There are four factions you can help out in Fallout 4. Each has its own goals, its own philosophy, and its own cool outfits. The question is: Which one is best?
Patricia’s already explained why she doesn’t like the Brotherhood, but maybe you feel differently? Or maybe you’re more an a Railroad type? Or maybe you think the question should actually be “Which Fallout 4 faction sucks the least?”
Time to put it to a vote! Your vote doesn’t actually have to reflect whatever choices you made in the game. It’s more a matter of: If you had to pick one, which?
Choose wisely. May the best faction win.
Explain your reasoning in the comments below. Do mark major story spoilers, but readers, be warned that lots of these comments are probably going to be pretty spoilery.
Comments
38 responses to “Which Fallout 4 Faction Is The Best?”
How is this even a contest? Ad Victoriam!
I blame the institute, Kirk is clearly a synth
I got to 100 hours without actually meeting The Institute and up to that point, I had all but decided on sticking with the BoS.
After I met the Institute, my mind quickly changed. I did not hate them, as I thought I would. I sided with them and have no regrets.
Have you been to University Point?
You got honey-potted hard by The Institute. Shaun is actually such a dick when you think about it. The Brotherhood aren’t knights in shining armour but at least they are upfront. The Institute are so shady.I had so many questions about what the Intsitute were up to, but I found it so hard to dig anything up. I know they up to some no good stuff, but just couldnt for the life of me get anything concrete…
If you did any digging, you would have found that they were testing the F.E.V on prisoners from The Commonwealth.
This was the main reason I destroyed The Institute.
All for the greater good!
I found that, but I just wished there was more substance to it. Like, yeah you find the guy in the Glowing Sea, but he doesn’t talk about his research. You find his notes and stuff in the labs, but that’s it. There’s no way to broach the topic with anyone, to get more details or anything. it’s just left as this dangling bit of lore that’s left unexplored.
But like I said, maybe I just couldn’t find the specific bit that explains why they were doing it.
For me, yeah they’re shady and borderline fascist, but then so are the brotherhood. In fact, the brotherhood are quite clearly fascist, but at least they’re honest about it.
“greater good” etc etc..
I’ve been there.
Honestly, I just can’t care about characters I never met. After the whole Danse debacle, there was no way I could forgive the Brotherhood for turning on a loyal soldier, even though I convinced them to let him stay and survive.In regards to the Institute being shady, they are not so shady once you become Director.Doesn’t matter. Family is family.
I sided with the railroad. Underdogs who want freedom for all? Sign me up!
Originally liked the Minutemen but after a few hours they just kinda felt like a bland tutorial faction.
While I agree with the Railroad in some respects I feel they are way to shortsighted.
They don’t seem to care about freedom for all, only synths. Secondly they free Synths at the expense of human life such as the liberated Synth at libertaria (they are responsible for all of the humans killed by him as well.I sided with the Railroad simply because they were the underdogs.
I automatically thought about the end game and wondered who would be more FUN to fight.
– The Institute are fun cause I like blasting off robot limbs and taking all their fusion cells and heavy synth armour, best armour in the game
– The Brotherhood is fun cause I get to blow up vertibirds, plus it’s a never ending supply of power armour
Now if only I could be an enemy of the Minutemen >.>
You can pick-pocket fusion cores out of power armour and the occupant has to hop out, leaving the frame intact. Never be without power armour again!
Do minutemen actually count as a faction. Obviously its the way I played my game but the only end scenarios I could see involved the Institute, BoS or Railroad. As for this poll: Ad Victoriam!
Haha, your comment beat mine by a minute 😀
Finished the Institute story on PS4, Brotherhood on Xbox and I’ll likely have to do a Railroad playthrough on PC. The Brotherhood branch is definitely the more enjoyable.
I didn’t really consider the ‘Minutemen’ a faction though. I don’t see a scenario where you can become an ‘Enemy’ of them (unlike the others), I considered them more of a story arc than an allegiance.
I’m with the Brotherhood, but I don’t like them and I’m too busy with my settlement to leave (can you leave?). Danse makes laugh to when I’m up to no good and he’s judging me…. for taking a desk fan. Take a chill pill Danse.
I got a feeling anyone not voting for The Institute probably hasnt reached that part of the story yet
The Railroad.
You give me The Deliverer and ballistic weave and you’re my new best mate.
Also Janeway was less annoying than the other faction heads and they had more colourful characters (eg PAM and Tinker Tom).
This guy gets it. Walking around in an armoured Tux with a suppressed Walther? Shut up and take my allegiance!
I’ve done two playthroughs so far. One with The Institute storyline, the other with the BoS storyline.
Personally I prefer the Institute, I just don’t like Elder Hitler’s extremely fascist idea that only pure humans can exist. Of course, the FEV experiments were rather unethical but at least they tolerate species other than humans
They were all shit. Why couldn’t I just go it alone?
Said like a true Teemo. Zero team play.
Snake Pliskin? Is that you?
Oh wait! There’s factions? You mean there is something I can do to make a difference. Oh… No… You were just kidding. I see what you did there..
Although I haven’t finished the main story yet, I have encountered all four factions and some of their related ingame lore. I’ve also read a bunch of stuff about the factions.
Keeping in mind that all four factions believe they are doing good, it’s their actions that mark them as good or evil. (Keeping it simple).
Most evil to least evil:
1) The Institute.
They just want what’s best for (their vision of) humanity. However, they achieve this by kidnapping people and brahmins, and replace them with Synths. They also practice slavery. They also have something to do with Super Mutants, but I haven’t uncovered much more than that yet. That’s enough to put them as most evil.2) The Brotherhood.
They want to preserve technology for the future when humanity is ready for it again, but at the same time, they want to remove the use and knowledge of anything that could be used to cause similar destruction to the war. They also hate Super Mutants, Ghouls and Synths.. the shoot on sight kind of hate. Even if said non-humans are friendly peace loving types. The Brotherhood is also fine with mowing down a whole village/town to get some tech they want, “confiscating” farms to supply them with food and resources etc.3) The Railroad.
On the surface, they seem nice. They want to rescue Synths who want to leave the slavery of the Institute. However, they approach this with a “my way or the highway” attitude, and will take any measure to ensure their goals are reached.4) The Minutemen.
These guys are just a bunch of “people’s militia” who want to work with everyone to bring peace and stability, regardless of your race or origins. They want to work with settlements to provide mutual protection etc. These are the “nice guys” of the commonwealth, and so far I haven’t seen anything that says otherwise.Storywise, there is an ending where you are at peace with the Railroad, the Brotherhood and allied with the Minutemen, so if you’re aiming for a really high level eventually, this is a good outcome, because it keeps a bunch of dynamic quest content available
Railroad for life because as a kid I watched a lot of transformers and Optimus saying “Freedom is the right of all sentient beings” has stuck with me and I’ll cut anyone that sides with Elder Maxson in this game, I don’t mind Danse’s team and their occasional xenophobia but the other super hard line militant guys can suck my robot loving pip boy. At least in the prior games the brotherhood were all about protecting technology and then this guy shows up in his big dick airship in the name of fighting the institute and trying to get me to extort my settlements out of their crops.
I haven’t gotten to the institute yet and my interactions with the minutemen have been that I saved a dude and got promoted to leader … didn’t even give me a fancy hat for it either.
Team Dogmeat, all the way
I’ve finished all the endings and the institute ending was the most disappointing. Railroad is my fav and i like the minutemen. Bos would have been by far the coolest if they weren’t the liberal party reskinned. I think the ending is actually a real drag but getting past it feels great, im level 49 and i dont feel like im even close to halfway through seeing the map.
I’ve only done 1 playthrough, and I agree, the Institute ending was pretty underwhelming. Everything felt very ‘convenient’.
I’m keen to play through the BOS one, just to see what it is. But I have the feeling I’d enjoy the Railroad ending more. They seem like a cool bunch.
Was gutted in the Institute play through where you have to kill them. I was hoping to be able to get away with not killing them! Damn this lack of non-violent alternatives.Lack of non violent alternatives is Fallout 4 in a nutshell 🙁
The BOS and Railroad endings arent much better but they feel more like endings, the best part of the ending is knowing you can go back to doing whatever you want and have fun
Stating a preference is different than modelling and defining morality in dichotomous terms. Cool with both but it doesn’t seem Kotaku is ever able to distiguish between empowering the perspectives of their writers versus judging those of their commentors when at times, very similar conventions are used in arguments but judged negatively en mass for the same things writers here are defended for.
Also, Minutemen – but they aren’t the most interesting in terms of challenging narrative. Railroad and the Brotherhood are both interesting – assuming of course you can withstand the moral poison of simply observing a depiction of immorality.
the BOS are starting to piss me off, once on their base ship am i able to kill all on board and make the ship mine ??
Yeah I’ve found most of them to be uppity dicks. I’m planning on killing Maxson for his fabulous coat.
ill make a save and start my killing spree tonight and let you know how i fair… seems like the vertibirds are shit as they keep getting shot down. ill start on the main deck and hit the bastards with my quad rocket launcher as they file out the door….
You can’t kill Maxson. I tried, he’s like dogmeat, just goes down then gets back up… Such a let down.
Nah you can absolutely kill Maxson. Done it a couple times because I wanted to see what his coat would look like on me.