Nick Valentine

A stitched-up synth detective with a heart for the Commonwealth.

Nick Valentine is a fictional character in the post-apocalyptic themed Fallout media franchise. Valentine is first introduced as a non-player character in the 2015 role-playing video game Fallout 4, where he plays an important role in its main plotline by lending his assistance to the search for the abducted son of the game's player character, the sole survivor of a cryogenics-focused facility designed to withstand nuclear fallout built by a technology company known as Vault-Tec.

With cracked synthetic skin torn in spots which expose the metallic structures underneath, Valentine is a type of sophisticated biomechanical android characters in Fallout 4 called "Synths". Possessing the preserved memories of a human police detective of the same name, Valentine is a private investigator whose speech and mannerisms echo the archetypal detective protagonist from hardboiled fiction. Valentine is voiced by American voice actor Stephen Russell.

Quick Facts

Series

Fallout

First game

Fallout 4 (2015)

Designer

Emil Pagliarulo
Liam Collins
William Shen

Voice

Stephen Russell

Race

Synth

Home

Diamond City, The Commonwealth

Occupation

Private detective

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.

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?

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 has appeared in other Fallout media including Fallout: Wasteland Warfare, Fallout: The Board Game, and Fallout Shelter Online.