Fallout 4’s Protagonist Has a Surprising Connection to Fallout 1

You’d never believe this Fallout connection if it didn’t come from a developer.

Now that Fallout is out on Amazon’s Prime Video, everyone’s got a new Fallout story to enjoy, free Fallout games to play, and all kinds of lore discussions and debates to hold everyone over until Fallout 5 releases in who knows how long. The show has also brought all sorts of different members of past Fallout teams back into the spotlight, too, with Fallout developers sharing their thoughts on the show and interesting insights into the games and series now that everyone’s interest is renewed. That goes for Bethesda Game Studios studio design director Emil Pagliarulo, too, seeing how he just shared a connection between Fallout 4 and the very first Fallout game that was seemingly 100% unknown to the public prior to this weekend.

Pagliarulo took to Twitter to drop a bomb on his followers by saying that one of the two playable Fallout 4 protagonists, Nate, was actually in the first Fallout game. According to Pagliarulo, we can see Nate in the opening Fallout cinematic when two soldiers outfitted in Power Armor are shown executing Canadian rebels amid the United States’ annexation of Canada. One of the soldiers in that part of the cinematic shown around 50 seconds into the video below is Nate. Pagliarulo specified that Nate is on the left, not the Power Armor-clad soldier who actually shoots the rebel.

“Given the great vibes recently, and the millions of amazing Fallout fans (that’s you!) I feel like the time is right to finally share an unknown link between Fallout 1 and Fallout 4,” Pagliarulo said. “Remember the Fallout 1 opening movie? Annexation of Canada? SAME. GUY. (No, NOT the shooter!).”

Before any Fallout lorekeepers pull up the timeline to fact check Pagliarulo here, the match checks out. While Fallout 4 takes place almost entirely in 2287, but only after we first see Nate and his family in 2077 before the bombs drop. The U.S. annexation of Canada happened from 2072 to 2077, so as far as the timeline is concerned, there’s no reason why Nate, a known member of the U.S. Army, couldn’t be that soldier.

Of course, given the timing of this revelation, there were those who suggested that this wasn’t really a lore detail and was for some reason something Pagliarulo just came up with on the spot. That’s quite the claim to make given that other Fallout developers could easily contradict Pagliarulo if they wanted to, so Pagliarulo responded to some of those suggestions to insist this was an actual lore consideration.

“Nope. With any fictional work (books, video games, movies, whatever) there are always little details that help build and flesh out the characters and world,” he said. “People and places have histories that shape them. Just because you don’t know every detail doesn’t make them any less true.

Others found it hard to believe that the loving family man Nate could be the character laughing at someone’s execution in the Fallout cinematic, but again, Pagliarulo reminded them that the Fallout games and now that show are full of people changing perspectives and evolving over time.

“Oh, I very respectfully disagree,” he said to someone who suggested this connection went against Fallout 4′s portrayal of Nate. “Actually, I think the TV show perfectly illustrates that inherently good people, especially in the Fallout universe, can do some pretty shitty things to adapt and survive. War never changes.”