Fallout 3 endings

"So ends the story of the Lone Wanderer, who stepped through the great door of Vault 101 and into the annals of legend."

Just like the intro, the ending is narrated by Ron Perlman. The first and final parts are the same for each player, the 3 middle parts depend on their choices, Part 4 may not be played if the player entered the wrong code when trying to activate the purifier (the purifier will be destroyed in an explosion that case).

Unlike previous Fallout games, there is no ending narration for individual towns visited by the player during the game. The only thing influenced by side quests is the choice of some of the slides shown during the ending cinematic.

Ending
Part 1: Part 2: Part 3: Part 4: Part 5:
 * Video segment 1 - Will always be included.
 * Video segments 8, 17, 18 - These segments are based on player's Karma. (One of them will always be included.)
 * Video segments 2 to 7 - These segments appear to be based on whether player completed a specific side quest. However, only one of them will appear.
 * Video segments 9, 10, 11 - These segments are based on player's end-game decision in the control room. (One of them will always be included.) #9 is slightly altered by Broken Steel
 * Video segments 27 to 29 - Same as video segment #10 (Sacrifice Another), but showing RL-3, Charon, or Fawkes instead of Sarah Lyons. These are added by Broken Steel
 * Video segments 12, 13, 14 - These segments are based on player's end-game decision on FEV. (One of them will be included if player did not let Project Purity blow up.)
 * Video segments 15 and 16 - These two segments have identical voice overs. They are based on whether the Lone Wanderer was male or female. (One of them will always be included.)
 * Video segments 19 to 26 - These segments show the same scene, differ only on player's race and gender.

Video segments
There are 26 (29 with Broken Steel installed) independent video segments for the Fallout 3 ending. They can be viewed on the PC version using the external software "RAD Video Tools". Whether they are shown depend on whether the player performs certain task in game. Some are mutually exclusive.

Fallout and Fallout 2
Fallout and Fallout 2 also had a narrated slideshow as the ending, but with no added visual effects (Solid full-screen images). The images were high quality artwork, not in-game images (As these titles were played from an isometric perspective). While the first part of each ending was the same no matter how the game was played, it was followed by a town-by-town epilogue based on the actions of the player. Locations that had been 'skipped' were not mentioned. New Reno in Fallout 2 had no less than 7 endings (Siding with one of the four families, Knock up one of the Bishop family women, Not siding with any of the families, Massacre everyone in the city).

There are 47 possible ending "factors" in Fallout 2 - This means that the ending you get after completing the game can vary in many different ways. Only a few of these endings are "required" (in that you get them no matter how you complete the game and cannot change or avoid getting them), but the rest of them appear or do not appear depending on actions that the player takes throughout the game.

Continue playing
Fallout 2 allowed a player to continue playing after completing the main quest line. There were no 'consequences' to having beaten the game, and new endings would not display if the conditions later changed. Aside from a few little extras (like congratulatory remarks on defeating the Enclave), it was the same as having never triggered the event that takes the player to the final area. Fallout and Fallout Tactics did not allow the player to continue playing, although there are mods that change this in Fallout.

It should be noted that the add-on "Broken Steel" for the PC, PS3 and 360 allows the player to continue past the end of the main quest. In this add-on, the ending is altered and the player is able to see the effects of the choice made at Jefferson Memorial during the final quest, Take It Back!

Fallout Tactics and Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel
Fallout Tactics had a combination of a "True" cinematic ending and a narrated slideshow. The cinematic was the same under all 5 possible endings, with the slideshow following the Fallout and Fallout 2 formula of solid images with voice-over. Fallout Tactics had no town-by-town analysis, as the game featured few RPG choices (Kill someone or don't kill them).

Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel features a rather short narrated slideshow which ends with the three main playable characters watching the mushroom cloud blossom into the air after the final boss fight and the Vault is blown up. This game had little to no RPG choices. No characters other than predetermined enemies could be killed. Only one possible way to play the game. Although there are side quests but you can't return to an area after clearing it so you'd have to back track to complete them, however they held no impact on the overall plot.

Fallout: New Vegas
Fallout: New Vegas follows the style of the Fallout and Fallout 2 endings, going through all of the player's major choices in a slideshow with a voice-over, and showing the consequences of each of these actions. Thirty topics are covered in this slideshow, and each topic has several different slides; which one is shown depends on the player's actions. Thus, like in Fallout 2, there are hundreds of different ending combinations.

The player is placed into a very small room where they are unable to move, and they are shown the "slides" on a screen in in front of them. Without mods or the console, it is impossible to continue playing after the ending in Fallout: New Vegas.