Nick Valentine

Lore & Background

Within series lore, Nick Valentine is a resident of Diamond City, a settlement built from the remains of Boston's Fenway Park. He is a Synth, a term used in the Commonwealth to refer to a type of advanced self-aware android built by an organization of elusive technocrats known as the Institute. Valentine is a rare prototype, made somewhere between overtly mechanical models that occasionally appear in ruined buildings and remote outposts as hostile enemies, and newer models who can pass for human and are rumored to be living amongst the Commonwealth's population. Originally intended to be discarded, Valentine survived his decommissioning with the memories of his namesake, a police detective who lived in Chicago and Boston, intact. Unlike other Synths, Valentine's presence in Diamond City is at the very least tolerated if not accepted, as he once saved the daughter of a former mayor of Diamond City and brought her back from the wilderness. Initially concerned only about his own survival, Valentine soon found out that helping others was his true calling, and it took him months before he started charging for his services. His benevolent reputation grew as more residents approach him to assist with private investigations or to locate missing people. Valentine eventually came to terms with who he is, accepted the role his memories played in shaping his own personality, and decided to work as a professional private investigator. He started dressing up like an archetypal "gumshoe", a slang term for a stereotypical private detective who wore street shoes with a thick, soft and quiet rubber sole.

In Their Own Story

As part of the main storyline of Fallout 4, the player character is advised to seek out Nick Valentine in Diamond City, to locate their son. Valentine's assistant at the Valentine Detective Agency, Ellie Perkins, reveals that he had gone missing two weeks before while trailing a case and beseeches the player character to search for him at Park Street Station, his last known location. A thorough search of the disused service tunnels reveals that it is the site of another Vault-Tec facility, and that Valentine had been detained inside the facility by the Triggermen, a local criminal organization led by Skinny Malone, a former acquaintance of Valentine's. The player character frees Valentine and returns to Diamond City, where Valentine deduces the identity of their spouse's killer and the abductor of their son, a mercenary named Conrad Kellogg who works for the Institute. Valentine suggests that Dogmeat, the player character's dog companion, should be utilized to track Kellogg's scent in order to locate him. Once Kellogg is dealt with and a cybernetic implant in his brain is retrieved, Valentine confers with the player character at Diamond City. He suggests a trip to a nearby settlement called Goodneighbor to speak to Doctor Amari, who works at a place known as the Memory Den, to extract information about the Institute from Kellogg's brain. As Doctor Amari could only work with the memories of living individuals, Valentine volunteers to have Kellogg's implant, which is made from technology developed by the Institute like himself, inserted into his system in order to help the player character access Kellogg's memories and locate their son's whereabouts. Valentine plays a pivotal role in the downloadable content (DLC) expansion of Fallout 4, Far Harbor, where Ellie Perkins provides information about the disappearance of a girl named Kasumi, with the search leading to a location across the sea known as Far Harbor.

Reader's Guide

Nick Valentine is a non-player character who can be recruited as a travel companion, though it is not mandatory for the player character to do so. Unlike other companion characters, Valentine's clothing are not removable or changeable. Valentine uses a revolver pistol as his default weapon, and has a considerable amount of skill in security hacking. If the player character recruits Valentine and builds a positive affinity with him through eliciting his approval of their actions, Valentine will reveal more information about his origins and past, and the dialogue event tree eventually unlocks a side quest where Valentine requests for a search throughout the Commonwealth to uncover evidence and clues in order to hunt down a gangster who wronged the original Nick Valentine hundreds of years before the events of Fallout 4. Completing the quest and achieving maximum affinity points with Valentine will unlock a special "perk" ability for the benefit of the player.

Did You Know?

• Nick Valentine is voiced by American voice actor Stephen Russell.
• Fallout 4 Design Director Emil Pagliarulo noted that Nick Valentine was the first character he created and wrote before the decision was made to set Fallout 4 in the Commonwealth.
• The basic concept for Valentine's design originated from a sketch by concept artist Adam Adamowicz which emerged during the game's early pre-production, depicting a 'scraped up metallic ken doll detective' inspired by The X-Files.
• Valentine's clothing are not removable or changeable, unlike other companion characters.
• Valentine has appeared in other Fallout media including Fallout: Wasteland Warfare, Fallout: The Board Game, and Fallout Shelter Online.