Institutionalized is a main story quest and an achievement/trophy in Fallout 4.
Quick walkthrough
| Main Quest: Institutionalized | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Enter the Institute elevator. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Talk to Shaun. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Talk to Father. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Side with the Institute. | Either Outside the Wire or Inside Job has already been started. | Refuse to join the Institute. | |||||||||||||||||||
| Meet the division leaders. | Find the terminal in the Institute relay area. | Leave the Institute. | |||||||||||||||||||
| Load the network scanner holotape. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Reward: 400+ XP | Reward: 400+ XP | Reward: 400+ XP | |||||||||||||||||||
| Leads to: Synth Retention | Leads to: Form Ranks or Liberty Reprimed | Leads to: Form Ranks | |||||||||||||||||||
Detailed walkthrough
After successfully teleporting into the Institute, the Sole Survivor will be greeted by a voice coming from hidden speakers. It is possible to acquire the holotape needed for Inside Job at this time, as the console is right at the entry/exit point of the Institute. After following the voice through the empty Institute corridors and into an elevator, the Sole Survivor eventually enters a room to find a scared and confused child. When discovered to be a 10-year-old synthetic Shaun, a man named Father enters the room and shuts him down with a code phrase. He will then initiate a conversation with the Sole Survivor which reveals that he is the real Shaun and the director of the Institute, as well as several other details regarding the Sole Survivor's situation and the details surrounding his initial kidnapping by the Institute. After speaking with him and agreeing to join the Institute (alternatively stalling by telling him they want to think about it), the player character is free to explore the facility.
Speak to Clayton Holdren, Allie Filmore, Justin Ayo, and Madison Li, who installs a relay into the player character's Pip-Boy, allowing fast travel to and from the Institute.
Quest stages
Notes
- It is possible to get locked out of the entire Institute quest line before it starts. To do so, decline to give the Institute a chance after Father makes his case. He will express disappointment and will ask them to leave the Institute, which at that point also becomes the new quest objective. Simply retrace one's steps back to the two elevators and step into the relay room where they arrived. The Sole Survivor will then be teleported to the C.I.T. ruins, unable to return. One can also talk to Father again and agree to join if they changed their mind as long as they have not left the Institute.
- If Dr. Madison Li is convinced to leave before completing the objective to meet her, the Sole Survivor will be unable to continue, as the previous dialogue options will not show up.
- If one kills Father while being a member of the Railroad, a dramatic change in quests will occur.
- If one kills Father immediately after meeting him, and then proceeds to download the data onto the network scanner, they will be locked out of the Institute and their only choice will be to work with the Minutemen or the Brotherhood of Steel. The Railroad quest line will be unavailable due to them requiring the Sole Survivor to infiltrate the Institute.
- Starting this quest will fail Road to Freedom or Tradecraft if it has not yet been completed.
- Synths throughout the Commonwealth will become friendly if one agrees to join the Institute.
Bugs
If an unnamed NPC is killed after the Sole Survivor talks to Father, but has not officially agreed to join yet by choosing the "Don't Know" option, the quest updates to "Exit the Institute" however it becomes impossible to leave. Furthermore, the quest will not update should the Sole Survivor change their mind and tell Shaun they will join.[verified]
- This can be fixed by killing a named NPC and becoming officially banished from the Institute. Otherwise, an earlier save must be reloaded.
- When the player character finishes the goal of "speak with the department heads", and the notification comes up on screen that they may now fast travel to and from the Institute, the game freezes and crashes.[verified]
- The player character will not be able to speak to the child if they are wearing a power armor helmet with the targeting mod. Go back to an earlier save, remove the mod or item, and the scenario should run normally.[verified]
- Dr. Madison Li may not start a conversation with the Sole Survivor. This can be fixed by forcing the quest to the next stage (setstage mq207 200), which will then grant fast travel access and start the next quest. The same can happen to other staff members. For PS4 and Xbox One, reloading a previous save and trying to initiate dialogue again with the doctor may help fix this.[verified]
- Father sometimes never shows up. On PC you can use the console command 5c337.moveto player to move Father to the player character's position.
- The script is waiting for the player character to talk to the child - so they do not really need to use the console code.[verified]
- Also Clayton Holdren will not be able to speak to the player character for some reason. He shows up on the Pip-Boy HUD as being in the Synth Retention Bureau, but his location is not reachable.[verified]
- If the player character kills Father after he talks to them, one may not be able to use the elevator to leave.[verified]
- This can be fixed if the player character kills Father as soon as they are done talking to him.
- If one finds that Shaun does not deactivate after hearing Father's shutdown code, load a saved game from before talking to Shaun, and this time instead of talking to Shaun you can open console and type setstage mq207 40. Father will walk in and Shaun will shut down.[verified]
