Amazon’s Fallout Confirms Fan-Favorite Faction Destroyed

For those who haven’t played Fallout 4, there are four different endings (with slight variations on each) depending on your choices during the game.

In two of these endings, the Brotherhood of Steel is attacked and the mighty Prydwen airship is destroyed.

But, since the Prydwen seems to be in perfect working order in Amazon’s show, that means that, canonically, the Sole Survivor in Fallout 4 either sided with the Brotherhood of Steel or the Minutemen.

While none of the Fallout 4 endings have ever been officially classified as canon, many players consider the Minutemen ending to have the most positive outcome overall.

The Minutemen are a faction of relatively well-intentioned militia soldiers who want to improve the world and protect innocent settlements. 

When you side with them, it’s possible to remain friendly with every other faction in the game except the Institute, which gets destroyed.

Of course, if you side with the Brotherhood of Steel in Fallout 4, then the Institute is destroyed along with the Railroad, which is an underground faction that tries to free sentient synths from the clutches of the Institute.

In fact, the only Fallout 4 ending that doesn’t see the Institute get destroyed is when you actually side with the Institute. But, siding with the Railroad sees you destroy the Brotherhood of Steel and the Prydwen as well, so it seems likely that the Fallout show isn’t considering the Railroad ending canon either.

Basically, all signs point to the Institute being destroyed in the timeline established in Amazon’s Fallout show.

On the flip side, the beginning of Amazon’s show is far enough away from the Fallout 4 ending that many things could have changed since then.

The Amazon show takes place roughly nine years after the events of Fallout 4, and it also takes place across the country.

In other words, it’s possible that the Institute could have risen back up after the Fallout 4 ending. It seems unlikely that every synth and scientist that was involved with the Institute was decimated entirely, just because your character destroyed their main facility.

It’s also possible that the Brotherhood of Steel could have built the Prydwen back up in that time, or perhaps renamed an airship the Prydwen in honor of the fallen ship.

There are a few different ways that the Amazon show could work around the Fallout 4 endings to make sure it could bring back any faction it wanted to.

This is good because the Institute would be an extremely interesting faction to introduce at some point in the show.

In any case, it seems like the series may be headed to New Vegas next, so there’s plenty of time for the Institute to slowly be reintroduced if that’s the direction they want to go.