Long time, no post. I thought I’d wake this blog up with a post about gaming, as I started playing PS games again after about an 18 month hiatus. I had been getting quite involved in online team games like Division 2 and Helldivers 2 before I quit back in 2025 and I was a little worried about spending that much time gaming when I dived back in. I decided to take another crack at Fallout 4.

My first FO4 run

I had dabbled in the first two Fallouts, totally missed 3 and New Vegas, and started playing FO4 around the time that it was really exploding with the pipboy merch and the like. Being an older gamer with very few twitch reflexes left and starting from a basis of “clumsy”, I played my usual Charisma Sniper build: lots of build points spent on making dialogue exchanges productive and an appropriate level of accuracy and stealth skills to allow you to resolve your non-dialogue issues from a safe distance.

I played that game for about 200 hours, heavily teamed with Piper, avoided most of the BoS, was really really disappointed with my son, sided with the Railroad (although I regretted it later), and reached a point where everything could be resolved with 1-2 shots from the 50Cal sniper’s rifle, without wearing power armour. I’d charged aggressively into story pursuit, which meant that it took me quite a few attempts to defeat Kellogg as I had carelessly not saved for a while and my quicksave had me just before his dialogue started. Eventually, my build caught up with my aggression and exploding head disease started to affect many Raiders, Supermutants, and other villains.

But I reached a point in the game where the overall dreariness of the surroundings was just too much. I had built some nice places but PS4/5 mods weren’t that extensive and I couldn’t actually make many things look much better. I’d reached a point where I didn’t have much to achieve and the overall aesthetic was getting to me. I dismissed Strong, my companion of the time, stood my character on one of the bridges of Sanctuary, facing the sunset, and switched off.

The latest FO4 run

I turned the (now) PS5 back on a few months back and started messing around with FO4 again, in roughly 1 hour blocks. This was enough time to do some things, face some challenges, but not so much that it would cut into my life again, unlike the 2-3 hours I’d been committing to Helldivers 2 squad play back just before the Illuminate showed up.

Once again, I built a character who was agile and perceptive, charismatic, and this time I pumped intelligence to get the benefits of rapid exp rise. This time, there were far more expansion packs available for PS so I had Far Harbor, NukaWorld, plus Contraptions and all the others. This allowed me to delay doing the main story for a long time, in fact, I regularly stumbled over parts of other stories and had to redo them (Nick Valentine had amnesia for the second time I saved him).

I resolved Far Harbour, worked for the Railroad, did a lot of side quests, killed one or two people in really weird hats, and had got to the point where I was about to teleport into the institute – having not made any real progress on the Sean questline, despite being level 69. My settlements were well protected, I had a 50Cal ammo plant I fed with copper and lead, and I had even started some minor stuff for the BoS to see what that was like.

And then I stumbled upon this, while just walking around.

For those who don’t know Fallout 4 lore, the game is based in a world 210 years after a nuclear war occurred. On October 23, 2077, a massive nuclear exchange destroyed much of the world, leaving behind radiation, devastation, and a severely reduced population. Many of the survivors had sought shelter in underground vaults, which is where our playable character comes in, as a survivor of Vault 111. The game starts in 2287, with hundreds of years having led to many changes as people have tried to rebuild and the power struggles of empires big and small affect everyone living in the remains of the world.

In that image is the skeleton of a young girl who is never identified in game, but the game resources list her name as Abigail. On October 22, 2077, she had a huge argument with her parents that resulted in her leaving the house and coming back to this cabin, a safe childhood memory, to be able to sleep safely while she thinks. It’s not said explicitly but it’s strongly implied that she’s pregnant, to some guy called John who she doesn’t feel she can tell, and her voice recording is of a distressed young woman who’s got out of somewhere to sort herself out.

That’s her skeleton lying on the mattress, in an old dress. Next to her is her suitcase, which contained the recording of her statement, a change of dress, and some bubblegum. I didn’t think much of this until I collected the holotape and played it, then I walked back into the cabin and just looked at the skeleton. The bubblegum in the suitcase.

She ran away on the 22nd. On the 23rd, the bombs dropped, obliterating almost all life in the region and it was this, most certainly, that killed her. The bombs dropped at 9:47am in the game. Given how much had gone on and the position that she’s in on the mattress, perhaps she was still asleep at that time, marshalling her strength for whatever was going to happen when she woke.

Games are full of little tragedies like this, emotional embellishment that is not a strong support for the story but gives you a real feeling for the world. When this is done in an over-the-top or awkward manner, it often degenerates into pastiche, losing the pathos that should be associated with it. It is also, however, very easy for these to slide into the background when you are focused on in-game achievement, or have become desensitised to the images presented. If these game design elements are to engage you, you need to be aware that they exist and be prepared to deal with them as the tragic elements that they are. But you also need to be prepared for them to hit you where you live.

Looking at the skeleton on the mattress, I felt the same aesthetically driven sadness that I had on my first playthrough. I could keep doing what I was doing in the game but I couldn’t actually change the world to make it better. I couldn’t tidy up the cabin, dig a grave and bury her, or even seal the door and stop it from being disturbed. I could listen to her tape, steal her bubblegum, and either wear or recycle her dress. It just felt that she deserved more than this, which is a weird thing to say about software generated polygons but here we are.

Now, of course, nothing I was doing in game was actually making any real difference to the world. I was playing a game, and while there’s nothing wrong with that, and then I was reminded that this young woman’s story is being repeated, every day, in the world. The supermutants aren’t real, the synths aren’t real, the 2077 war isn’t real, but this story, someone rejected by her family, feeling alone, and being far from help when a terrible thing happened – that’s happening right now. And I felt that, looking down on that skeleton and thinking about a scared kid stuffing a dress and some bubblegum into a suitcase and running out to find somewhere that she could just breathe without being yelled at.

This run ends here.

I will play this game again, I imagine, when I’ve got some distance. But this run ends here and I’ve moved my game to backup storage to spend some more time back in the world. Now I need to act on the ways it made me think.

Yesterday, we donated groceries to Catherine House, a fantastic group who provide support for women experiencing homelessness in South Australia, and I updated my microloan and charity portfolios to provide more support to women and girls seeking to build new lives, looking for shelter and support, and who were in need of help. There’s always more to do.

More information on the in-game runaway.

If you’re interested, you can see more details of her here in the Fallout wiki, and read her transcript here.