Highlights

  • Fallout 4's Silver Shroud quest allows players to become a comic-book vigilante, complete with a unique weapon and outfit.
  • Bethesda has a history of including costumed heroes and villains in its games, so it wouldn't be surprising if Fallout 5 had a similar quest.
  • Fallout 5 should improve on the reactivity of the quest, possibly allowing the costumed hero to have a significant impact on the game world.

Fallout is no stranger to wacky side content, and Fallout 4 contains a few such examples. These include the vault full of Robobrains in Far Harbor, the Pillars of the Community cult, and the Supermutant Strong's quest to drink the Milk of Human Kindness. However, one of the longest and most memorable of these is the Silver Shroud quest in and around Goodneighbor.

The quest sees players take on the identity of the eponymous comic-book vigilante. Not only do players gain access to a unique weapon and outfit, but Fallout 4’s Sole Survivor can also choose to get into the role with some hilariously hammy dialogue options. Fallout 5 has an opportunity to make a similar quest and take it one step further.

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Fallout 4's Silver Shroud

Within the Fallout universe, The Silver Shroud is a comic-book and radio drama hero known for his iconic silver and black trench coat and silver Tommy gun. Fallout 4 players start The Silver Shroud quest by listening to Silver Shroud Radio and then talking to the station's operator, Kent Connolly, in Goodneighbor. He sends the player to retrieve the Silver Shroud costume and prop gun from Hubris Comics. Upon returning to Connolly, he invites the player to become the new Silver Shroud and deal vigilante justice to criminals on the streets of Goodneighbor.

The Silver Shroud was likely inspired by The Shadow, a character from 1930s radio plays and pulp fiction magazines.

Bethesda seems to have a soft spot for costumed heroes and villains. Fallout 3's humorous The Superhuman Gambit quest sees the town of Canterbury Commons turned into a battleground between the robot-building Mechanist and the ant-controlling AntAgonizer. A new character later takes the mantle of The Mechanist in Fallout 4's Automatron DLC. Starfield also has a Batman-like vigilante called The Mantis. Therefore, it wouldn't be out of character for Bethesda to include more costumed shenanigans in Fallout 5.

Costumed Characters in Fallout 5

Assuming Fallout 5 will have some equivalent to Fallout 4’s Silver Shroud quest, Fallout's comic book canon already has plenty to choose from. The most obvious is Grognak the Barbarian, a Conan The Barbarian stand-in. Players can find a Grognak costume in the same building as The Silver Shroud's, and Hubris Comics owned both characters. Both are also members of The Unstoppables, a crossover superhero team comparable to Marvel's Avengers.

While Grognak is the obvious choice, he isn't the only one. The other Unstoppables include the femme fatale Mistress of Mystery, magical detective The Investigator, and an Aqua Man parody called Manta Man. Meanwhile, Fallout: New Vegas introduced a comic book hero named La Fantoma, while Fallout 4 players might recall seeing posters for a show called Captain Cosmos, who also has a Creation Club mod. Any of these could be the basis for a side quest in Fallout 4.

Of course, few things are less funny than a joke outstaying its welcome, so Fallout 5 can't repeat the same quest from Fallout 4 with a different character. Still, it would be neat to have some thematically appropriate costume-based quest. Perhaps some super mutants have become obsessed with Grognak comics, and players must take on the mantle of Grognak to impress the tribe. Maybe they could don the moniker of The Investigator to solve a murder mystery.

Fallout 5's Version Should Have a More Significant Impact

Whatever Bethesda does, it needs to address one issue with Fallout 4's Silver Shroud quest, which is how little the game acknowledges it. In Fallout 4, NPCs in Goodneighbor will comment on the player's Silver Shroud getup, and the costume also unlocks a few additional dialogue lines in the Nuka World and Automatron DLCs. However, apart from one random encounter, that's it for reactivity.

Fallout 5 doesn't necessarily need alternate dialogue for every scene, though a longer hero-themed questline might be interesting. However, a good example to follow might be something like The Mantis' ship in Starfield, which causes some enemies to flee. These are scripted events rather than emergent encounters, though it would be neat if Fallout 5's costumed hero had a chance to make enemies flee or perhaps even turn them to the player's side.