The top 10 Fallout side-quests from Bethesda and Obsidian

The modern Fallout video games’ greatest strength are how they manage to tell zany, engaging, and memorable self-contained stories through side-quests which often outshine the main narratives.

The freedom to explore the vast postapocalyptic wasteland often results in crazy scenarios — like detonating an atom bomb — and meeting eccentric and interesting characters. Who can forget the hulking tree named Harold in Fallout 3’s Oasis or the Elvis Presley wannabe The King in Fallout: New Vegas? But more important, these quests force you to make tough decisions, allowing you to leave a permanent impact on the world and characters. Better think and choose wisely vault dweller.

Though Fallout 3, 4, and New Vegas have plenty of awesome quests you can partake in, only a handful of them best showcase both Bethesda Game Studios’ and Obsidian Entertainment’s exceptional storytelling abilities. These are their 10 best side-quests.

10. The Power of the Atom 

Right after you escape Vault 101 in Fallout 3, you quickly come across the first town, Megaton, and the first tough decision you can make that defines the experience to come. You see Megaton has a dormant atom bomb lying around that you can either arm and later detonate or disarm. Both choices, driven by the mysterious Mister Burke and the town’s sheriff, come with their ups-and-downs. Though future quests in Fallout 3 are definitely more exciting, it’s the moral choices at the center of Power of the Atom that make it great. Plus, you can potentially see an atom bomb go off, which is always cool in the wasteland.

9. Nothin’ But A Hound Dog

This Fallout: New Vegas quest has you meet up with none other than The King himself (an Elvis Presley lookalike) and decide the fate of his cybernetic dog Rex. He needs a new brain, and so The King sends you out into the wilderness to find one. Whether it’s battling a hound in an arena for his noodle or convincing a woman to give up her mutt’s brain, Nothin’ But A Hound Dog is brimming with options and is anything but boring and linear. Plus, you get Rex as a companion. Who doesn’t like robot dogs?

8. Our Little Secret

An unmarked quest, Our Little Secret is probably the most disturbing side-mission you can do in Fallout 3, and it best highlights the harsh reality of a postapocalyptic world. Set in a quaint little town called Andale, you slowly discover that it’s anything but normal. How have the townsfolk remained healthy and fed? By resorting to cannibalism, of course. The characters you meet are well written and aren’t villainous caricatures. You can understand their actions, which makes choosing the fate of Andale that much more tough. Do you let them continue eating people and survive, or do you put an end to their misery?

7. The Silver Shroud

Set in Fallout 4’s Diamond City, The Silver Shroud has you impersonate a 1950s gangster superhero and go full vigilante. To activate the quest, you speak with an innocent and sweet ghoul named Kent Conolly. Kent is nostalgic about the good-ol’ days in 2071, when he and his family would watch the old The Silver Shroud TV show as the hero goes up against crazy baddies, like Captain Cosmos. Kent convinces you to don the Shroud’s costume and go hunting for thugs in Diamond City by listening in on Kent’s radio station. This is the only quest that makes you feel like a superhero in Fallout 4, and it ends in a bittersweet and poignant way that expertly shows you the difficulty of making this new world a better place.

6. The Superhuman Gambit

In Fallout 3, The Superhuman Gambit puts you at the center of a war between a superhero and villain, the Mechanist and the AntAgonizer. When you first find the town of Canterbury Commons, you’ll see both the Mechanist and the AntAgonizer engaging in a vicious brawl that ends with them escaping to their hideouts. Once the dust settles, Uncle Roe, a Canterbury Commons citizen, asks you to handle the ordeal. What follows is a whimsical comic book-inspired adventure that has you examine both of the characters’ weaknesses, find their lairs, and ultimately choose which side you want to be on. Join the mechanical and honorable hero, or the cruel villain? You’ve plenty of ways to kill either character, and the whole affair ends being one of the funniest quests in the entire game.

5. The Secret of Cabot house

Another Fallout 4 quest, The Secret of Cabot House explores the science-fiction side of Fallout and introduces an interesting and fun concept. While the rest of the world has to contend with living in the wasteland and fighting with Deathclaws and raiders, the Cabot family is living comfortably and happily in the pristine and sizable family house. You discover exactly why the Cabots have been holed up in their home, and it definitely isn’t because of shyness or fear. Oh, and you also discover that the Cabots have been alive for hundreds of years but haven’t aged a bit. I’ll let you find out how they’ve managed to pull that off for yourself.

4. Arizona Killer

Do you like the sound of planning a complicated assassination on the president of the New California Republic? Fallout: New Vegas’ Arizona Killer is the quest for you. You see the commander-in-chief Aaron Kimball is a real piece of work, and Caesar, the leader of a totalitarian slavery society based on the ancient Roman Empire called Caesar’s Legion (Caesar is kinda evil, too), wants Kimball to die. You wear a disguise and plan different ways to kill him while he’s out in the open in the entire area of the Dam. Do you use a sniper rifle, plant explosives, or a blast away with a giant machine gun? Choices, choices, choices. But, hey, you’ll have fun murdering Kimball no matter how you do it.

3. Beyond the Beef

Beyond the Beef has you attempting to save a wealthy Brahim baron’s son after he gets kidnapped by the White Gloves Society, a secret society that once resorted to cannibalism. You’ve to infiltrate their ranks, James Bond-style, by asking to join them and help one of the members, Mortimer, turn the group into cannibals again. You’ve plenty of different ways to approach and complete this quest. You can go guns blazing, or you may kill one of your “friends” and replace them with the baron’s son, for example. Even after completing the quest, depending on how you pull off the rescue, you can still go from being hated to idolized by the White Gloves. Now, where’s my martini?

2. Oasis

Arguably the most thoughtful and impactful quest in Fallout 3, Oasis has you decide the fate of the only settlement in the wasteland to have actual plant life growing. Once you stumble upon Oasis, you meet a man named Tree Father Birch who is part of a cult that worships Harold as their God. Harold was just some random victim of something called the Forced Evolutionary Virus, which had him growing a tree on his head. Harold eventually morphed into a talking tree and gave life to Oasis’ green foliage. The crux of the quest is the tough choice you’ve to make between killing Harold (who wants to die and stop being tortured) or helping the cult potentially expand his reach and cover the entire wasteland with plants. You won’t find a correct and easy decision here.

1. Come Fly With Me

Arguably the best Fallout quest has you helping a bunch of REPCONN ghouls launch a space expedition to help them complete their “Great Journey” in Fallout: New Vegas. After receiving complaints about the increasing activity of feral ghouls in the REPCONN test site, you discover that these ghouls, led by Jason Bright, want to escape the harsh wasteland by finding a new place to live in the “far beyond.” So you help them do so by clearing out a bunch of nightkin in the facility and collecting parts to complete the ghouls’ two rockets. You even get to witness an actual rocket launch. How can you beat that? Though Come Fly With Me doesn’t contain a lot of action, it’s great because it best showcases just how weird and creative Fallout’s quests can get. Where else can you help ghouls travel to space?