MacCready is a capable sharpshooter with a penchant for sarcasm whom players can find in two entries of the Fallout series. Despite his seeming nonchalance, he’s a dynamic character and undergoes a lot of changes from his time in the Capital Wasteland to his arrival in the Commonwealth.
Players can meet MacCready in both Fallout 3 and Fallout 4, making him one of the few characters that appear in multiple Fallout entries. In the Capital Wasteland, he was the mayor of a settlement known as Little Lamplight. Fast-forward ten years to the Commonwealth, and MacCready’s now a hired gun. The player can pay his fee in order to unlock him as a follower.
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MacCready in Fallout 3
In Fallout 3, MacCready is a foul-mouthed 10-year-old acting as the mayor of Little Lamplight. The place is nestled in an underground cavern that was a pre-war tourist attraction, and it’s one of the stranger locations in Fallout 3 because only people under the age of 16 can live there. In fact, the first time the Lone Wanderer enters through the gate, one of the settlers will be celebrating their 16th birthday. The younger settlers will be gathered around him, telling him that he needs to go.
Talking to MacCready reveals that he’s been Little Lamplight’s mayor for three years. Before he took on the position, another settler nicknamed "Princess" had the title. When her first decree was to insist that everyone call her “Princess,” MacCready reportedly punched her in the nose and stole the title away from her. He believed the young settlers needed someone to look out for them, not lord over them. Thus, Princess was mayor for a whole five minutes, then MacCready took the reins. The other kids were happy this way, and Princess never tried anything else.
MacCready may not be an available companion in Fallout 3, but he does help the Lone Wanderer with the main quest. In the quest “Picking Up the Trail,” the player is tasked with finding a way into Vault 87. Incidentally, there’s a way in through the caverns of Little Lamplight. As such, the player needs to strike a deal with MacCready and the settlers of Little Lamplight, so they can point the Lone Wanderer in the direction of the vault entrance.
Between the Games
Once MacCready turned 16, he left Little Lamplight. Unlike the other former inhabitants of the place, he didn’t go to Big Town and, instead, wandered the Capital Wasteland as a gun for hire. In a line of dialogue, he tells the Sole Survivor that he was a self-taught marksman who favored the sniper rifle. To him, it was smarter to down targets from long-range rather than take chances with close combat.
At one point during his travels, MacCready met a woman named Lucy. The two entered a relationship during which MacCready lied about his occupation. He was still working as a hired gun at the time and didn’t want Lucy to be ashamed of him. So, instead, he told her that he worked as a soldier. Upon learning this, Lucy made him a carved wooden soldier toy, which MacCready always kept with him wherever he went.
Later, MacCready and Lucy had a child — a boy named Duncan. Since he was born, MacCready promised to clean up his act and be a better person (which is why he tries not to swear in Fallout 4). Unfortunately, sometime later, his wife dies at the hands of feral ghouls. MacCready only barely managed to escape with Duncan in his arms.
Things would only continue to get worse. When Duncan got a little older, he suffered from a strange sickness. It gave him a fever and made blue boils appear all over his body. Desperate, MacCready hitched a ride on a caravan that would take him to the Commonwealth. He hoped to find a cure somewhere there.
When he arrived, he joined up with the Gunners, but soon realized that he couldn’t stomach working with them. He described them as animals — “killed anything that moved if it got in their way.” MacCready ran with them for a while because the payout was decent, but soon quit because he couldn’t take it. Finally, he found Goodneighbor, where he started offering his services again as an independent gun for hire. All the while, he was searching for a cure for his son.
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MacCready in Fallout 4
The Sole Survivor first meets MacCready at the Third Rail in Goodneighbor. When the player enters his room, they’ll see him being accosted by two men named Winlock and Barnes. After, MacCready will brush them off and ask if the Sole Survivor is looking to hire them. Agreeing and paying his fee will make him the player’s companion.
Raising affinity with MacCready will prompt him to tell the player about his life in the Capital Wasteland and unlock the first part of his personal quest. This will trigger the beginning “Long Road Ahead” quest, where MacCready asks the player to help him take down the Gunners who won’t stop bothering him, preventing him from getting any clients.
After accomplishing this part of the quest and raising affinity with MacCready even further, he’ll open up about his son’s condition and unlock the second portion of the quest. Here, the Sole Survivor will have to find a viable cure at the Med-Tek Research facility. Upon acquiring it, MacCready will have it sent back to the Capital Wasteland, to his son.
In his final affinity dialogue tree, MacCready will give the player the toy soldier that Lucy had made for him, and thank them for all they’ve done for his family. This is also the only time he reveals that his wife is dead. At this point, the player can opt to reach max affinity with MacCready as friends or pursue a romance with him.
MacCready may come off as a sarcastic jerk (a foul-mouthed one in Fallout 3), but it’s likely because he’s doing everything he can to save his son — and nothing more than that. He’s racing against the clock to find a cure for a disease he knows nothing about, so his selfish behavior in Fallout 4 has reason. While the player never figures out what happens to Duncan, some in the community like to think that he’s thriving in Little Lamplight, all the way back in the Capital Wasteland.
Fallout 4 is available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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