Navigate the 'A House Divided' quest in Fallout 4. Discover options for non-violent resolution or tactical combat to overcome challenges within the Institute.
Alright, let's tackle 'A House Divided' in Fallout 4. This one's interesting because it gives you a couple of distinct paths to take, depending on your playstyle and what kind of character you're building.
Walkthrough
- 1The Non-Violent Approach: If you've been investing in Charisma, this is your best bet. After the initial dialogue with Higgs, you'll get a chance to pass a hard speech check with the option “Give me a chance?”. If you nail that, you'll then have a moderate speech check to get Higgs to stand down completely. If successful, he'll open the door, and you can proceed without a fight. Easy peasy!
- 2Violence! (Or at least, tactical chaos): If the speech checks aren't your thing, or you just prefer a more direct approach, here's what you can do. After Higgs finishes talking, head over to one of the nearby terminals. Use the “Bioscience Systems Access” holotape you find there. This unlocks a few more options, and the most entertaining one is definitely releasing the gorillas. They'll go in and take care of everyone for you. Be warned though, once they're out, you can't put them back. You'll then need to open the door yourself and deal with the aftermath, which includes picking up Gorilla Meat.
- 3Direct Combat: Alternatively, after Higgs is done talking, you can just open the door and go in to fight the two Synth Guards waiting for you. If you choose this path, Higgs and Loken won't attack you. You can then either kill them or try to talk to them to wrap things up.
- 4Dealing with Higgs and Loken: If you end up having to kill Higgs and Loken (either because the gorillas did it, or you just decided to), you'll need to grab the “Security Override Code” from one of their bodies. It might be on Higgs, or it might be on Loken – it varies. Once you have the code, use it on the terminal right by the door to open it up.
- 5Reporting Back: Once the situation is handled, head back to Oberly to report in. His reaction – whether he's happy or a bit annoyed – will depend on how things went down. If Higgs and Loken are still alive, you'll get to decide what happens to them. You can even execute them if you pass another moderate speech check, which is pretty hardcore!
- If you resolved things non-violently: You'll get five boxes of Mentats and five doses of Jet.
- For resolving a succession dispute (general objective reward): 236 XP, Mentats x5, Jet x5.
After reporting in, you'll be done with this quest and ready to move on to “Pinned”.
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