very breezy tone and uses a lot of lingo.
  • Friendly Sniper: Laser Muskets need to be cranked every time they're fired, so they are best used as single-shot sniping weapons, which makes him a sniper. In his introductory mission, he provides some fire support from a balcony.
  • The Generic Guy: Relatively speaking.
  • Hero of Another Story: He's been journeying around the Commonwealth and helping fight for the Minutemen since he was 16.
  • Hidden Depths: He has lots of repressed rage, which is only really shown if the Sole Survivor takes him with them to single-handedly raze Gunner-occupied Quincy to the ground.
  • Last of His Kind: Preston admits that while he's likely not the literal last of the Minutemen, he's the only one still active in the Commonwealth.
  • Married to the Job: Much like Danse with the Brotherhood and Piper with her newspaper, his entire life is focused around being a Minutemen. This gets a surprisingly dark Call-Back later on in the story, with him revealing to the Sole Survivor that if the Sole Survivor hadn't saved him and his settlers at Concord, the settlers most certainly would've died - and Preston would've killed himself out of guilt.
  • Nice Guy: Seriously rivals Curie in being the nicest person in the entire Commonwealth. He may not be fit to lead, but is most certainly the shining example of the Minutemen's ideals in action.
  • Nice Hat: Wears a brown slouch hat, befitting his cowboy/revolutionary aesthetic. Funnily enough, this is even lampshaded In-Universe, with Jared's terminal at Corvega Assembly Plant in Lexington having him vow to take Preston's hat for his own.
  • Not So Stoic: He outright shouts at the Sole Survivor if they side with the Nuka-World Raiders.
  • Officer and a Gentleman: He more or less serves as the Sole Survivor's main assistant & adviser within the Minutemen’s command structure, and is incredibly polite and nice to (almost) everyone he meets.
  • Only Sane Man: He comes across as this amongst the Sole Survivor's companions.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: He gives the Sole Survivor an absolutely vicious one if they side with the Nuka-World Raiders after having previously been a member of the Minutemen.
  • Ridiculously Average Guy: He even lampshades this, sheepishly admitting that he doesn't really have as bizarre characteristics as the other, more colorful companions the Sole Survivor picks up.
  • Seen It All: Part of the reason why he's The Stoic.
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: He saw the Gunners massacre Quincy, and still holds that pain with him.
  • Stepford Smiler: He's implied to be this.
  • The Stoic: Relatively little gets a rise out of him, and he has a generally muted and calm delivery - much like the Sole Survivor's own. Makes sense since both Preston and the Sole Survivor are heavily implied to be suffering through a Heroic BSOD over the course of the story.
  • Vague Age: The story is rather vague on how old Preston is. He's likely in his very early 20's, since he only served as a Minuteman after the Fall of the Castle and the organization was already cannibalizing itself. Additionally, his (somewhat) naive hope in the Minutemen would make sense for one so young.
  • Weapon of Choice: Defaults to a Laser Musket.

Deacon

Met in person when you try to join the Railroad, but you've run into him several times before and likely didn't notice[1], so he knows quite a bit about what you've been up to when you are trying to gain entrance to the Railroad, and organization whom he is a leading intelligence officer for.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • Ascended Extra: Dialogue from Deacon implies that he was one of the nameless NPCs from Fallout 3, having been in the Capital Wasteland as one of the Railroad's spies and scouts.
  • Badass: He's a member of an organization the Institute would love to wipe out and even has several different bounties on his head from the Gunners even before he teams up with you.
    • Badass Bookworm: He's a reader of William Shakespeare and Marcel Proust, according to his battle quotes.
    • Badass Normal: Despite some of the BS he spews about being a Ghoul or even a Synth, it's pretty clear all he has going for him is being a very resourceful human. One that is just as good at kicking ass as most other companions.
    • Beware the Silly Ones: Don't let his penchant for spouting amusing one liners make you think less of him, he's plenty capable of fending for himself.
    • Cool Shades: One of the few things that remain constant despite all his disguises.
  • Bald of Awesome: His "hair" is just a pompadour wig. He's bald by default because it helps him switch out disguises easier.
  • Blatant Lies: Some of his tall tales are plain ridiculous. This just helps throw you off for when he tells more convincing lies to test you.
  • Consummate Liar: Quite good at it, though it's fairly easy to tell when he's lying most of the time. In fact, if called on it, he compliments your ability to notice and tells you it's training for when people less nice than him will lie.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Even more so than Piper, and is the mouthiest of the companions.
  • The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: His disguises will change automatically depending on the area you are in, even if you didn't put any other clothing in his inventory.
  • Gender Bender: Apparently had himself surgically altered to be a woman once, at least appearance wise.
  • The Generic Guy: Tries to maintain this appearance so he can blend in and disguise himself easier.
  • Kick the Dog: Heavily downplayed. He shows disdain for the Minutemen, feeling that they're too easy to corrupt into a darker organization. Justified since Deacon’s Dark And Troubled Past led to him gaining a big anti-authority streak, and he accurately points out that the Minutemen have been little better than policemen on a historical level.
  • Mythology Gag: Supplies a few.
    • If taken to Deezer in Covenant, he attempts to use a deactivation code on him. The code he tries is the same one used by Mr. House in New Vegas as his personal override code. Deacon even notes that he got the code in a poker game.
    • One of his atmospheric lines is "I'm convincing the next raw recruit that I'm President Eden. Think I can pull it off?".
  • Nice Guy: To the point even at zero trust he parts ways rather amiably.
  • Spy Speak: Comes with being a member of the Railroad.
  • Weapon of Choice: Defaults to a Sniper Rifle.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Dialogue from him implies that he's afraid of heights.

Piper Wright

A reporter who runs the Commonwealth's only newspaper (found in Diamond City), and is met at the Diamond City Gate where she's trying to get back in after getting temporarily kicked out for angering the mayor.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • Adorkable: She gets really flustered when she accidentally flirts with Magnolia in Goodneighbor.
  • Adult Fear: She's terrified of her little sister following in her footsteps and getting herself killed.
  • Affectionate Nickname: Gives the player the appellation 'Blue", either due to the Vault suit, or, if they aren't wearing it, their apparent demeanor.
  • Badass: Is willing to piss off all sorts of people in the pursuit of getting a story, including the Children of Atom, countless Raiders, and even the entire Institute.
    • Action Girl: It can be hard to remember at times that she's not actually a soldier and is just a reporter.
    • Badass Normal: Even points this out about her herself, chalking her own survival up to being very resourceful.
  • The Cassandra
  • Cool Big Sis: To her own sister, but she herself is worried about this, as she doesn't want her little sister taking after her.
  • David Versus Goliath: Her measurement of how well she's doing her job is by how many people are trying to kill her.
  • Deadpan Snarker: It's easier to count the comments she makes when not snarking.
  • Expy: Of Lois Lane. Highlighted in the interview she has with the player, especially if they pick the optimistic answers.
  • Hero of Another Story: She's had her share of colorful adventures, chasing stories that're as eventful as any Fallout protagonist's.
  • Heterosexual Life Partners: She and Nick Valentine are the best of friends, and always talk amiably to each other when switching over from one to the other.
  • Hidden Depths: Dialogue with her implies that part of the reason that she's so determined to find the truth is because she suffers from a severe lack of self-esteem and thinks incredibly lowly of herself.
  • Hot Scoop: Enough so even Cait wanted to have a threesome with her.
  • Intrepid Reporter: Has been shot, kidnapped and poisoned, all for the sake of getting a story done. And that's only the stuff that she specifically mentions.
  • Large Ham: She is a news reporter, after all.
  • Married to the Job: Much like Paladin Danse is with the Brotherhood of Steel, she often hyper-focuses on her job as a news reporter.
  • Nice Girl: Friendly, playful and easy to get along with (unless you're a complete asshole), Piper is passionate about helping the common folk through her journalism, and generally approves of good deeds. She's even the only companion along with Nick who will approve (albeit with a hint of fear) of returning the Mother Deathclaw her egg in "The Devil's Due" side quest.
  • Nice Hat: Wears an old style newsboy hat.
  • Promotion to Parent: After their dad died, she became her little sister's parental figure.
  • Shout-Out: Given her Chronic Hero Syndrome and her desperate search for the truth, her last name being "Wright" likely isn't a coincidence.
  • Weapon of Choice: Defaults to a 10mm Pistol.

Cait

A cage fighter at the Combat Zone, a notorious den of Raiders and other thugs who engage in prize fights, where Cait reigns as their current champion. After losing to you, her manager, Tommy Lonegan, asks you to take her with you since her skills are getting rusty despite Cait's initial protests, though his intentions seem to be more benevolent than they appear.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • Abusive Parents: Her parents are probably the worst ones encountered thus far in the entire series.
  • Ax-Crazy
  • Badass: Deconstructed in a very horrifying fashion.
    • Action Girl: Learned in the worst ways possible how much this was a survival requirement.
    • Badass Normal: She had to become one just to survive, not just against humans, but every other freaky thing that tries to kill you.
  • Berserk Button: Tommy Lonegan calling her "little bird" really annoys her. Althougth she comes to realize he really did have concern for her well-being and that was one of his ways of expressing it later.
  • Bi the Way: Explicitly so. She even hints she'd be up for a threesome with Piper.
  • Blood Knight: She lives for the thrill of combat.
  • Broken Bird: Her life has been a living hell, to the point that the only things preventing her from crossing the Despair Event Horizon are her chems, booze and fights. And all of those are slowly killing her anyway.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Her life has been absolute hell. She was raised by shitty parents until she was 18, at which point she was sold to slavers and was forced to be their toy for five years, until she stole enough to buy her own freedom and could finally get revenge on said parents. She then ended up in the Combat Zone for three years, drinking and drugging herself into a stupor trying to forget about it.
  • Death Seeker: If you max out your relationship and cure her addiction, she admits that the reason she fought in the Combat Zone, getting bloodied for crowds she hated and only holding herself together with Psycho, was that she wanted to die.
  • Depraved Bisexual: Averted, as her own sexual orientation has absolutely nothing to do with her behavioral issues. When she flirts with others, it's more of good nature teasing rather than being The Vamp.
  • Everyone Has Standards: Even she has lines she won't cross. For example, while she personally has no love for the Railroad (as she sees them as completely suicidal for deliberately pissing off the Institute), she approves of the Sole Survivor describing helping Synths as "noble" while at Bunker Hill. She also has no problems with killing people, but is disgusted if the Sole Survivor kills innocents for no good reason.
  • Expy: Of Jack from Mass Effect 2. Much like Jack, Cait is a young woman who comes from a traumatic childhood, has a criminal background, a violent and bitter personality that places pragmatism over kindness, a Blood Knight attitude, and an aggressive sexuality.
    • Given Jack's voice actor is the female SS voice, this can be especially ironic.
  • Fighting Irish: A fact she will comment on.
  • Foil: To Rose of Sharon "Cass" Cassidy. Both are Fiery Redhead Deadpan Snarkers with a penchant for break-action shotguns and vice indulgence. However, Cass's vices are shown from a (generally) lighthearted viewpoint, while Cait's are shown to be self-destructive and an impetus for her bloodthirsty and vengeful attitude.
  • Freudian Excuse: To put it politely, her entire life has been just one tragedy after another.
  • Had To Be Sharp: Not book smart, but her street smarts are finely honed, which explains why she'smuch more alive than she otherwise should be.
  • Hidden Depths: Despite being a brutal cage-fighting Wastelander that was practically raised by Raiders, Cait is surprisingly knowledgeable of the Vault-Tec experiments, to the point where she seems to know about them more than what even the majority of Vault-Tec scientists and Vault Dwellers were aware of.
    • Some clever retroactive Fridge Brilliance kicks in if you consider the implications of her loyalty quest: where she has you take her to a Vault designed to help drug addicts flush their systems of their addictions. When you consider why that's important to her, it makes a LOT of sense she did a lot of research into it, hinting she's a bit more capable of learning than she claims.
  • Humans Are The Real Monsters: Believes this, and is quite incredulous to the player if they treat her well, wondering when the other shoe will drop.
  • Internal Homage: Her strong Irish accent and vice indulgence paints her as a partial Call Back (personality wise) to Colin Moriarty.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold
  • Kick the Dog: Almost literally. She, Strong and X6-88 are the only companions to show an active disdain for Dogmeat, with her derisively calling the animal "a dirty little mole rat."
  • Pet the Dog: Not the actual dog, ironically, but even she has her moments of showing compassion.
  • Token Evil Teammate: Of sorts, given she's encouraging to a player who engages in amoral acts like theft and drug use. She can also be argued as being the closest thing the base game has to a Raider companion (before Porter Gage comes around).
    • If you complete her loyalty mission, she responds positively to avoiding drug abuse instead, and generally mellows out.
  • Weapon of Choice: Defaults to a double-barreled shotgun. She also has a baseball bat in her inventory when you first recruit her.

Paladin Danse

A Paladin in the Brotherhood of Steel, met in Cambridge at the Police Station trying to fight off a horde of Feral Ghouls with the remains of his squad. Tries to convince you of the Brotherhood's merits and is a respected field officer of their reigning Elder.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:

Danse: The Minutemen remind me of the Brotherhood when Elder Lyons was in charge: Unfocused and far too charitable for their own good.

  • Call Back: He claims to have started his life as a scavenger in Rivet City, and comes from Fallout 3's Capital Wasteland. He also specifically mentions the Brotherhood laying siege to Adams Air Force Base as part of their war with the Enclave.
  • Captain Obvious: Practically a Running Gag with him.
  • The Comically Serious: Danse isn't really the jovial sort, but he still manages to have his silly moments when his attempts to stay professional fall flat.
  • The Exile
  • Face Death with Dignity
  • Foil: To X6-88. Danse only focuses on the good parts of his faction to the point that he's completely shocked when he finds out that he's a Synth, and is clearly aspiring to be a Knight in Shining Armor. X6-88 does nothing to soften the actions of the Institute, and is a remorseless hunter.
  • The Friend Nobody Likes: Bizarrely inverted.
  • Genre Blind
  • Hazy Feel Turn: After his personal quest, his views on Synths are slightly better than they were before.
  • Heroic Build: He looks bigger than most companions because of his power armor, but even outside of it, he has a massively muscular physique.
  • Hidden Depths: He shows some remarkable knowledge about Wasteland economics and logistics. It's implied that this is a hold-over from him being a merchant in Rivet City before he joined up with the Brotherhood.
    • Amusingly, he's also a fan of country music.
  • Hypocritical Humor: Whenever you enter a dark area, like a cave system or an abandoned subway, Danse will boast that his training prevents him from feeling fear, only to immediately be spooked by some random noise.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He’s rather cruel to most of the Sole Survivor's nonhuman companions (and to nonhuman characters in general) and mostly acts like a dick, but he means well and his intentions for the Commonwealth are noble.
  • Knight in Shining Armor: As close to one as you're going to get with the Brotherhood of Steel's "conservative" interpretation as he doesn't bend the code like the Lyons or Veronica Santangelo. He's closer to Elder McNamara than anything else.
  • Last-Name Basis: His last name is Danse. His first name is never revealed over the course of the game.
  • Mark of Shame
  • Married to the Job
  • Pet the Dog: Despite his racism towards Ghouls, he approves of the Sole Survivor helping protect the Ghoul child Billy and getting him back to his family.
  • Rated "M" for Manly
  • Replacement Goldfish: Downplayed.
  • Sarcasm Failure: He often bitterly snarks at the Sole Survivor’s fellow companions, most notably Nick Valentine, John Hancock and X6-88. However, Codsworth’s cheerful and genuine compliments confuses Danse enough that he just genuinely thanks him.
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: He's seen his share of harrowing experiences in his service to the Brotherhood, witnessing friends and comrades die, sometimes thanks to his own decisions. The Prydwen Doctor's evaluations diagnose him with early onset PTSD and recommended he take a break, which Danse acknowledged but chose to dismiss.
  • Tomato in the Mirror
  • Vague Age: It's unknown how old he is, and this is further exacerbated upon The Reveal that he's actually a Synth. All that's known is that considering his rank in the Brotherhood and the related time he would've spent to get there, he has to be at least 16-20 years old.
  • Walking Spoiler: It's eventually revealed that he's a Synth that escaped from the Institute.
  • Weapon of Choice: Defaults to a standard Laser Rifle. He also hands the Sole Survivor his personal modification of the Brotherhood's standard laser rifle - "Righteous Authority" - as a reward for them helping him during the "Call to Arms" Brotherhood quest.

Curie

A Miss Nanny robot, Curie was a researcher in Vault 81 experimenting with mole rats infected with diseases. After helping her and the Vault, she decides to follow the Sole Survivor to learn more about the outside world.

She is a romance option for the Sole Survivor. Her unique perk, "Combat Medic", lets you heal 100 hit points once every 24 hours if your health falls below 10%.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • Ace Custom: Curie's programming is heavily modified by the late Dr. Collins, who programmed a personality based on Einstein, Kant and the real Marie Curie, and her voice to resemble a woman he'd dated in Paris during his university years. He also insisted in having her treated like a person, even giving her things to own despite her protest that a robot cannot own things. This led to Curie becoming sentient.
  • Adorkable: If her general enthusiasm For Science! didn't clue you in, her general reaction to being brought to the various historical sites in Boston is to have a moment of Squee! and wonder if they still do tours.
  • Badass: Zig-Zagged.
    • Badass Bookworm
    • Badass Normal: Like Codsworth, she wasn't programmed to do violence or equipped with weapons. She still won't back down from a fight and shows no qualms about using her medical equipment and training to permanently disassemble people instead of healing them.
  • Become a Real Boy
  • Boyish Short Hair
  • Brain Uploading: A weird inversion. She's an artificial intelligence that seeks to be downloaded into a more human-like brain, out of hopes that this will increase her capacity to grow and learn.
  • Cloud Cuckoolander: Dips into this occasionally thanks in part to her Fish Out of Temporal Water tendencies; for example, saying that combat, while dangerous, is good exercise as one of her random battle quips.
  • Combat Medic: It's even the name of her special perk. She can also make and give you Stimpaks.
  • Due to the Dead
  • Everything Sounds Sexier in French: She's programmed with a French accent, and is one of the companions you can romance.
  • Expy: Downplayed, but her general character seems to be heavily based off of Moira Brown. Both are incredibly friendly Cloud Cuckoolanders that just want to help improve the Wasteland, contain elements of Mad Scientists in their personalities, and have accents that are quite different that the rest of the inhabitants of their respective regions (Moira has an Upper Midwest accent while living in the Capital Wasteland, and Curie has a French accent while living in the Commonwealth).
  • Fish Out of Temporal Water: Like the Sole Survivor, Curie dates back to before the war, only she has a far worse time adjusting. She'll wonder if fights against Raiders should be reported to the police, and asks if famous landmarks such as the Old State House or Bunker Hill still give tours or distribute fliers. This is Played for Laughs.
  • Foil: Like Nick Valentine and Paladin Danse, she's one to X6-88. Curie and X6-88 are both artificial lifeforms (she can even become a Synth like X6-88 is in her companion quest). However, while Curie sincerely wants to be seen as a person (even literally), X6-88 makes a point of being as cold and mechanical as possible in spite of looking like an actual human.
  • For Science!: A positive example. She seeks to learn as much about the world as she can, researching ideas on how to improve it for everyone's betterment.
  • Fun with Acronyms: The scientists she used to work for actually came up with her name, based on her title of "Contagions Vulnerability Robotic Infirmary Engineer", or C.V.R.I.E.
  • Game of Nerds: It's offhandedly mentioned that she likes the statistical aspect of (the now functionally extinct) baseball.
  • Go Mad from the Isolation: Averted. She's been trapped in the experimental section of Vault 81 for hundreds of years with only horribly diseased Mole Rats for company, but when the Sole Survivor meets her she's still quite sane, perky, and happy to help.
  • Nice Girl: She dislikes the Sole Survivor being a Jerkass and approves of noble actions, politeness in conversations, and helping people throughout the wastes. Quite possibly the nicest companion character in the series to date, even, and the second least biased behind Codsworth.
  • The Pollyanna: She likes it when you offer aid to almost anything or anyone — joining the Brotherhood, helping rescue Synths for the Railroad, or establishing settlements for the Minutemen. She doesn't seem to grasp that some of these organizations might eventually clash...
  • Running Gag: She has unique dialogue with basically every doctor in the game, where she'd puzzle or confuse them by acting like the medical profession hasn't changed since the nukes fell. For example, she'll ask about organizing a medical conference with Dr. Carrington, what university Doc Crocker went to, or what the current medical publications are to some of the doctors in the Sole Survivor's settlements.
  • Shout-Out: Her companion quest is loosely based after the fairy tale of Pinocchio.
  • Squee
  • Technical Pacifist: She dislikes fighting, but is not above disintegrating enemies to protect the Sole Survivor.
  • Weapon of Choice: After becoming a Synth, Curie defaults to a Laser Rifle.
  • What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Like Codsworth, Curie's Miss Nanny chassis has a higher-functioning robot brain than some other Handy/Nanny/Gutsy models.

John Hancock

The Ghoul mayor of Goodneighbour, a Wretched Hive he keeps running smoothly despite its reputation by being the toughest yet fairest Ultimate Authority Mayor they've ever had. Can join you after doing some work for the local mob bosses of the city, mostly because he figures it will help him avoid becoming Orcus on His Throne.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • Badass: Definitely when you first meet him, as he shanks a guy in the gut who just tried to mug you, especially after the guy wouldn't take a polite request to knock it off.
    • Authority Equals Asskicking: Earned his way to this after deposing the previous tyrant who ran Goodneighbor, and is beloved for it because unless his predecessor, he's not a dick about it.
    • Badass Longcoat: The red frock coat he wears, based on the one worn by the original John Hancock.
    • Beware the Nice Ones: Pissing Hancock off is a really stupid idea. He's a really nice guy most of the time, but making him mad is an easy way to wind up bleeding out in the street from a shank he just buried in your ribs.
    • Took a Level in Badass: By his own admission, he was a cowardly wimp once. The shame of this drove him to this trope.
  • Bi the Way: Ambient Goodneighbor dialogue has people ask Hancock if he's ready for another "tour of the town". While he responds differently if he's been romanced, what isn't different is that both men and women will offer a tour of the sights.
  • Cursed with Awesome: His view on being a ghoul. He's well aware it made him a bit less visually unpleasant looking (though he's still far more fortunate than many Ghouls in that regard), but immortality was a sweet tradeoff in his opinion.
  • Foil: To Mayor McDonaugh of Diamond City. Both men are the respective leaders of their towns, but while Hancock runs a town of societal dregs, they are genuinely happy with each other and have a much better handle on the paranoia of the Institute. By contrast, Diamond City may be the town of the "decent people", but it's a paranoid place that tried to pretend synths don't exist and has a lot of societal backstabbing going on under the surface.
  • Freaky Is Cool: When he was turned into a ghoul, he considered it a genuine upgrade on what he had been, even with the drawbacks.
  • Functional Addict: Even though he's a Ghoul, and they have a built in resistance to most chems anyway, he still takes an unreal amount of them even for a Ghoul, but it doesn't seem to diminish his capabilities or judgment very much.
  • Good Is Not Soft: His policy is to protect the innocent and hurt the hell out of the guilty.
  • In Love with Your Carnage: Downplayed, but a very fast way to get his respect is taking out Finn yourself before he has to do it, in which case he's very glad you know how to not take any shit out someone. You can also achieve this nonviolently with a speech check, though Finn still winds up dead because he decides to bitch about it to Hancock and disses him in the process.
  • Kavorka Man: For a Ghoul, he's not especially bad looking, but it's a mystery just how he manages to get half as much action as it's basically confirmed he still gets in Goodneighbor, especially since he doesn't flex his authority to get things like that, which can only mean he must be one incredibly charming guy to score that much tail.
  • Knife Nut: As Finn learns in your first encounter.
  • Named After Somebody Famous: The original John Hancock. Even wears the appropriate outfit for it.
    • His original last name is actually different, he chose it on purpose not long after being ghoulified to represent the new man he had become.
  • Neighborhood Friendly Gangsters: The boss of them, given he runs the resident Vice City of the Commonwealth, but he's generally chill about it, and he ignores most of the crap the others pull so long as they don't hurt anyone who doesn't deserve it, and they keep any shit that crosses that line out of Goodneighbour.
    • It's worthy of note he's good friends with Nick Valentine, who otherwise has little good to say about Goodneighbour itself given his take on the subject of crime and criminals, but despite that he and Hancock hold one another in high regard. It helps that they share considerable overlap on what justice should ultimately be like for the innocent.
  • Nice Guy: Show him common courtesy and do right by the people of Goodneighbor, and he's the nicest guy around.
  • Right-Hand Hottie: Overlapped with Right-Hand Attack Dog in the case of Farenheit, who serves as his bodyguard in Goodneighbor.
  • The Stoner: A functional version who is rather unfazed by his own habit. This partially thanks to being a ghoul, but he already had a rather high tolerance to chems prior.
  • Ultimate Authority Mayor: If he wanted to, he could exert almost god-like power over the people of Goodneighbor, but he refuses to, as that's why he helped depose the last guy who did that. Instead, he merely serves to make sure everyone in Goodneighbor doesn't screw each other over (at least, within the town), and otherwise let's everyone do their thing. He still enjoys the knowledge of knowing everyone in Goodneighbor would die for him at his request regardless.
  • Weapon of Choice: Like Cait, Hancock defaults to a double-barreled shotgun.

Nick Valentine

Nick Valentine is met in Vault 114 as a prisoner of a Post-War mob boss. On top of being Diamond City's resident detective, he's also a second generation Synth prototype, with him being the only Synth Diamond City has ever willingly tolerated and even come to like.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • American Accents: Has a Chicago-ish accent to his speech, which makes sense, as he's has more than a little dash of Eliot Ness to his character.
  • Androids and Detectives: He happens to be both.
  • Badass: His very first feat of badassery was faking Why Am I Ticking? to scare the piss out of an entire Raider gang. It worked, and since then, he's happy to tangle with the various scum of the Commonwealth if he has to.
    • Badass Automaton: He was a prototype second generation Synth with memories of a police detective as well as all the advantages of being a Synth. The combination makes him a forensic genius with the ability to make all sorts of hoodlums regret trying to catch him in a firefight.
    • Badass Bookworm: Take a look around his office, and you'll notice he's into doing a fair amount of reading. He's also educated enough to compile some very detailed information on other cases he's working.
    • Determinator: He wants to hunt down the Mysterious Stranger, someone who only the Sole Survivor has a chance of seeing.
    • Heartbroken Badass: By proxy of the original Nick Valentine, the Synth version has all the memories of finding the dead body of the original Nick's girlfriend, and he still wants to put the original Nick's soul to rest by avenging her murder.
  • Deadpan Snarker: As befitting a hardboiled detective.
  • Film Noir: Nick Valentine's entire character is a love-letter to the genre.
  • Foil: To X6-88. Nick Valentine is a badly degraded Gen 2 Synth and is obviously mechanical from a simple glance, but is a kind soul with a strong sense of morality. X6-88 is a realistically human-looking Synth who's clearly inhuman due to his behavior, and cannot feel empathy for others. It even goes into their respective professions: As a detective, Valentine's most common job is tracking down and rescuing those who've gone missing. X6-88, as an Institute Courser, has the job of hunting down Institute Synths and agents who've gone rogue.
  • Hero of Another Story: The man he got his memories from was a police detective who was very close to slamming the cell door on a notorious mobster when he got screwed out of doing so at the last minute. The failure of doing so is one of the last memories the current Nick Valentine has from the original. He's also been in the Commonwealth for roughly a century, and has accomplished countless cases and saved numerous people during that time. The Sole Survivor's case is only the most recent one in that long line.
  • Heterosexual Life Partners: He and Piper Wright are the best of friends, and always talk amiably to each other when switching over from one to the other.
  • Nice Guy: Nick's one of the nicest people you'll meet in the Commonwealth. It's telling that the quickest way to get on his good side is to take missions that help people. In fact, he only started charging for his detective services once he got too many missing persons requests to keep up with that and being a handyman. Additionally, he's the only companion (along with Piper) that approves of returning the Mother Deathclaw her egg in "The Devil's Due" side quest.
  • Platonic Life Partners: He explicitly cannot be romanced, for two reasons - One: his body wasn't really made for it, and two: all of the psychological baggage from his former life.
  • Shout Out: He looks more than a little like Dixon Hill.
  • Smoking Is Cool: Generally does so for the image, he has no need or drawback from doing so as a Synth.
  • Tomato in the Mirror: Happened twice over. He originally woke up in a trash heap in the Commonwealth with no memory of who he was save the last memories of the original Nick Valentine, and coming to terms with being a Synth was pretty harrowing for awhile. In the Far Harbor DLC, he discovers the truth about why he was in that trash heap, he was able to escape the Institute with another synth prototype, but an Institute failsafe wiped his memories of the place in the process, hence why he was so confused after waking up in the trash heap.
  • Weapon of Choice: Defaults to a Pipe Revolver.
  • Won't Work On Me: Like all other Synths, he shrugs off radiation poisoning like it's nothing.

Robert Joseph MacCready

Better known to Fallout 3 players as the incredibly foul-mouthed Mayor MacCready of Little Lamplight, he's now grown up into an adult. Met in Goodneighbour's Third Rail Club being threatened by members of the Gunners, a mercenary outfit he recently cut ties with, he still works as a gun for hire for his own reasons, but can be convinced to work for you.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • Badass: He was already pretty capable even as a kid. Now, he's quite the marksman as an adult, enough he's able to fend for himself as a mercenary.
  • Casanova Wannabe: Zig-zagged. His attempts at smooth flirtation fall flat with Piper, but they work just fine with Cait.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Is prone to dry humored commentary on some of the places you visit.
  • Friendly Sniper: Uses a sniper rifle by default and generally approves of moral actions for families, barring the occasional roguish activity (like stealing anything that isn't nailed down).
  • Friend to All Children: He generally approves of stealing, pickpocketing and being greedy. But he loves it when the Sole Survivor helps out children and/or their parents.
  • He Is All Grown Up: He's gone from being a snot-nosed brat to a rather handsome and skilled mungo.
  • Hero of Another Story: He ran with the Gunners (he doesn't like to talk about it though), and clearly hasn't been just twiddling his thumbs in the 10 years between Fallout 3 and 4.
  • Hitman With a Heart: He's a merc, but still has standards. He left the Gunners because they didn't. Specifically, they will take any job, no matter how brutal or depraved, and some of the depths they'd sink to he didn't have the stomach for. Doesn't mean he won't kill people for a living, but he wants to be reasonably sure you're an Asshole Victim first.
  • Loveable Rogue: While he's a mercenary at heart and has no problem with seedy dealings, he nonetheless has an acceptable moral compass and a friendly disposition.
  • Mr. Vice Guy: He loves theft, isn't above making a quick buck, and is perfectly cool with finagling extra money out of quests. But he's good-hearted, friendly and great with kids.
  • Odd Friendship: With Strong, surprisingly enough.
  • Old Shame: In-Universe. He definitely doesn't talk much about his past as mayor of Little Lamplight, and outright describes being a Gunner as "the biggest mistake of his life."
  • Teen Pregnancy: Implied. He's only 22 in Fallout 4, but he has a son old enough to walk and talk. It's not stated how old Duncan is, but MacCready was very likely a minor when he was born.
  • Vague Age: Averted: since Fallout 4 takes place 10 years after 3, MacCready is 22 years old.
  • Weapon of Choice: Appropriately enough for a mercenary sniper, he defaults to a Sniper Rifle.

X6-88

An advanced Institute Synth Courser given to the Sole Survivor as a bodyguard. He can be met after the Sole Survivor helps him recapture an escaped Synth at the Raider city of Libertalia.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • Affably Evil: He's unfailingly polite to everyone he talks to despite being an utter sociopath.
  • Badass: Well, he is an Institute Courser...
  • Deadpan Snarker: Rarely and with an emphasis on the 'deadpan' part.
  • The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: He actually has some dialogue stating his disapproval should the player destroy the Institute, even though doing so requires siding against the Institute, which would make him hostile and unavailable as a companion. It can only be heard if you sided with the Railroad and remain undetected towards the very end.
  • Early-Bird Cameo
  • Everyone Has Standards: Even he's creeped out by the Trappers on the Island and (potentially) the Sole Survivor engaging in cannibalism.
  • Fantastic Racism: The people of the Commonwealth largely fear and hate Synths and the Institute. X6-88 returns their animosity, describing the surface dwellers as "disgusting carrion picking apart a corpse."
  • Foil: To three different characters - Paladin Danse, Curie and Nick Valentine.
  • Gameplay and Story Integration: Institute Coursers are established as being Super Soldiers superior to humanity in every possible way. X6-88's stats total to 98 S.P.E.C.I.A.L. points, almost twice of that of all of your other companions' individual stat sums.
  • Gameplay and Story Segregation/Informed Attribute: The above being said though, he still doesn't have the in-game buffs that all other Coursers have so that he won't be a Game Breaker, with him more acting like another human companion.
  • Hunter of His Own Kind: As a Synth Courser, his job is to track down runaway Synths for the Institute.
  • Lack of Empathy: Unless it's something that benefits the Institute in some capacity, he'll always disapprove of any altruism on the Survivor's part.
  • Machine Monotone
  • No Social Skills: As many of the other tropes on this list will attest. Once he starts to trust the player, he'll admit this explicitly.
  • Not So Stoic: He sounds audibly disgusted if the Sole Survivor commits cannibalism where he can see them, as well as visibly frightened whenever he has to board a Vertibird.
  • Pet the Dog
  • Pick Your Human Half: Averted.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: He often advises the Sole Survivor to not excessively commit criminal acts. However, it's not because he actually cares about Wastelanders and their laws; it's because (as he actually points out) his job of helping protect the Sole Survivor will get a hell of a lot more difficult if half the Wasteland is constantly trying to shoot them for being wanted criminals.
  • Straight Edge Evil: He dislikes it when the Sole Survivor uses chems, something usually found only in unambiguously noble allies. Of course, part of it comes from the fact that those chems weren't designed by the Institute, as he claims to only use Institute-made substances.
  • Token Evil Teammate
  • Weapon of Choice: Defaults to an Institute Laser Rifle.

Strong

Strong is a Super Mutant who can be rescued from the Trinity Tower, where he was almost killed by his fellow mutants for basically being somewhat more intelligent than the rest them and coming to the conclusion he could be slightly more than a murderous monster.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • Badass: Even for a Commonwealth Super Mutant, Strong's an incredibly dangerous and deadly fighter.
  • The Big Guy: Zig-zags between this and The Brute. On one hand, he is capable of empathy, as shown by his approval of 'good Samaritan' behavior. On the other hand, he also loves wanton murder...
  • Blood Knight: Strong greatly enjoys murder, mayhem and slaughter like most Capital Wasteland-descended Super Mutants.
    • Bonus points if they're giant enemies like Super Mutant Behemoths and Mirelurk Queens. He admires anyone who's brave/crazy enough to take on these monstrosities.
  • Boisterous Bruiser
  • Comedic Sociopathy: His constant spoiling for a fight and generally savage personality is Played For Laughs.
  • Comically Missing the Point: His "life calling" was born out of one. It's also one of only three reasons he's even on the side of humanity; the other two being simple curiosity, and an odd appreciation for "word-gifted" individuals.
  • Communism: His descriptions of Super Mutant society are like this trope, and it colors his own morals.
    • Stealing from friends he disapproves of, as like an actual Communists, this would be betraying one's fellows. Taking from the dead or enemies is another story because they would have stolen from friends, which make them Asshole Victims.
    • One of his redeeming virtues is loyalty to allies and refusal to attack them. In fact, Super Mutants make a point of not attacking each other, as they all see each other as brothers, and when Strong joins you, while he will attack his own kind for reasons of self defense, he's disgusted if you attack your own allies for the same reasons.
  • Defector From Decadence: Downplayed.
  • Dumb Muscle: He's no Fawkes or Marcus, that's for sure.
  • Everyone Has Standards: Even he is disgusted by the Sole Survivor brushing off and being disrespectful to Glory as she dies.
  • Gameplay and Story Integration: His constant spoiling for a fight is depicted by it being impossible for him to enter sneak mode like other companions can.
  • Guttural Growler: He's a "Frankenstein"; the voice comes with the territory.
  • Hero with an F in Good: As noted, Strong is trying to be a better person. He's just pretty bad at it compared to previous Super Mutant companions.
  • Hidden Depths: Downplayed, but still there. His comments allude to him (along with the rest of the Commonwealth Super Mutants) being a collectivist, and he admires both altruism and people with silver tongues.
  • Hulk Speak: As with most of his brethren.
  • I'm a Humanitarian
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Well, more bronze than gold, but it still counts. Despite being a Super Mutant that never truly got over his barbarism, Strong can at least be trusted to not harm his allies and is a loyal friend to the Sole Survivor.
  • Leeroy Jenkins
  • Licked by the Dog: If the Sole Survivor adopts Synth Shaun, they will remark that they think Strong is "nice".
  • Moral Myopia: By Super Mutant standards, he's practically a saint, which doesn't endear him to most of his kind.
  • Noble Demon: He's a slightly nicer twist on this trope.
  • Noble Savage: His character seems to be partly designed with this archetype in mind.
  • Odd Friendship: With MacCready.
    • He also already formed one with Rex Goodman during their capture in Trinity Tower.
  • Pet the Dog: He's remarkably respectful towards Glory as she dies during the Railroad questline, admiringly stating "Let human die. Die like warrior."
  • Proud Warrior Race Guy: His personality is generally focused around someone's skill on the battlefield and how impressive they are in combat. His affinity with you can even increase if you just take him with you on huge fights out in the Wasteland.
  • Token Evil Teammate: Strong is a Super Mutant who never truly let go of his savagery, and still advocates bloodshed, cannibalism and violence. However, he can become (slightly) nicer to the Sole Survivor with a little effort.
  • Token Heroic Orc: To a degree. He has not abandoned being willing to engage in cannibalism or murder, and still enjoys raising hell in general, but this is tempered by a rudimentary morality based on similar species having an imperative to look out for one another, not to mention an odd fascination with those who use clever speech and conversational guile as opposed to constant violence.
  • Weapon of Choice: Defaults to a Sledgehammer.
  • The World Is Just Awesome: Some of his comments allude to this. For example, taking Strong to a particularly scenic vista in Boston will cause Strong to quietly muse, "World is bigger than Strong ever knew."
  • Worthy Opponent: Views Paladin Danse - and, by extension, the rest of the Brotherhood of Steel - as this.

Automatron

Ada

The main supporting character of the Automaton DLC. A heavily customized Assaultron built by Jackson, a mechanically-inclined caravan merchant. Like Codsworth, Curie and KL-E-0, she's achieved a remarkable level of self-awareness. After Jackson's caravan is attacked by the Mechanist's robots, and everyone but her is slaughtered, she enlists the Sole Survivor's help in her quest for revenge to find the Mechanist and put an end to their reign of terror.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • Action Girl: She seems to have a feminine personality, making her this.
  • The Atoner: She repeatedly mentions how she's trying to make up for the deaths of her caravaner friends, convinced that because she chose the route they were using, she led them into the Mechanist's robot ambush.
  • Badass: It's clear that Jackson put a lot of effort into making her able to vaporize her enemies.
    • Badass Automaton: She can get even deadlier by being customized by the Sole Survivor.
    • Beware the Nice Ones: Ada is always polite and self-effacing, but that doesn't stop her from ripping apart her fellow robots and raiders if they attack.
  • Boring but Practical: While it takes a bit for it to reset, she will randomly hand the Sole Survivor junk items after initiating dialogue. This on its own makes her one of the most useful companions in the entire game.
  • Deuteragonist: Considering how Automatron introduces her as a new companion and the (admittedly short) story partly involves her learning to both come to terms with the deaths of her friends and her desire to avenge them, she's arguably the real main character of the DLC.
  • Fem Bot
  • Mighty Glacier: She starts off with an Assaultron head and torso, but the stubby legs of a Protectron. As a result, she moves with the characteristic slow waddle of a Protectron, but has lots of health and hits reasonably hard. Of course, it's possible to change that.
  • Mix-and-Match Robot: One of the main features of the DLC is the ability to upgrade Ada's chassis with an assortment of parts from all the different robots in the Fallout universe. She even begins as an Assaultron torso with Protectron legs and both an Assaultron and a Sentry Bot's arms.
  • Nice Girl: A variant. She's remarkably polite and kind when talking to the Sole Survivor, but is still loyal to the point that she won't question any of your actions.
  • Revenge Before Reason: Subverted.
  • Ridiculously Human Robot: Can be customized to this end, and her morals and intelligence are quite approximate to human standards.
  • Robot Buddy: Always asking how she can help you, and worrying when you're injured.
  • Shout-Out: One of her lines in battle is "Resistance is futile!".
  • Sliding Scale of Robot Intelligence: Ada's on an interesting place on this scale. On the one hand, her A.I. isn't advanced enough for her to really judge things from a moral perspective, and her dialogue is generally not as emotional as Codsworth and Curie's can be. However, she still has free will, and is self-aware to a not-insignificant degree, what with her actually feeling pain and loss at the deaths of her friends.
  • Sole Survivor: The only survivor of the robot attack on her caravan.
  • That Makes Me Feel Angry: Ada tends to state her emotions rather than, well, emote, being a robot.

The Automatons

Tropes exhibited by this character include:

Far Harbor

Old Longfellow

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • Affectionate Nickname: Of the platonic variety. He tends to call the Sole Survivor "Cap'n".
  • Badass Beard: Has a thick white beard similar to Father's.
  • Badass Grandpa: As the name suggests - he's one heck of an old-timer, but he can still kick ass with the best of them.
  • Had To Be Sharp: Longfellow lives and breathes this.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's a salty old timer, but at the end of the day, he is willing to lend a helping hand to the people in need of his talents, often for free.
  • Only Sane Man: Old Longfellow and Captain Avery seem to be the only Islanders who're aware that the Fog moves in cycles and that the Children of Atom aren't to blame for the Fog's current problems.
  • Weapon of Choice: Defaults to one of the Lever-Action Rifles used by the other residents of the Island.

Nuka-World

Porter Gage

Porter Gage is the former Raider lieutenant of the Overboss of Nuka-World, a man named Colter who Gage helps you bump off in the hopes you'll be a worthier successor. The ultimate plans he has for the Commonwealth in general are visionary, but it's up to the Sole Survivor to either disappoint him or help Gage fulfill his dreams.

Tropes exhibited by this character include:
  • Affably Evil: He's a pretty nice and civil guy for a Raider, to the point it's occasionally hard to remember he's a Raider, with all the brutality and ruthlessness that implies.
  • Asshole Victim: Despite the fact that he's significantly humanized and well-rounded as a character, Gage honestly deserves his death at the hands of the Sole Survivor if they decide to go up against the Nuka-World Raiders. Gage may be a complex person, but he's still an unrepentant Raider who wants to rob the rest of the world because he thinks that the strong should only need to take from and never give back to the weak.
  • Badass: Given how long he's stayed alive despite his profession in life, most definitely, especially since he's street-smart enough to take notes on the finer points of this trope to stay alive.
    • Ambadassador: Serves as this for the various Raider factions, all of which he manages to finesse into a loose confederation for mutual gain for the benefit of his own superior. He's recognized as tough enough in his own right each of the factions at least has enough respect for his ability to agree to the loose alliance, so long as he continues to adhere to the usefulness this trope implies.
    • Eyepatch of Power: Has a yellow metal patch over his right eye, which doesn't seem to ding his Badass cred any. Apparently, he has no depth perception in that eye either, but he's no less effective in combat without it.
    • Handicapped Badass: Has no effective combat use of one eye, which as mentioned above doesn't really slow him down.
  • Combat Pragmatist: He was the one who provided the squirt gun needed to defeat Colter, even pointing out it might have been silly looking, but it was the smartest way to screw up his defenses. He also advocates solutions in general that lean towards pragmatism over those that are moral or emotionally based, in combat and otherwise.
  • The Creon: Happily so.
  • Dangerously Genre Savvy: He's quite aware of all the tropes relating to survival and how gangs work, and it's clear that he's been around so long because of that.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: On the one hand, he's an unrepentant Raider. On the other hand, he's just as frightened of the Institute as the rest of the Commonwealth is, with him seeing the organization as "playing God". Justified, as Institute Synths are just a big of a threat to Raider gangs as they are to everyone else, and the Institute has even infiltrated Raider gangs before to use for their own ends.
    • To a lesser extent, he also thought the concept of the Vaults was a bad idea bound to go to hell one way or another, generally to the detriment of the people who entrusted their safety to them. As the rest of the Fallout Series has shown, he's not wrong for that outlook.
  • Evil Counterpart/Foil: To Preston Garvey. While Preston embodies the hope of the Commonwealth, Gage embodies everything evil about Raiders.
  • The Evil Genius: By Raider standards, he's the brightest bulb in the box by a wide margin. His advice is also tailored to help his boss succeed, and his counsel is very on point.
  • Evil Mentor: This is his role, in a nutshell, within the DLC's storyline. He tries to instill into you all the "pros" of being a self-centered, pillaging scum of the wastes — all of which is done via a pseudo-sympathetic "I've been there before" fashion of engagement.
  • Hero of Another Story: A villainous version.
  • Jerkass: He's a Raider, so being a dick comes with the territory.
    • Jerk With a Heart of Gold: Well, for a given value of this. He's still a Raider, so this doesn't mean he's in any way an altruistic sort, but he does shown the Sole Survivor genuine respect and even concern for their well being, especially if romanced.
  • Killed Off For Real: If the Sole Survivor goes against the Nuka-World Raiders in the "Open Season" quest, it also turns Gage hostile and the Sole Survivor will have to kill him (even if he's romanced). Ironically, the most moral ending to the questline will result in his death.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Admits after some befriending this is his standard way of staying alive under tougher raiders, and advises you do the same.
    • In gameplay terms, he likes when you succeed at intimidation or speech checks that put you at an advantage over someone else.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: He's a Raider, though a very clever and forward thinking one. For example, he frowns on chem abuse, which he feels makes Raiders sloppy. He's also a big picture thinker, with clear goals for long term prosperity as a Raider as opposed to immediate short term gains.
  • The Social Darwinist: Gage believes that the world is split into "victors" and "victims" - and the "victors" should always take, never give.
  • Token Evil Teammate: Porter Gage is the only companion in the entire game who's explicitly evil, to the point where he actively revels in it. Cait and Strong come nowhere near this guy's level (in fact, both are capable of altruism and kindness, especially the former as she warms up to you), while X6-88 is both programmed to lack emotions and still thinks that his actions are for the greater good. Gage has no line he's unwilling to cross in the name of mayhem, carnage and loot.
    • It's worth noting, however, that he's only Neutral Evil in all but name, what with him making it clear that he's a self-centered bastard, but a structured one with long term goals, & isn't just an asshole for the mere sake of it.
  • Virtue Is Weakness: Gage sees human morality as something that only leads to failure. According to him, the only "true" way to survive is to see the world for the hopeless cesspit that he thinks it is and claim everything else by the power of the gun.
  • Weapon of Choice: Defaults to one of the Handmade Rifles used by the rest of the Nuka-World Raiders.
Back to Fallout 4
  1. ↑ Since he was in disguise at the time.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Fallout_4/Characters/Companions?oldid=2017398"