I started a website called FALLOUT 4 IRL as a way for me to keep track of information about places I want to visit when I travel to Boston someday, but I’ve found so much interesting information that I wanted to share with other fans.
For example, did you know that the swan boats are real and that they’re made out of fiberglass, just like the “swan boat fragments” we can scrap in FALLOUT 4?
Or did you know that Kingsport Lighthouse is named after H.P. Lovecraft’s fictional Kingsport, which itself is based on a real town called Marblehead, Massachusetts, located near Salem – just as Kingsport Lighthouse is near Salem in the game map?
So far, I’ve written about all of the following locations:
Boston Common & Swan’s Pond
Granary Burying Ground
Goodneighbor
Faneuil Hall
Columbus Park
Paul Revere House
Old North Church
Long Wharf
Custom House Tower
North End Graveyard
These articles include comparisons of real-world and in-game photos, maps, history, lore and more. I am amazed how much the developers used Boston and U.S. history as inspiration for the locations and characters in Fallout 4.
My favorite fun fact so far: The town of Goodneighbor is probably named after the real-life Mary Goodneighbor, a stripper arrested in 1953 when the cops raided a Scollay Square theater. Her dancing name was “Irma the Body,” which might be why “Irma” is the character who runs the Memory Den (and which has a “Scollay Sq” marquee outside).
That’s all from me for now. As they say on Freedom Radio, stay safe out there, people.
~ J.L. Hilton
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