Fallout Missions That Are Practically Impossible

With four games in the main series and multiple spin-offs and side stories — like Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel — which embrace different styles of gameplay, the Fallout series isn't lacking in challenge and replay value. The wasteland seems to go on forever, with new enemies and hidden, haunted corners revealing themselves with every playthrough. The games' many branching paths and storylines pretty much guarantee that there's always something new to discover, challenge, and defeat.

However, in almost every game in the franchise, there are at least a few quests that leave players scratching their heads and desperately gripping their controllers in their sweaty palms. Sometimes the problems with these missions boil down to a difficulty level that can be surmounted with a bit of luck and a lot of resources. Other times, they can feel more obtuse because of poor design choices or bugs that make progression genuinely impossible. Whatever the case, let's take a look at some intimidating Fallout missions that even hardcore fans have come to dread.

Look: fetch quests are already annoying, but Fallout: New Vegas took that pain to new heights with 'Bleed Me Dry," a mission that tries to do just that to you. Red Lucy, the enigmatic and alluring leader of an underground group called the Thorn, tasks New Vegas protagonist the Courier with hunting and collecting the eggs of various creatures in different areas of the wastelands. That wouldn't be so daunting if it weren't for the fact that many of these creatures are high-level and even Legendary class enemies, including giant radscorpions, night stalkers, and a pack of frenzied deathclaws who don't take kindly to folks trying to nab their eggs.

Even if you manage to not be overwhelmed by the dozens of slashing talons and gnashing teeth, you may still find yourself unable to proceed. An occasional glitch will cause some of these creatures not to spawn, which means having to reload your save and starting parts of the quest from scratch. Sure, one of the mission's rewards is the chance to romance Red Lucy, but there's probably not going to be much left of you to love after all of that.

Fallout 4 DLC Nuka-World features another quest that seems to be pretty straightforward at the start, but which quickly devolves into a frantic fight for survival. The mission in question here is "Open Season," in which the Sole Survivor is sent to Nuka-Town USA in the Nuka-World Amusement Park in order to kill four raider gang leaders. You can take these honchos out in any order you choose.

However, the second that you kill any one of these gang leaders, be ready to run. Once one of them falls, every single raider in the park will become hostile toward you and will seek you out. That means you will instantly become the target of more than eighty bloodthirsty bandits. What began as a simple assassination mission becomes perhaps the largest battle in the game. The only way to complete the mission from this point is to complete clear the park of all of the attacking raiders, including the leaders you originally went there for. God help you if you didn't bring an absurd amount of ammo, even when you thought you only needed to kill four baddies.

Simply hearing or reading the words "Vault 34" is enough to send shivers down the spines of many Fallout: New Vegas veterans. It brings to mind images of feral ghouls, pools of toxic chemicals, and room after room of growing radiation sickness. It's scary to consider going anywhere near this hellhole, but it's the central location of the Fallout: New Vegas quest "Hard Luck Blues," in which the Courier investigates a radiation leak coming from the neglected Vault that is causing trouble for nearby farms.

As with many missions in the Fallout series, there are several different paths through this Vault, but they're all a nightmare. If you don't have an overabundance of Rad-X or Rad-Away to cut into the poison, this mission is barely even worth attempting, as the radiation permeating every corridor is going to spell your end. The feral ghouls and glowing ones that populate the Vault deal high melee damage and the Overseer of Vault 34 himself is also a hulking, glowing ghoul. In other words, maybe this is one time where the Courier should just let the farmers deal with their own problems.

At first glance, "Reilly's Rangers" seems like a pretty run of the mill escort mission/rescue op. In Fallout 3, you will be charged with rescuing a group of mercenaries who have found themselves stuck on top of the Statesman Hotel following a nasty battle with super mutants. In order to get them down from there, you'll have to trek through some bombed out buildings, repair the hotel's elevator, and assist them in fighting off the mutants who have returned to finish the job.

Okay, so this quest sounds kind of annoying, but not insurmountable, right? Well, the biggest knock against this mission's playability comes in the form of a uniquely hilarious bug. Sometimes the Rangers on the rooftop will turn against you when one of them is injured, even if you're not the one who attacked them. This necessitates starting the mission all over again, because the game registers this as a failure. It's kind of difficult to lead a group to safety when they're preoccupied with filling you full of holes.

"Restoring Order" is the final storyline quest in Fallout 4 add-on Automatron, which pits the Sole Survivor against a robotics expert calling herself the Mechanist, as well as her army of out-of-control robots. Sure, you've faced plenty of robots and synths in Fallout 4, but never quite like this.

The factory where "Restoring Order" takes place is full of tiny hallways with very little cover, meaning much of your time will be spent taking heavy fire from the waves of synths and other mechanical monstrosities you've come up against, many of which shrug off normal bullet rounds like mosquito bites. With all of the damage you'll be receiving, you'd better make sure to bring tons of stimpaks and other health and endurance aids if you hope to even make it to the Mechanist herself. You'd also better hope your Speech abilities are strong enough to talk the Mechanist down, or you're in for a few more battles once you reach the end.

If you think this sounds like it all adds up to a particularly difficult battle to complete, you're right. You know things are looking grim when a strategy guide recommends using mini-nukes in such cramped quarters.

There may not be a more appropriately named quest in the history of the Fallout series than "Best Left Forgotten" from Fallout 4's Far Harbor DLC. Battling through dozens of rogue synths is maddening enough, but not entirely unexpected. What really steers this mission into infuriatingly difficult territory (and honestly grinds it to a halt) are its series of puzzles that require players use Fallout 4's already-buggy settlement building mechanics to create pathways for computer data to travel through. Yes, it's as obtuse as it sounds and no, it's entirely unclear what you're supposed to do when you first encounter one of these.

Forbes may have described this quest best when they said it was "downright bizarre, and grinds the momentum of the entire DLC to a halt as you sit there and stumble through five overly-long puzzles." It's especially difficult because "there's nothing resembling a tutorial. The interface is bugged, showing that you always have 0/1 materials needed ... even when you do have some stored."

This one is impossible to complete without wanting to chuck your controller or look up a guide on the internet, whichever comes first.

You may be surprised to see this as the only Fallout 76 entry on this list. Honestly, while much of 76 is a chore to play, this is the only mission that truly comes close to feeling insurmountable, even with quite a bit of assistance. That's because "Scorched Earth" pits you and your friends against the Scorchbeast Queen, a genuine raid boss. The Scorchbeast Queen spawns at a highly intimidating level 95 and players only have 25 minutes to take it down.

According to players on Reddit, the Scorchbeast Queen poses such a threat that it seems as though players "need to be over Level 100" and have the largest team possible. The Queen can occasionally regenerate crippled limbs and fly up in order to regroup and attack from afar. She is also accompanied by a seemingly endless waves of enemies that spawn to assist her, including standard scorchbeasts (which are a pain to try to kill on their own). In other words, this is a daunting task even for a large pack of experienced wasteland survivors.

This quest is named after the World of Refreshment, the Nuka-Cola manufacturing plant found in the Nuka-World DLC. The mission parameters couldn't be more simple: kill everything inside and raise a flag claiming the World of Refreshment in the name of one of the raider gangs in the region. The problem is that the enemies inside are exceptionally difficult to take down, including multiple synths and assaultrons, and the crab-like Nukalurks, which have been mutated and strengthened by their prolonged exposure to a river of the irradiated soft drink, Nuka-Cola Quantum.

The most powerful of these mutants is the massive Nukalurk Queen. This creature has baffled even more experienced players, with those who have killed it even admitting that they had to hide out and take cheap shots at it in order to secure a victory. Between the Nukalurk Queen's acid-spitting attacks and protective outer shell, it's very difficult to land critical hits, even when using V.A.T.S. to better aim at her "weak points."

The final mission of Fallout 2, "Stop the Enclave," culminates in a boss battle against Frank Horrigan, a mutated monster in advanced armor who has "been witnessed laughing off plasma rifle fire and ripping deathclaws and armored humans in half with his bare hands." In other words, he's a terrifying prospect before you even get in the same room as him. Once the final fight begins, you'd better hope you've come over-prepared. Horrigan has a staggering 999 hit points and is constantly dealing damage with either his plasma gun or his giant arm blade.

You do have a few opportunities to level the playing field somewhat. If you managed to steal a keycard earlier in the mission, you can turn a series of turrets on Frank and deal a bit of damage that way (otherwise, those turrets will be pelting you while you're trying to fend off Frank). It's honestly one of the most grueling battles of the series, no matter how you approach it. However, if you are lucky enough to take Horrigan out, you are treated to a wild death scene for Frank.

"Defend the Castle" is a quest in Fallout 4 that essentially becomes one big endurance test. Again, the goal is simple: build some defenses and then kill everything that comes at you. The problem is that the game essentially does send everything after you. We're talking airborne ships, Brotherhood of Steel members in heavy combat armor, robots, raiders, super mutants and towering behemoths. Heck, even a Miremurk Queen gets in on the action, just for fun.

In other words, you're going to need ammo and a lot of it. You're also going to have to hope that you had enough resources to build decent defenses at the beginning of the quest. Otherwise, you can just forget about surviving this battle. As if that weren't terrifying enough, an occasional bug causes enemy waves to wander in place, rather than attack you. You cannot successfully complete the mission unless you've killed every enemy wave, so this bug will necessitate you having to find ways to leave cover, run into the line of fire, and lure everyone towards you. Which, you know, is pretty counterproductive in any kind of tower defense mission.

While the ending of New Vegas is largely dependent upon which of the warring factions in the wasteland you join up with, the quest "No Gods, No Masters" sees the Courier choosing to side against Caear's Legion and subsequently finding himself caught in the crossfire between the Legion and the opposing army of the New California Republic. Eventually, you'll have to face Legate Lanius, who will be the final boss of the game in this playthrough of events. Though Fallout: New Vegas is full of powerful enemies, Legate Lanius stands head and shoulders above the rest... Literally. Standing at 6 feet and eleven inches tall, Lanius towers over his fellow soldiers in Caesar's Legion.

Going into this battle, Lanius has several factors in his favor. Aside from the support he calls in from his fellow Legionaries, his armor is insanely sturdy and he cannot be disarmed. Lanius also carries a healing powder and moves 80% faster than any other NPC in the game. Even crippling his legs in V.A.T.S. won't slow him down. In other words, whatever you're going to do, you need to do it quick. Good luck.