Fallout 4 guide

How to win friends, kill Raiders and influence survivors after the nukes drop

Welcome to Polygon's guide to Fallout 4. Bethesda's expansive post-apocalyptic role-playing game will lead players down many different paths. Whatever shape your journey takes, we're happy to help steer you toward the right paths and over any troublesome hurdles.

Far Harbor update

Fallout 4 is bigger than it's ever been, thanks to Far Harbor — and our guide is, too. You can find our Far Harbor walkthrough in the table of contents below.

Vault-Tec Workshop update

It's time to go underground with Fallout 4's Vault-Tec Workshop. This downloadable content allows you to build and manage your own vault, Vault 88, and comes with many new vault-related structures and items. Clean bed linens and new toilets for all!

This is also the first Workshop add-on to have quests. Run Vault-Tec approved experiments and decide what kind of Overseer you want to be. In this guide, we'll help you navigate your way through Vault-Tec Workshop.

HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE

Whatever your experience level, our Beginner's guide is a primer on how to make the most of your time during the initial hours of your playthrough. Many of our tips will be familiar to Fallout fans, but a refresher never hurts. We also touch upon the new Settlements feature of Fallout 4, which is helpful for a number of the early quests.

Speaking of which, we've organized quests based on the likely order many players might experience during their playthroughs. It assumes you're taking your time with the game rather than mainlining the story. Fallout 4 begins at an extreme corner of the map, which increases the likelihood that you'll come across many of these quests in the order we did.

The same goes for the collectibles in this guide. In a game that is rich in unique items and collectibles, we decided to focus on four categories: Magazines and Bobbleheads for their usefulness in enhancing stats, Holotapes for the occasional arcade game unlock, and Lunchboxes, given the series' history with these pieces of child-sized luggage.

You can also expect updates detailing perks and the Commonwealth's myriad locations.

Table of contents

Beginner's guide (updated)

This is where you'll find a series of tips and tricks to help the unfrozen acclimate to the post-apocalyptic future. After playing dozens upon dozens of hours of Fallout 4, we've expanded this guide with even more.

Companions Guide

Everything you need to know about the 13 friends you can make in The Wasteland — and the perks they can grant you.

Faction guide

Are you a Minuteman or part of a Brotherhood? What does the Institute stand for, and why would you sign up? Ever wanted to ride on a Railroad? Find out everything you need to know about Fallout 4's factions in this section of the guide.

Perks guide

Fallout 4 has more perks than you can shake a box of Rad-X at. We'll tell you to what's valuable and how to use them. We've also included several suggested builds, based on your play style.

13 tips for everybody

Fallout 4 is hard. These 13 tips should help.

Here's how to get unlimited adhesive in Fallout 4

You don't have to dwell in Fallout 4's wasteland for long to realize that the most valuable commodity isn't caps ... it's glue.

A guide to getting rich, getting high, and blowing everything up (without cheating)

The fastest path to riches is farming,

QUEST GUIDES

Fallout 4 is an open-world game, and you can explore the wasteland at your leisure. Though it's open-ended, Fallout 4 is filled with quests — some optional, some required — that pull you through the game. We've broken down the quests into a few categories, each of which you can navigate to below.

MAIN QUESTS

MINUTEMEN QUESTS

BROTHERHOOD OF STEEL QUESTS

INSTITUTE QUESTS

RAILROAD QUESTS

SIDE QUESTS

COLLECTIBLES GUIDES

Bethesda sprinkled Fallout 4 with a light dusting of collectibles, many of which will make your character stronger, while o let you play games. Also, there are lunchboxes. These guides will help you catch 'em all find every one of them.

Far Harbor guide

Far Harbor brings a new, story-based component to to Fallout 4, and we bring you a guide.

Main quests

Acadia quests

Children of Atom quests

Far Harbor quests

Miscellaneous quests