Fallout 4 Ultimate Endings Guide: Every Ending Revealed. There are four endings to Fallout 4. The main story concludes once you reach the institute. After that point, you’re given the choice of either helping one of the main four factions. All four factions will have been met by that time, they are the Brotherhood, the Minutemen, the Railroad, and the Institute. You get the ending based on how you proceed after you’ve reached the Institute. The ending has a massive impact on which factions are available after the ending cutscene.

All roads lead to one cutscene, which only varies slightly. The only impact is the state the world is in afterwards and who you can and can’t do questions for. If you want to do side-quests for all four factions, then you’ll need to do them before you conclude the main story. In the game files, the endings are "Endgame_FEMALE_A.bk2" and "Endgame_FEMALE_B.bk2" and of course, a male counterpart for each.

The main story concludes in such a vague way to make-up for the Fallout 3 ending, where you conclude the stories of all the various factions. All minor faction endings are dealt with on a case by case basis.

In all endings, you'll be the faction leader of the faction you assist. This may have some value in upcoming DLC.

During the Battle of Bunker Hill, the game might have assumed you were just following the Institute quests, and gives you the option of diverting to one of any of the other factions without having to do a prerequisite.

Moral Impacts

Minutemen: Siding with the Minutemen puts Boston in a state of free-will. You do not really ever have the chance not to be allied with the Minutemen.

Brotherhood of Steel: The BoS are zealous crusaders who will destroy anything to get their hands on pre-war technology to save everyone. If you side with them, you’ll be providing some serious firepower and protection for the citizens of the Commonwealth, but you’ll also be siding with a group who believe genocide is okay and are ready to destroy every Synth, Mutant, and Ghoul out there.

Railroad: They believe that controlling what are pretty much Androids with near free-will and sentient behavior to be slavery. Siding with them, you’ll be helping to abolish the two greatest threats to the Commonwealth, but at the same time you’ll also be helping radicals who don’t really care that much about Human lives, but instead their own mandate to save Synths.

Institute: Already beyond Enclave levels of technology, they are Humanities last hope of restoring the Earth to what it was before, however, they are totally fine with the slavery of near-Human Synths. They do show much remorse for attacking others, but again, they’re totally cool with the slavery thing and pretty much being an evil shadowy organization.

Minutemen Ending

  • Factions Allied: Railroad
  • Factions Destroyed: Brotherhood of Steel, Institute

Possibly one of the fastest endings, simply only requiring you to build 8 settlements, and get on the institutes bad side. If you follow all of the minutemen quests, you’ll receive a holotape to use to download the data off of the Institute's computers. This will take you a mission to defend Castle, at which point you’ll invade the Institute, then as one final act, destroy the Brotherhood.

The Railroad will remain active to do quests with, assuming you do not do anything at all to upset them.

The Minutemen are the only neutral faction. They have no qualms with any of the other factions and are mostly Settlement based. They’re one of the more relaxed ways to get to the end. This is also the only true good ending, because they just want to live in Boston and be free. You'll have a chance to start back up with them after you complete another faction's assault on the Institute, but once the Nuclear Option quest is started, you'll not be able to go through with their ending.

Brotherhood of Steel

  • Factions Allied: Minutemen
  • Factions Destroyed: Railroad, Institute                          

This ending is what I consider probably the best ending, but that’s my subjective viewpoint. It’s a long road, where you’ll need to take the holotape to the Brotherhood of Steel. You’ll rebuild Liberty Prime, and in doing so you’ll need to build a few parts, then you’ll need to reclaim some weapons for it, after which you’ll attack Mass Fusion (be sure to bring lots of radioactive protection), and then finally assault the Institute after destroying the Railroad.

You can engage the Brotherhood ending by either returning the holotape to them, or following the Institutes quests, betray the Institute and tell the Brotherhood about the Mass Fusion plant. If you want to avoid building the parts for Liberty Prime, simply complete the Institute quests.

As a reward for doing all of the quests, you’ll find out Paladin Danse is a synth and have the option of him joining you or not.

Railroad

  • Factions Allied: Minutemen
  • Factions Destroyed: Brotherhood of Steel, Institute

The Railroad wants to destroy anyone and anything controlling the Synths. You’ll infiltrate the Institute, defend their headquarters, destroy the Brotherhood of Steel, and finally finish off the Institute. The end is similar to the Minutemen ending, with the Synths able to live freely and no one to control them, but the Railroad is sort of twisted in their desires.

This ending requires you to NEVER get on the Institutes bad side before “Underground Undercover” which, if you do, then the ending is then shutoff from you.

Institute

  • Allied Factions: Minutemen
  • Factions Destroyed: Railroad, Brotherhood of Steel

This ending is rather short, you simply follow all the quests from Father. You’ll recover some synths, take out the railroad, and then destroy the Brotherhood of Steel. Following this end, the Institute will have all the power they need to control humanity’s fate and the Synths will remain under their control.

You can betray the Brotherhood of Steel and flee to the Institute whenever they prepare to attack Mass Fusion.

That’s all of the endings for Fallout 4. There are no slides and nothing else – every other story has its own ending, you’re free to explore the world afterward. If you sided with the Institute, they’ll remain a travel destination, and you’ll be able to complete the side quests for any remaining faction that you don’t destroy.

No matter what ending you choose, Father will die. There is no changing that. The cutscene will remain the same, with only one difference, the Institute cutscene showing the hospital bed, the others show the blast.


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Last Updated: Nov 09, 2021

About The Author

Lewis is a long standing journalist, who freelances to a variety of outlets.

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