An unexplained Fallout 4 encounter has been puzzling fans since the game’s initial release. It may have some fascinating connections to the series’ lore, but even if not, it’s at least a solid source of reliable armor in the early game. Random encounters have always been a central part of the Fallout experience; in fact, they made up the grand majority of the first two games’ combat scenarios. Later games in the series trended away from a reliance on random encounters, turning instead to handcrafted enemy hideouts, but never totally abandoned unprovoked ambushes as a way to raise the stakes.
These random encounters lasted into Fallout 4, in which players will occasionally encounter enemies of every type (bands of Super Mutants, raider scavenging parties, legendary Deathclaws, et cetera) as they roam the Commonwealth wasteland. These are typically generic and unmemorable, except in at least one case. This particular randomly encountered enemy is unique – not just named, but bestowed with an evocative nom de guerre that could reference any number of classic works of literature. And once again, he’s got some great loot to boot. But who is the mysterious Absalom, really, and why should players seek him out?
Absalom Is A Leveled, Random Fallout 4 Encounter With Great Loot
How To Get Combat Armor Early & Free In Fallout 4
Absalom may be encountered in a variety of different areas throughout Fallout 4, including a couple of places in the Far Harbor DLC. He belongs to no apparent faction, and travels alone, always outfitted in heavy armor and wielding a sniper rifle. That’s a good enough reason to seek him out: once the player kills Absalom , they’ll be treated to a full set of Combat Armor, although exactly what type depends on the level at which they face him. Combat Armor exists in three ranks: Standard, Sturdy, and Heavy, from weakest to strongest. The higher the player’s level, the greater the rank of Absalom’s loot.
Although the armor will be less effective at lower player levels, it’s best to encounter Absalom early for two reasons. For one, even low-level Combat Armor can make a massive difference in the early game, but it’s expensive to obtain by other means. If the Sole Survivor encounters Absalom later in the game, they’re likely to have found a few pieces of Combat Armor on their own, or at least to have saved up enough caps to buy some. Absalom also scales with the player’s level, potentially making him overly difficult if encountered later on.
Absalom is scaled to the player’s level exactly, which is a rare occurrence for
Fallout 4
enemies.
Absalom lurks around well-populated spaces, so most players will encounter him organically. For those who wish to seek him out in the early game, however, checking near some of the game’s biggest landmarks will often cause Absalom to spawn. He’ll frequently appear on the outskirts of Diamond City, in the Dartmouth Professional Building, at the Hyde Park church, or near Fort Hagen. Players can also cheat to find him by using the console commands 0014CE9F.moveto player to spawn him instantly, or player.moveto 0014CE9F to teleport directly to him.
Absalom’s Identity Is Unclear, But There’s A Possible Fallout 3 Connection
Absalom Vs. Sam Warrick
Some players have theorized that Absalom is a reference to Sam Warrick, a similar character from Fallout 3. Much like Absalom, Sam spawns randomly throughout Fallout 3‘s world, and attacks the player senselessly, wordlessly, and mercilessly. He also uses a sniper rifle and drops a suit of leather armor – not quite as impenetrable as Absalom’s Combat Armor, but still handy for low-level players. Also like Absalom, Sam is named, which is somewhat unusual for random raider encounters, and doesn’t appear to belong to any faction or have any kind of motive.
Sam does, however, come with a little more context than Absalom. He’s known to be a rival of fellow lone wanderer Laszlo Radford, and isn’t attacking the player character completely at random – per the Fallout 3 Official Game Guide, he’s trying to find a bounty so he can save up enough to visit Evergreen Mills. Nothing of the sort appears around Absalom, however, who simply attacks the player, dies, and is never heard from again.
Absalom’s relative simplicity could mean he’s just a complicated callback to Sam Warrick, but if that’s really the case, there’s nothing to suggest it. Internal references in the Fallout series tend to be pretty heavily signaled – consider the appearance of Two-Bears-High-Fiving in New Vegas‘ Honest Hearts DLC, a reference to one of the Rorschach tests players take at the beginning of the game. If Absalom were really intended to be Sam Warrick’s successor, that’d be abundantly clear.
A Fallout 4 Fan Theory Suggests Absalom Is A Player Character
“That’s Never Happened Before”
One player, Requiem191 on Reddit, provides a compelling theory. In their imagination, Absalom is actually a sardonic take on the Fallout 4 player character. He’s needlessly violent, and doesn’t ask questions before he begins to attack, much like a trigger-happy player. The crux of this theory, though, is Absalom’s final words. He doesn’t have the typical enemy voice lines – when he dies, Absalom quietly marvels, “That’s never happened before.“
In Requiem191’s theory, Absalom is a merciless player going through Fallout 4 on easy mode, attacking every innocent NPC they see. That’s why they express surprise when the Sole Survivor (the actual player character) is able to get one over on them – they’ve been coasting their way through the game thus far with their high-level loot, killing without conscience or consequence. Requiem191 also compares Absalom’s confidence to that of a high-level player in an online game, not unlike a Fallout 76 griefer who simply goes around killing every PC they can find.
The intonation of Absalom’s final line only backs this theory up. Voice actor Brandon Keener reads it with a calm, even timbre. Absalom doesn’t seem sad, angry, or even mildly perturbed at his own death. It’s a “minor setback” at most, as if he’s simply going to reload his most recent save and try again.
Absalom’s Name May Be A Biblical (Or Literary) Reference
Samuel & Faulkner
The choice of the name Absalom was a pointed one, and could hint further at the reasons for the character’s conclusion. “Absalom” originates from the Hebrew Bible – specifically, from Samuel, a series of books describing the history of the Israelites. Absalom is introduced as King David’s third son, a beautiful, long-haired warrior, beloved by everyone. Absalom is, however, also subject to violent tendencies, whether avenging his sister or staging a rebellion to overthrow his own father. Absalom was eventually killed in a retaliative attack by David’s army, much to his father’s lament, as he instructed his soldiers not to harm Absalom.
While there’s little connection between the story of Absalom in the Bible and that of Absalom in Fallout 4 (who doesn’t really have much of a story to begin with), it is worth noting that the visual description, at least, lines up. When Absalom’s helmet is removed, he indeed has the long, flowing hair of his biblical namesake.
The name Absalom has also frequently been used in literature in order to create parallels to this biblical tragedy, perhaps most notably in the 1936 novel by William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! Its own title a reference to David’s biblical lament, Absalom, Absalom! is set in the Southern US during the Civil War. It follows the destruction of the Sutpen family, entirely due to patriarch Thomas’ insistence upon his idealized vision of an antebellum South, even in the face of facts to the contrary.
However, it’s difficult to connect Fallout 4‘s Absalom to either of these characters, for the simple fact that there’s not enough detail about him in Fallout 4 or any related media to draw deeper connections. Bethesda games are no stranger to literary references, but whether Absalom’s inclusion has any actual meaning, or was simply chosen because it sounded cool, is hard to say with any kind of certainty.
There may have once been more to Absalom as a character, but some of the details may have been cut in the final version of the game. That’s the most likely explanation for a name and encounter with such gravitas belonging to such a nothing character. Unfortunately, that means Absalom will always remain a bit of a Fallout 4 mystery.
