Platinum

When I purchase a new game one of the first things I do is look at the trophy list and determine if this game is worth getting all of the  trophies/achievements. Fallout 4s trophies at first glance all looked achievable. Therefore I set my sights on that platinum trophy and went to warp speed.

Fallout 4 is undisputedly a huge game. Early critiques complained that the map was smaller than Fallout 3. From my experience so far its not about the size, but rather, the quality and quantity of things to do. Downtown Boston is packed with locations to explore. At this point I have probably put 60 or more hours into the game and am still experience fresh new side quests. Many of which are witty and fun. Most of the Trophies involved the main storyline and are split between the different factions you can choose. On my first play-through I decided to side with the Minutemen and the Brotherhood of Steel. I will say that finishing the game as the Brotherhood was way more fun than as the Minutemen. The other trophies can be easily accomplished in your first run through. A few will require extra effort. One trophy, above all else, gave me the hardest time.

The Benevolent Leader trophy. 

At face value this trophy seems manageable. Get a settlement to 100 happiness. I want my people to be happy! Quickly I realized how daunting this challenge actually is. All of my frustrations can be summed up in one word. Glitch. For some reason occasionally as I explored the wasteland my settlements would lose 10-15% happiness. When I would go to my data screen on the pip-boy it would show that I had no beds or food in a settlement! How is that possible! The first time I saw this I quickly fast-traveled to the settlement to see if this was due to a raider or supermutant attack. As soon as I arrived the beds and food reappeared. I realized that it was a glitch. And promptly mourned the loss of all the time I had spent trying to raise happiness.

I eventually earned the trophy.

How I dealt with the glitch was by checking my pip-boy every few minutes to see if the glitch had started. If you can catch the glitch early enough then you can quickly fast travel back to your settlement to fix the issue. All you have to do to fix it is to walk back into your settlement and then check your pip-boy’s data on the workshop. I would usually re-enter build mode then exit and fast travel back to whatever I was doing.

I haven’t earned the platinum trophy yet. However, all I have left for trophies is the storyline quests for the other factions I didn’t choose on my first run through. I also saved my game at a point right before you become hostile to the other factions. This allows me to skip all the boring intro stuff and get right at the faction’s story.

Never forget that old adage:  War… War never changes…