The Fallout franchise is filled with characters who have grown up and lived their entire existence in a bleak, post-apocalyptic version of America where every day appears to be more dangerous and depressing than the last.

Related:The Longest Bethesda GamesHowever, in spite of all characters in that world having something to be sad about, there are some in particular who have had a great deal of tragedy in their lives. As players adventure through any Fallout game, they will find plenty of characters with tragic backstories, and plenty of others caught in unenviable positions as they attempt to navigate the bleak world left behind in the wake of the nuclear apocalypse.

6 Swan

In Fallout 4, there is a whole mass of super mutants in various forms seen across The Wasteland. But there is one in particular whose backstory is intriguing, and shockingly sad. Edgar Swann was an Institute worker who was tricked into an experiment where he was infected with a special brand of FEV and watched for results.

The saddest part of the story isn’t the way that he was used, it’s that Swann became much smarter and stronger in the early weeks of the test. He agreed to continue the experiment and was even excited about it. After gaining so much, it was even more tragic for Swann that he lost it all, regressing in intelligence later in the experiment and becoming a mindless super mutant by the end of it. Swan can be found, covered in armor made of old swan boats, living in an area that every other living creature avoids at all costs. He did become one of the strongest Fallout 4 enemies, but could not be saved.

5 The Vault Dweller

There is something that becomes so much more tragic about the backstories of characters whose roles the player takes on. The Vault Dweller is the hero of the first Fallout game, and their story ended in the most tragic sort of way. After being tasked by the Overseer of their Vault to go out and find a water chip to save everybody in their vault, and succeeding, the Vault Dweller is sent on a much more arduous quest.

This time, the Overseer tasks them with finding the source of the super mutant plague sweeping the land and stopping it. The Vault Dweller, a noble warrior, goes and finds the Master, the one turning humans into super mutants, and stops them in one of the various ways players are allowed to do so. However, the real tragedy after going through all this hardship is that when the Vault Dweller returns to their home, the Overseer turns them away, saying that the Vault Dweller has been changed by their experiences and will encourage others to leave the vault with tales of their exploits. The tragedy of becoming a hero only to be so thoroughly rejected and cast out is a truly sad ending to the game.

4 Boone

The horrors of war are more apparent in Fallout: New Vegas than in any other franchise entry. Craig Boone was a soldier with the New California Republic Army and witnessed a number of terrible things which left him scarred and a much more unfeeling person. Everything he witnessed in battle, including the Bitter Springs Massacre, was nothing though, compared to what would come next.

Related:Most Frustrating Fallout QuestsBoone’s wife was taken from him, and he enlists the Courier’s help in finding the people who took her and exacting revenge. Tragically, when he finally finds her, she is being sold, with a huge number of Legionaries bidding for her. Knowing he couldn’t get her out, and feeling incapable of watching her be taken from him into legionary slavery forever, he shot her instead of allowing it to happen.

3 Codsworth

One of the most tragic moments in Fallout 4 is when the sole survivor finally leaves Vault 111 and returns to their home. The town is mostly destroyed, but many of the buildings are still standing, and the sole survivor’s former robotic butler is still there after hundreds of years. Codsworth waited all that time for someone to return.

The tragedy of Codsworth is that, as a robot instead of a human, he was able to wait that long, trapped alone, without knowing what to do or where to go, he simply continued presiding over the demolished the town. Codsworth was trapped by his own programming and slowly lost a lot of his mind over the centuries that he waited there in Sanctuary, he can't even become a companion for the Vault Dweller.

2 The Matthews Farm Child

Another tragic story from Fallout: New Vegas which is just one example of characters that the player never even interacts with who had tragic backstories spread throughout lore material. The Matthews Animal Husbandry Farm can be found in the Mojave Wasteland, and reading material can be found telling the tragic story of the family that lived there.

The two parents went to a nearby Camp for supplies and were turned into feral ghouls. When their child went to search for them, they were forced to kill their own parents and return to the farm alone. After that, the child went insane, believing the animals of the farm wanted to take it for themselves, and so the child set fire to the farm while they were still inside. One of the more haunting examples of lone survivors being driven insane in the Fallout franchise, it is a reminder that the 23rd-century post-apocalyptic world’s greatest danger is loneliness.

1 Carol

Many of the inhabitants of the various Fallout franchise games witnessed the bombs fall on the first day of the Great War. Many of them have horrible stories and were transformed into ghouls, constantly rotting but never dying, as a result. But, none tell the story of that day more horrifically than Carol from Fallout 3.

Running a restaurant and hotel with her partner at the time of Fallout 3, Carol describes herself as a young girl seeing the bombs fall, and watching her father obliterated when he stopped to help another family into the shelter they were using. She lost consciousness and later awoke to see her father’s shadow burned into the wall next to her. Carol, in spite of all that happened to her, still has a heart-breaking positive outlook on the future ghouls have in the Underworld, making players question everything, though Carol's wisdom can't be brought along as a companion.

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