Point Lookout bugs

A bug is an in-game software malfunction that impacts visuals or gameplay in Point Lookout.

All platforms

 * During Walking with Spirits, the game is prone to freezing and/or crashing after activating the Mother Punga and the hallucinations begin. Exiting and entering the bog again might fix this glitch.
 * During the quest The Dark Heart of Blackhall, if one opts to take the book to the Dunwich Building, the quest marker may point to Springvale instead of Dunwich. 2 markers may even appear near Springvale: one on the cliffside, other in one ruined house. Selecting a different active quest and then switching back may fix this.
 * During the same quest, when the player character is in the Dunwich Building, the quest markers leading back to Point Lookout and to the obelisk will not be placed at the doors, but outside the building map.
 * It is also possible for Marcella to follow the player character to the ritual site. Once having obtained the book, the map marker will point to the entrance of the ritual site and not move, even if one goes to the disaster relief outpost.
 * Haley of Haley's Hardware has a glitch whereby his Repair skill is increased by five, from his initial repair skill of 16 (11 base +5 for his handyman jumpsuit), on every reload of his map area. By repeatedly leaving the store, getting a certain distance away or waiting a certain amount of time, then returning, Haley's repair skill can potentially be increased to 100, giving him one of the highest repair levels in the game, shared only by Somah of Mothership Zeta. Although some of his game data, viewable in the GECK, is marked differently than other vendors, in testing this has no effect on the glitch.
 * Opening the Nuka-Cola machine outside his shop every time you exit the building to get the shop to reload and increase his repair. It works every time.
 * Opening the trashcan right next to Haley's Hardware's front door also works.
 * Even if Professor Calvert has been killed during A Meeting of the Minds, sometimes the message "The Brain is unconscious" may appear on the screen. The cause for this bug is explained here.
 * The conditions for the Ghoul Ecology perk are set up incorrectly resulting in the +5 damage bonus applying to any target, rather than being limited to ghouls. The +5 bonus stacks with the +5 bonus from standing still from the Superior Defender perk greatly increasing one's damage, especially in the case of automatic weapons which gain a bonus per bullet rather than per burst.
 * After coming back to the Capital Wasteland, it may not be possible to re-hire any followers. A message will appear, stating; "You may only have one follower.", despite the fact that no one is following.
 * When placing map markers while in Point Lookout and upon returning to the Wasteland, the HUD icon does not lead in the right direction to the marker. Opening and closing the Pip-Boy may solve this issue.
 * When meeting Jackson, leader of the local tribals, some of his dialogue doesn't match the subtitles.
 * Wearing the ghoul mask when activating the Mother Punga Plant will result in ghouls in Point Lookout not attacking the player character regardless of wearing it unless they kill the three ghouls in the hallucination.
 * Upon leaving the Sacred Bog during Walking with Spirits, the game should un-equip headgear and prevent you from re-equipping it (temporarily). When you're wearing infinite durability headgear, however, such as Three Dog's head wrap, it will not be unequipped. The same applies to the winterized T-51b power helmet.
 * If one has not yet completed Who Dares Wins, during the course of Point Lookout the game may alert the player character that they have discovered the presidential metro location. The "Who Dares Wins" quest now has "enter Presidential Metro" marked as completed.
 * When swimming, if the player character aims down their view by a TINY amount from the horizon and then swim forward slowly, they will notice that the underwater pollution-fog is actually a completely separate layer from the water itself, as it will appear completely clear for a brief moment. There are also some Easter eggs that can only be found with this glitch, as the player character will die if they come within a certain distance of them, as being underwater forces the player character to get very close to their objective in order to see it.
 * When killing Tobar, his head is invisible on the inside, and it seems as though he is becoming a ghoul on his head, though it is just his hat poking through his head texture.
 * Firing a flamer or heavy incinerator at the gas puddle in the ritual site will freeze the game.
 * Paladin Hoss may be found inside the engine room of the Duchess Gambit, Marguerite's Shack, and other places among Point Lookout. He and a Brotherhood of Steel Paladin have followed one to Point Lookout.
 * Inside Kenny's cave all of the items he shoots at with his BB gun (or whatever gun you reverse pickpocket onto him) will respawn when he begins shooting again. This provides an unlimited supply of abraxo cleaner, toy cars, lunchboxes, cameras and conductors.
 * There is a wine rack in Calvert Mansion; if taking one bottle, the others will be stuck in the rack.
 * When entering Point Lookout, various parts of the background scenery used in the Capital Wasteland may appear in the sky and remain there for the duration of the stay.
 * Around the corner from Madam Panada's there is a truck and a door to a room full of crib traps. There is also a crib trap outside. If one lets the trap outside detonate, a crib looking object will suddenly appear suspended in the air above Madam Panada's store and is unable to be removed by frag grenades or missiles. Prevention seems to be the only way with this bug. One must disarm the crib trap and leave it be, do not re-arm it as a proximity trap or timed trap. If it explodes in any way the crib appears and remains above the store for the life of your game.
 * Haley's Hardware gives out "free" pencils. After having performed the "Unlimited Caps Glitch" and the "+100Repair Glitch," one may find that if they purchase the last Pencil from Haley, when they exit the conversation and talk to him again he will have one pencil. Once this starts happening it can be repeated.

PC only

 * Occasionally, after Thought Control, Nadine may not have taken over the Duchess Gambit when you return, making it impossible to get a free ride back and forth. This can be fixed by leaving the area and waiting a few days.
 * Game crashes to desktop after using the cot on the boat, making it impossible to even arrive in Point Lookout.
 * This can be fixed by loading a very old save.
 * Also resolved the same CTD issue by deleting the DLC files and downloading again.
 * This bug causes a crash because you are standing on the FRONT (bow) of the deck  at Point Lookout. While the ferry is at the dock in the wasteland, no problem—you can walk all over the ferry. This happens only where you are at Point Lookout. When you click the cot and the game loads, you arrive on the front deck of the ferry. Your screen goes black & you crash to desktop—never seeing Point Lookout.
 * The workaround is to use no-clip. Before you click on the cot, hit your TILDE key and key in TCL. This puts you into no-clip mode so you can fly through the walls. Elevate yourself about 2 feet above the cot & click. When you arrive at Point Lookout, you will be 2 feet above the deck. Move to land, hit your TILDE key, and key in TCL. This will toggle OFF the noclip-mode and you'll hit the ground. Save the game. If you walk back to the ferry and step on the front deck, you will crash. Any other part of the ferry is okay.
 * If you are using a modified timescale, your game WILL crash upon first arriving in Point Lookout. Your view will momentarily show the side of the room, then the game crashes. Resetting the timescale to the default value of 30 will fix this. Subsequent trips can be made using the modified timescale.
 * There is a missing water texture in the Ritual Chamber.
 * During the quest The Velvet Curtain, if the terminal in the bunker is activated (triggering the radiation traps) before speaking to the Protectron, the Protectron continues to tell the user to leave the area. If the codeword is given to the Protectron, it returns to the terminal area.
 * Panada seems to grow a head taller than the player when she leans back against the counter. It's especially noticeable when she finally stands up and shrinks back to normal size. This is because her leaning Idle Markers are misplaced well above the ground.
 * If you return directly to Obadiah with The Krivbeknih without first visiting Marcella, the dialogue will assume you discovered her fate even though you couldn't possibly know.
 * Marcella's holotape from the Disaster Relief Outpost has the same bug as the Holy water pamphlet from Broken Steel. This bug may not appear if Broken Steel isn't active.
 * * Sometimes, Marcella and the holotape don't appear after obtaining the book.
 * Going into crouch mode with Chinese stealth armor and a shovel/ax or the unique version of these weapons makes them appear on the player's back much larger than normal and half off-screen. It is not known if Stealth Boys cause the same bug.
 * Occasionally the double-barreled shotgun will have no sound when firing.
 * The game may crash and upon restart, you re-appear at Point Lookout with all progress made kept. Subsequent saves (manual, quick, or auto) will not be kept. Restarting the game seemed to fix this.
 * When having to choose between killing Desmond Lockheart and Professor Calvert, killing all of the Protectrons that can activate before attacking or speaking to either may cause the player to not be able to interact with Calvert and cause Calvert to become indestructible. This will also reset Desmond's quest info leaving him only to say "I'm Desmond." when you speak to him.
 * Temporary followers from the Wasteland (e.g. Sydney, Sticky, Red, Shorty, & Cherry) that are following the player when departing for Point Lookout may reappear when fast traveling within Point Lookout.
 * The game can freeze up upon reaching Point Lookout.
 * During Walking with Spirits, the game seems to run an unseen time limit when in The Sacred Bog. After a certain amount of time, regardless of how far you've progressed (about halfway once you've killed all the creatures in that area) you're magically sent back to the beginning of the level and have to try again (though that doesn't seem to help).
 * If you approach the scene during "The Local Flavor" where your character falls into the basement, in 3rd person view, you may stay in that view, yet, your hands will appear in front of you as if you were in 1st person. This does not affect gameplay, however, is an odd graphical bug.
 * After traveling back to the Capital Wasteland, your HUD may show a friendly 'tick' that does not go away, and enemy 'ticks' will not show up unless the target is in close proximity to the player.
 * The friendly 'tick' follows the player's camera (when you turn, it moves).
 * The HUD will return to normal in V.A.T.S. but will remain bugged when exiting V.A.T.S.
 * This bug is fixed by restarting the game.

PS3 only

 * Sometimes after fast-traveling between locations in Point Lookout, or simply emerging from areas that cause the main map to reload, the player is treated to a massive slowdown and a hail of spinning, flying, exploding cars. It seems that cars all over the map can be catapulted into the air with sudden and extraordinary velocity, following ballistic trajectories and exploding wherever they land. The cars appear to settle after a few minutes, but the game continues to lag until the player saves/reloads or fast-travels to another location.
 * This is an ongoing bug that also happens in the Wasteland but happens more frequently in Point Lookout.
 * When in Plik's Safari, Dogmeat's puppy may appear.
 * Objects that spawn outside of the Ark and Dove cathedral may be frozen in mid-air, as well as some other places like by the truck wreck. This is particularly pesky since it can put the lighthouse light bulb effectively out of reach.
 * Bad frame rate and/or freezing may occur but this doesn't affect the Capital Wasteland.
 * Sometimes after you talk with Nadine in the Ark and Dove cathedral the door locks and cannot be opened.
 * Extremely high jump in the number of freezes during the game. Everything from simple frame rate lags to full out "Must Reset System" lock-ups. Occasionally hitting the PS button will fix, though, most times it requires a console reset.
 * Sometimes you can't get close to the ferry and surrounding locations anymore if you walk there the game will freeze and you must reset PS3 if you fast-travel there it won't stop loading. Deleting game data won't fix it.
 * Outside the door of Haley's Hardware is a holotape which is exactly the same holotape as the one found in the lighthouse about the truck wreck with the missing lighthouse bulb.
 * "Thought Control" when putting the jammer on the Ferris wheel the game will start to lag and then freeze. It is also possible that the game will freeze every time you approach either the trash compactor OR the Ferris wheel. Getting within 5 feet of the compactor or the final ramp to the wheel will completely freeze the game, and the mission becomes impossible to finish.
 * Completing "A meeting of the minds" and going back to the Capital Wasteland, trying to revisit Point Lookout can cause the loading screen to never stop loading. In some cases, it will stop, but you will notice lagging and then a few seconds later, it will freeze.
 * During the quest "Walking with spirits" the entrance to the sacred bog is inaccessible. You can see the door floating in mid-air but there is no ground you can tread on. You can only go as far as the bed by the door then the game said this area is inaccessible.
 * If you use the double-barrel shotgun in the swamps (ex: turtledove detention camp). If you hit an enemy, the game will freeze.
 * When inside Marguriete's shack, when you try to exit, the loading screen will never stop loading. In some cases, it'll be a 5-minute load, but then the game will lag.
 * If your game has lagged or frozen but went back to normal it won't load, it'll just be a freeze if you try to load a save.
 * When you enter Calvert Mansion during the quest "Hearing Voices," after the load screen stops, your game will lag. It will stop if you talk to Desmond.
 * When visiting Point Lookout for the first time, the opening music will stop much earlier then it is supposed to.
 * When fighting the Tribals in Calvert Mansion, the game will lag at some points and will freeze if you use V.A.T.S.
 * In "The local flavor" and "Thought control", the Tribals' spawning has a delay.
 * When you want to make a save (Autosave or Manual) the game will freeze for one minute.
 * The above bug does not affect the Capital Wasteland.
 * Sometimes when approaching the gambit, Tobar will not be leaning against the wall where he is supposed to be but will be swimming in the water.
 * If you attack Calvert with the auto ax and "finish" him off with the sniper rifle, his brain will stay in mid-air.
 * It seems that when you have the bloody mess perk, and you kill an enemy AND he explodes, the game freezes.
 * When you enter the ritual site, everything around you goes flying when you get near them, this is pesky because you can't get the ritual knife.
 * If you talk to Panada, the game "freezes" but it goes back to normal within 2 minutes, also she will say "I knew that's why you came to me." 2 times.
 * Sometimes after you first get off the gambit, when you stare at the carnival, a void will appear over you crosshairs in 1st person and will stay there even if you move.
 * Inside the sacred bog, if you drop any item from your inventory, it falls through the ground.
 * With a double-barrel shotgun and lever-action rifle it will say it has the automatic -35 health even though it does not really happen, guessing the problem with enemy's auto -35 health with any gun they use.
 * During the game, some more or less extended area north of the carnival will have no ground and if you walk into that void, you'll get stuck and the game will tell you that you can't travel further. If there are no enemies nearby, you can fast travel, but you still will stay in the same spot or not, depending on the location you chose to fast travel to. After coming back, the dimension of the area will have changed but will still be present.
 * At any point, the game can lag. Sometimes ending up crashing. It can keep lagging for more than 5 minutes sometimes. Holding down the PS button for 5 seconds repeatedly for a minute may stop the lagging. Doing this can also work when it freezes.
 * A bug may occur where, after completing "A Meeting of the Minds", going to the Capital Wasteland and returning to Point Lookout, the game consistently freezes when nearing the Ferryboat and you cannot return to the Capital Wasteland.
 * While on ANY of the DLC's OR the original game, the screen may suddenly become filled with randomly-lined shapes that are actually a thin surface which you can walk through but the most likely place that this bug occurs is after blowing up the sub in Point Lookout. If you move, they change shape quickly and go all nutty, slightly similar to the texture-overlap glitch that exists in almost every game on the market. They can SEVERELY impede your view, making travel nearly impossible, especially in intricate buildings. Reloading or exiting your game does not always work! Be warned. this can make the game completely unplayable...there is no known reason why this happens.
 * When exiting Calvert Mansion, the majority of the map could become inaccessible with an invisible floor and floating trees, leaving you unable to do anything but fast-travel. This can be fixed by fast-traveling to the Pier.
 * Temporary followers from the Wasteland (e.g. Sydney, Sticky, Red, Shorty, & Cherry) that are following the player when departing for Point Lookout may reappear when fast traveling within Point Lookout.
 * Autosave after exiting Haley's hardware may become corrupted causing a load and crash loop, the player will experience freezing upon spawn. To rectify immediately after exiting Haley's for the first time, create a save point as soon as you reach the bridge where you will first encounter the Swampfolk. Doing this before you cross the bridge would be an advantage.
 * Upon exiting rooms 1D or 1K at The Homestead Motel, the game's loading screen ends up playing in an infinite loop. It is HIGHLY recommended to save before entering any of these rooms, especially if you are planning to obtain The Pint-Sized Slasher Mask or start The Velvet Curtain quest. This problem can also occur in room 1G.
 * A bug may occur while visiting the "Chinese Intelligence Bunker." When activating the "Extraction Terminal" the room is immediately sealed and filled with radiation. When activating the "Circuit Box" to manually override the sealed door, the game completely freezes.

Xbox 360 only

 * Any item that you grab in Point Lookout which cannot also be added to your inventory will revert to its original location if you leave the DLC and then return later. This includes Ruzka's ball, the rigged baby carriage (outside), lawn chairs, traffic cones, barrels and shopping carts. Any items placed on top of these objects, such as mines, will either fall to the ground upon your return or hover in mid-air.
 * When defending the mansion during The Local Flavor after the first wave enters through the top right door on the second level the game can freeze Desmond's dialog preventing advancement through the game. It occurs when you defeat one of the tribals with the Shishkebab, the body remains on fire and cannot be looted.
 * If you have any weapons/armor with you from the Anchorage simulation using the Gary-23 exploit when you first arrive at Point Lookout, they will disappear from your inventory.
 * Note: Does not ALWAYS occur. Varies from profile to profile.
 * After beating Walking With Spirits and going into the Cathedral to speak with Nadine, the door to Point Lookout will lock and you are stuck in the Cathedral.
 * When starting Point Lookout with followers, you get a notice saying where Fawkes and Dogmeat may be found later. No mention is made regarding Sydney and Sticky. During play of Point Lookout, fast traveling causes Sydney and Sticky to appear. They are functional as normal.
 * When entering the sacred bog the game freezes. The autosave notice repeatedly appears and disappears. The save button eventually will activate the save/load menu. But no progress in the bog is permitted.
 * Sometimes when you jump just as you walk into the water it will allow you to walk along that area of water.
 * Near the Duchess Gambit a square of very white water surrounding you is visible.
 * Sometimes, very rarely Dogmeat or other followers will randomly appear in Point Lookout.
 * Often Desmond's dogs (Essential characters) will die and stay dead, rather than getting back up like normal essential characters.