Hardware Town

Hardware Town is a location in the Commonwealth in 2287.

Background
Before the War, Hardware Town was the most popular hardware store in Boston.

When the Sole Survivor first arrives at Hardware Town, a raider pretending to be a civilian settler yells for help to save someone inside. When the Sole Survivor enters, the raider runs behind some doors and raiders can be heard preparing an ambush behind it. One raider can be overheard saying they should have lured the victim to the basement instead.

If the Sole Survivor waits long enough, the raiders waiting inside will get impatient and blame the bait for incompetence. They end up executing her and begin to search for the Sole Survivor. Alternatively, if the Sole Survivor goes through the basement to the left of the front doors, they can attack the raiders from the back. If the Sole Survivor kills the raider pretending to be a settler before she enters Hardware Town, the raiders lying in wait will have a different set of dialogue. One will insist on checking what is taking their bait so long, and the other will shush him. If the Sole Survivor waits long enough, the two raiders will argue until one of them shoots and kills the other.

Upon revisiting the location, Gunners will have taken over the store. However, if the Sole Survivor sided with the Institute this location will sometimes be repopulated by hostile Brotherhood of Steel members (and vice versa).

Layout
There is an armor workbench and a weapons workbench located in the room where the front entrance is, behind the counter. The large warehouse behind the front room contains a lot of supplies such as jet, stimpaks and caps. There is a small loot stash on top of the boxes containing randomized ammo, a stimpak, etc. An Advanced locked safe sits on top of a shelf on the north side of the room, and a paint mixer - optionally used in the quest Painting the Town - is at the back. A Master locked safe can be found upstairs, in the locked room alongside the Stealth Boy.

Notable loot

 * Picket Fences issue #2 - Upstairs in the main office on the desk. In the same room as the steamer trunk.
 * Stealth Boy - Behind a locked door that can be opened with the Hardware Town storage key (located next to the Picket Fences).
 * Bottlecap mine - On a shelf in the same room as the Stealth Boy.

Related quests

 * Kidnapping - A group of raiders can take up residence in this location after they have kidnapped a settler. The Sole Survivor is required to come here and free the settler.
 * Painting the Town - Blue and yellow paint cans can be found in the back of the warehouse. A paint mixer machine which can make green paint from yellow and blue paint cans is in the same area.
 * Raider Troubles - Troublesome raiders might take refuge at this location between two attacks on the Commonwealth settlers.

Appearances
Hardware Town appears only in Fallout 4.

Behind the scenes
The story about the man mimicking sound effects is a probable reference to Michael Winslow. Winslow is known as "The Man of 10,000 Sound Effects," due to his ability to realistically mimic numerous sounds using his voice alone.

Bugs
Entering this building while wearing power armor causes the compass directions displayed at the bottom of the screen to be incorrectly rotated by 90° in a clockwise direction.